Two MBRs on separate disks...

Cirric

Cirric

Member
Hi there. I had been a big fan of Win XP Pro and did not want to lose it. I decided to install Win 7 by removing one of two internal HDDs and installing it there. Worked as advertised. Put the original disk back in and Win 7 changed the Win XP in such a way as to disable it. Not a problem. I like Win 7 very much. But on a cold boot or reboot the screen for win XP comes up unless I change the boot order of the disks each time. I tried EasyBCD 2.2 in several different ways but have not been able to stop XP from coming up first. (XP does not work of course but Windows.old is a resource for any files I may want in Win 7.) "Disk Management" was no help at my experience level. I think I need to change the XP MBR so that the machine comes up with Win 7 and Ununtu 12.04 as the default. (Both win 7 and Ubuntu work fine.)

Machine is a home-built GigaByte GA-MA790X-UD4P based unit with AMD Phenom 550 II dual core and 2 Gb of crucial RAM. External drives (disconnected for this problem) and ATI 4250 GPU. Any guidance would be appreciated!

Cirric

Edit: Changed the boot order in BIOS. D'oh! Now working fine.
 
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I see from your edit that you found the solution.
In the OP you say "changed ...XP ...as to disable it" and also mention Windows.old
Do you mean that you did an upgrade from XP to W7 rather than a clean W7 install ?
That would mean that you wouldn't need to switch the BIOS boot sequence and also that there should be no remaining XP boot.
If you did a clean W7 install, where did the Windows.old come from ?
An Install of W7 to a new partition should have left XP untouched, though it will have taken over its boot files if XP was still connected at the time.
Did you want a dual-boot ?
If you still need any advice, can you clarify the situation a little.
 
Dual boot works.

Hi Terry. I had pulled the hard drive with XP Pro from the machine and did a clean install of Win 7 on the second drive. Once everything was working I re-installed the XP drive. Upon booting, Win 7 disabled XP on the first disk and created Windows.old. The original drive was set up in BIOS as the first boot device. Changed the order and now everything is where I want it. Thanks for your response!

Edit. I DO have a dual boot system. Windows 7 primary, Ubuntu 12.04 secondary. Both work fine.
 
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