Windows 7 Two instillations of 7, only want one

eerikk

New Member
I installed windows 7 on a temporary drive (20gb) wich in the bios is primary drive. I then booted from that and installed windows 7 again on the slave drive (120gb). I did this because the the 120 gb was un available at the time and i wanted to see if the disk worked before wiping my 120 gb hard drive. so i have two drives in my computer and in windows the master drive is labeled "Z:" and the slave is "C:". the problem i am having is when i remove the "Z:" drive, aka master, windows 7 cannot boot because the boot files are located on the "Z:" drive. i want to take the 20 gb drive out. is there any way i can do this without having to reinstall windows 7 and all my software.

PS. my computer will not boot from the windows 7 cd.
 
You could try re-installing 7 using the 'upgrade method', that way you'll keep your files and folders..
 
PS. my computer will not boot from the windows 7 cd.
Mine could never boot the W7 disk either. I used to dual boot Ubuntu with XP and the Grub boot loader messed it up. I was able to start the installation in Windows. Then when it restarted during the installation it worked right.
 
i tried doing the upgrade but it still treats the 20 gb as the boot drive and stores all the boot files on that drive
 
Have you tried taking the 20gb out and then doing the upgrade?
 
I installed windows 7 on a temporary drive (20gb) wich in the bios is primary drive. I then booted from that and installed windows 7 again on the slave drive (120gb). I did this because the the 120 gb was un available at the time and i wanted to see if the disk worked before wiping my 120 gb hard drive. so i have two drives in my computer and in windows the master drive is labeled "Z:" and the slave is "C:". the problem i am having is when i remove the "Z:" drive, aka master, windows 7 cannot boot because the boot files are located on the "Z:" drive. i want to take the 20 gb drive out. is there any way i can do this without having to reinstall windows 7 and all my software.

PS. my computer will not boot from the windows 7 cd.


Yes, as long as the 7 drive you want to keep is a Primary partition.

Boot into the one you want to keep.

Unzip this and put the bootsect.exe file in Windows\system32 folder.

Link Removed due to 404 Error

Open an elevated command prompt - ( I have used the letter c here - you MUST use the letter of the 7 drive you want to keep as seen when you are booted into it)

bootsect.exe /nt60 c: /mbr

then press enter

bcdboot c:\windows /s c:

then press enter.

bcdedit /set {bootmgr} device boot

then press enter

In disk management, rt click the 7 partition you are keeping and Mark as Active ( if it isn't already).

Shutdown , remove the other drive.
 
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You're welcome. Check my last post again - there was an errant / in there - it's correct now.
 
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