upgraded to windows 7, but pc wont boot without old xp hard drive in?

dtokez

dtokez

dtokez

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Hi all, I installed w7 on a new ssd a month or two ago, and left the old XP HDD in there for data migration purposes. I tried today to remove the old HDD, but PC did not boot as it couldn't find a OS. I checked in BIOS and it wasn't pointed to the correct drive (W7 SSD).

I obviously fixed this but it still wouldn't boot, so I checked BIOS again and was certainly the correct boot HDD selected. I stuck the XP HDD back in there, selected it as my boot drive and W7 boots? I know for a fact that W7 is running off the SSD because of the speed, and the XP HDD sits idle when the machine is booted.

I'm at a loss now, not sure what to do? :confused:
 
Probably need to fix the MBR/bootloader.

If you have the Windows 7 DVD you should be able to do a repair startup from that (in some cases you might have to manually copy the NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM files from the root of the recovery CD/DVD to the SSD using the recovery console).
 
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seems like some kind of dual boot issue, just looked at disk manager and notice my ssd was not marked as active? Marked it as active then turned off, removed XP HDD, booted to SSD but got the error of missing boot.ini.

So what do you reckon, remove the xp HDD then boot from the W7 DVD and try a repair? Pain in the behind as I have now got W7 set up exactly how I want it but need to get rid of the old XP HDD for a larger new one :(

cheers
 
tried that, no luck. It tried it automatically then said it would repair and restart, same issue. I tried again to see if I could launch the recovery console but now says the recovery dvd is not compatible with this OS. I'm not sure if its the exact same windows 7 dvd that i installed but don't see why it would matter?

cheers
 
you need the same version you installed it off, then you don't get the error, if the original was on the boot drive etc, and you use a different version on dvd, you always get the above error.

is it on the boot drive hidden?
 
Still no luck guys, tried the below

stopper said:
Try Minitool partition wizard.
Open it up, select the HDD you want to boot from (make sure you click the drive and not just the partition)
Click "fix mbr"
Click "apply"

I use this a lot when removing Linux partitions, great piece of software.
Click to expand...

Tried Minitool, it seemed to work with no errors but on reboot, same issue as before

james.miller said:
You shouldn't need the dvd, the bcd boot command should work, worked for me recently

http://www.ehow.com/how_7259024_move-windows-boot-manager.html

bcdboot c:\windows /s c: should generate new boot files on the c drive.
Click to expand...

the command did run and said that it had copied files but after booting to the ssd now i get the error below. still boots into windows on the ssd though if I boot off the xp hdd :confused:

2014-10-27%2001.23.12.jpg
 
When you installed W7 did you leave the other HDD connected to the PC? If so then I would suspect that is the problem. When W7 installs it creates a small system reserved partition which normally goes on the same drive which you are installing the OS on to. However, if you have another HDD connected it puts this system reserved partition on to the other drive which means that once you try to boot with it in the computer throws a hissy fit.
 
I had same issue after disconnected 2nd hard drive with Windows 8 beta on it and winload.exe was missing when booted from Windows 7 realised it was overwrote Windows 7 boot manager with Windows 8 boot manager.

I fixed it by reconnected 2nd hard drive and installed EasyBCD tool to edited fixed the boot issue.

You can try EasyBCD tool below:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/OS-Enhancements/EasyBCD.shtml

If it still not worked then try follow the guide below which is different from above posts.

https://neosmart.net/wiki/recovering-windows-bootloader/
 
To avoid this issue in the future, only install Windows with one hard drive connected.

This tool may fix the issue.. Install Macrium Reflect, get it to create a live boot cd. Remove second hard drive and bit from the cd. Use the boot repair option. I've found it's more thorough than the Windows dvd
 
Stoner81 said:
When you installed W7 did you leave the other HDD connected to the PC? If so then I would suspect that is the problem. When W7 installs it creates a small system reserved partition which normally goes on the same drive which you are installing the OS on to. However, if you have another HDD connected it puts this system reserved partition on to the other drive which means that once you try to boot with it in the computer throws a hissy fit.
Click to expand...

Yes that is what I did. thanks for the heads up RE. removing the drive before installing.

Thanks all, some more things to try tonight now :)
 
bledd. said:
To avoid this issue in the future, only install Windows with one hard drive connected.

This tool may fix the issue.. Install Macrium Reflect, get it to create a live boot cd. Remove second hard drive and bit from the cd. Use the boot repair option. I've found it's more thorough than the Windows dvd
Click to expand...

+1 quoted for great piece of advise
 
EasyBCD seemed to work a treat, very nice bit of software, now I can get rid of the old 260 GB sata1 drive :)

Many thanks all
 
dtokez said:
EasyBCD seemed to work a treat, very nice bit of software, now I can get rid of the old 260 GB sata1 drive :)

Many thanks all
Click to expand...

Very pleased EasyBCD fixed your issue. Yeah it very nice software that really worked everytime I installed Windows betas. Never go without EasyBCD, everybody who gave wrong advices should used EasyBCD. :)
 
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