One feature that our users requested quite often for a few years was the ability to easily change the boot partition with EasyBCD. EasyBCD 2.0+ offers the ability to change the Windows boot drive with a single click.
When to change the boot partition:
- If you want to delete the XP partition in a XP-Vista dual-boot where XP came first
- If you want to move your boot files to a newer faster/larger hard drive
- If you want to move the boot files away from a partition in preparation for deletion
With EasyBCD, this is made particularly easy and can be accessed from the “BCD Backup/Repair” page.
EasyBCD change boot device screen
Upon selecting the “Change boot drive” you’ll be prompted to select which letter you’d like to use as the new boot partition. When you confirm the selection, EasyBCD will automatically:
- Install the BOOTMGR bootloader to the selected partition
- Make the selected partition active
- Install the bootloader to both the bootsector and the MBR of the selected partition
- Copy all entries from the old boot partition to the newly-selected one
- Update partition references to work with the new boot partition
EasyBCD will not delete or remove boot files from the current boot partition. As a result, you may revert to it without difficulty or dataloss but you will also need to remove them yourself at a later time.
If the partition which is to take over control of the boot is on a different HDD from the current boot partition, you will also need to change your BIOS to put the new drive before the old one in the boot sequence, otherwise the old (untouched) boot files will continue to be in control. This obviously does not apply if the two partitions share a HDD. The switch of the “active” status will do everything needed in that case.