Windows 7 Dual-Boot and fixing its aftermath

[Damo]

Hey all.

I've got a problem relating to Windows 7 and Windows XP. I have Windows 7 on DVD, but for some reasons, my motherboard isn't able to boot from it during startup. So, I couldn't do a clean install for Windows 7 and had to install from desktop while running Windows XP instead.

Now that I've got Windows 7 and XP installed, I want to remove XP and keep only Windows 7. I have only one harddisk but I partitioned it into two, the first one C: drive for XP and the second partition F: drive for Windows 7.

Is there a way to do this safely? I have done my research and found out a potential solution which involves marking the partition with Windows 7 as active and using the Windows 7 DVD at startup to repair the bootfile and deleting XP after that has been done. However, like I mentioned earlier, my motherboard won't boot the DVD at startup, so I can't go with this option.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Mitchell_A]

Hello, and welcome to the Windows 7 Forums.

This step by step tutorial should easily explain the process.
Cheers!

 

[Saltgrass]

I think Mitchell_A forgot to add the link...

Do you have an older computer and it won't boot the DVD? Did you burn the DVD yourself? Do you have the Bios set to boot to CD/DVD first.

If you can't get your DVD to boot, you might want to see if you can make a bootable flash drive for furture use.

Maybe the link will help if it shows up, or you can search for one, but the Win 7 partition needs to be active to repair the boot for Win 7. If you can't boot into the DVD, you might want to get that problem figured out so you will have the repair option available to take certain actions.

 

[Mitchell_A]

LOL! Yes I forgot the link, though no worries as we're troubleshooting through private messages now.
Cheers!

 

[Damo]

Hey Saltgrass.

Yeah, Mitchell_A did forget to include the link. =P

I've managed to fix this problem, with a little deviation from the tutorial. Like I mentioned in my first post, I am unable to boot using the Windows 7 DVD. I am not quite certain of why it is so. However, from the researches I've done, there could be two things that are causing it not to be bootable, invoking "Cdboot: Can Not Boot From Cd Code:5" error each time.

Firstly (and also more likely), my MOBO is unable to boot from the DVD. It is a known issue for old MOBOs not being able to boot from some DVDs, although I don't know what the criteria are for these "some" DVDs. Secondly, it could be due to the fast speed at which the DVD is burned. It is also a known issue for DVDs which are burned at high speed to be unbootable. However, I doubt this is the case for me as I had burned the DVD at the lowest speed available and I am also able to boot the same Windows 7 DVD on my laptop and another PC.

Anyway, to skip through the "Manipulating the partitions" step in the tutorial, I created a system repair disc instead, which i burned onto a CD. My PC wasn't able to boot directly from it either, giving the same error that it gives for the Windows 7 DVD. However, by pressing F8 from the dual-boot menu, I was able to access the repair disc. Once I had access to the System Recovery Options, everything went smoothly as shown in the tutorial.

Thanks guys for helping me out. Really appreciated. =)

 

[Damo]

On a totally different chapter, I would like to inquire about another issue pertaining to this problem. Now that I've managed to delete XP from the first partition, namely C: drive, my Windows 7 remains on the second partition F: drive (which is now the system active primary drive for booting).

Is there a way that I can change the drive letter for the system drive to C: and the partition originally containing XP to F:? I have tried the Disk Management tools in Windows 7 but it won't let me change the drive letter for the boot drive. So I'm guessing that I need a software that can perform this task upon booting (before accessing Windows). Back then when using XP, I used to use Partition Magic to do this. Unfortunately, it is not compatible with Windows 7.

Does anyone know how to fix this? Thanks.

 

[fjgold]

Try using the Gparted CD.
It's a little like PM but it's free and runs outside Windows from a bootable CD.

GParted -- Live CD/USB/PXE/HD

It is based on linux but it does NTFS and Fat partitions.

D/L the .iso and burn to disk and boot the CD.

