Partitions and new windows install

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19 Oct 2010
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Right then, a touch of help please.

I have 4 hard drives, an assortment of partitions but the core is this:

Windows 7 installed on one HD, and a new install run on a new HD.

In computer management, I was trying to remove the original partition that the original OS was running on.

HOWEVER, the computer will now not boot. Presumably becuase the MBR or something is missing. The new OS install worked fine before i formatted the old disk. Now the comp won't boot.

I have tried to repair, using the windows disk but to no luck.

Any ideas how i can the comp to read from the 2nd HD where the new and now only OS install is?
 
Have you set it to boot from the drive with the new OS on in the BIOS?

Go into the 'adanced settings' or something like that and look for something to do with 'boot order'

Set whichever drive has your OS on it to the top of the list and you should be on a winner :)
 
I am guessing your MBR was on the partition that had the old install, and removing that has removed the MBR, so th emachine has nowhere to look to find the current install.

Google is your friend

Fixmbr.exe may give more options, but the built-in repair should be fine, unless the current Windows install was on the d or e drive, then it may be more complicated.

Have you got the current install on a HDD that is set as primary master (or lowest SATA port number)?
 
ok, yes, the original install was on sata 0, which was d:

the new install is now on sata 1 and the letter is c:

when i ran the repair function from the windows 7 disk last night, it was unable to repair the problem.

so my latest attempt will be to install a new version of windows on the on sata 0 HD and then ammend the MBR once within a windows environment.

I had tried changing the boot order in the bios an set it to read from sata 1 first, but this did not resolve the problem
 
This is why you should unplug all other drives when installing a second OS. That way each OS drive has its own MBR. Unless you are switching OS every 5 minutes, it is not an issue to switch the HDD boot order to change OS.
 
should i be able to chnage the mbr or the location of it to the hard drive where the main os is now installed. I will only be having one OS rather than dual boot, but obviously do not want to reinstall everything that is now on the drive.

it appears from google, that if i disconnect sata 0 which had the old install on it, and only have the new sata 1 connected with the windows os on it, then repairing that through the console should resolve issues. Then when i reconnect the other hard, as it has already been formatted, there should be no issues.
 
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it appears from google, that if i disconnect sata 0 which had the old install on it, and only have the new sata 1 connected with the windows os on it, then repairing that through the console should resolve issues. Then when i reconnect the other hard, as it has already been formatted, there should be no issues.

This should do the trick. unplug the other "old" w7 drive and have the new install plugged in, drop the W7 cd in and use the repair option from the menu, I think this should detect and repair the boot file for you so it boots from this drive.

Alternatively check out BCDEdit (essentially the new boot.ini file for Vista and W7) :)
 
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