UPDATE: just booted my copy of Gparted. Unfortunately it doesn't do Windows drive letters.
I can however create, resize and move partitions.
Don't know if you can use it to move your Win 7 install.
It might be better to reinstall Win 7 on the first partition and let Win 7 assign itself C:

 

[Damo]

Hi fjgold.

I have downloaded and tried GParted Live but it seems that GParted doesn't have the feature to change the drive letter of any partition. Unless if I'm too ignorant to notice it.

I tried using Diskpart from the System Recovery Tools and I selected the partition of which Windows 7 is installed. To my surprise, Diskpart shows it as C: drive and my other partition as D: drive. However, that's not really the case. Windows still shows the system drive as F: drive.

Next, I deleted the old partition (where XP was originally installed) and expanded the F: drive (where Windows 7 is currently installed) hoping that it would reassign the drive letter to C: drive since there would now be only 1 partition left. To do that, I used EASEUS Partition Tool. After running EASEUS, my Windows won't start. LOL. I'm such a troubler. I'm currently trying the recovery console to repair Windows. Hope it fixes stuff.

 

[Mitchell_A]

Here I am with another link! This time it's a Microsoft Knowledge Base article, again just follow the instructions, though be careful!
If something goes wrong here you'll have a no-boot scenario.

 

[clarkede]

Windows 7 wont boot - drive letter problem?

I am having similar problems. I tried to duplicate my OS drive to a SSD drive and then go into Acronis Disk Director to adjust things a bit. I should have pulled out my original drive and just attempted to boot from the SSD drive, but I left it in. I tried to change drive letters and which partitions were active and which drive should be the boot drive in the BIOS, but it didn't work. I ran the Windows 7 install disk and selected the repair option which didn't work either. I finally have removed the SSD drive and tried to restore all of the BIOS settings and which partitions are active. However, I had to use Paragon Disk Manager because Acronis will not detect all of the drives in my system (SATA and RAID). It only finds the RAID in normal boot, and only finds the SATA in safe mode (weird). Paragon does not let me reset drive letters.

Anyway, I try and boot the machine and it gets to the initial Windows 7 logo and then finds an error that it can't find some disk check program and then a very fast BSOD and reboots.

Anyone know how to recover this? I will probably try re-installing windows over itself, but I am not comfotable with that. (I might install the duplicated SSD disk in the machine and test with that drive since it was a complete partition copy of the original. That should allow for me to do a little testing)

Thanks in advance.
Don

 

[Damo]

hahaha Mitchel_A. I think u forgot to include the link again, I can't see any link in your post.

Anyways, I have finally solved my problem. After I screwed my Windows with EASEUS, I thought of an idea (I seriously don't know why I didn't think of it earlier lol). I formatted the disk using XP cd and then I created two partitions on the disk. One being C: and the other D:. Then, instead of installing XP on C:, I installed XP on D:. Upon finishing installation, Windows XP booted from D: and my C: drive was unused, although it was formatted to FAT32 by default.

I installed EASEUS again and converted the FAT32 to NTFS, reformatting the C: drive to NTFS won't work and will spoil your OS instead. This is because, despite being installed on D: drive, Windows still somehow puts the bootfiles in C: regardlessly. Thus, formatting it to NTFS will also delete the bootfiles causing booting impossible (I had to learn this the hard way).

After converting to NTFS, I installed Windows 7 on C: drive normally. Then everything was pretty much as described in the tutorial, except that I didn't need to copy the bootfiles to Windows 7 drive cz like I said, bootfiles are in C: drive by default. Next I used the System Recovery Options as described in tutorial with the exception of skipping the fixmbr and fixboot parts.

Finally, now I can say that all my problems have been solved. Windows 7 installed properly on C: drive and Windows XP gone. Thanks everyone for the help. Much appreciated.


As for you Don, I'm sorry but I can't seem to help you on your problem. I don't even understand the first half of your post.

But if I were you and I'm stuck with that problem, I'd just reinstall Windows. (Not much of a help eh? Sorry)

 

[Mitchell_A]

you're frigging kidding me XD

Glad you've fixed the problem!
Thanks for using the Windows 7 Forums, see ya around!