Boot boot problem

[Evil_genius82]

Hi Everyone,
I have a problem regarding dual booting.
Here's my situation...
On one harddrive i have windows xp installed. (Installed First)
I recently installed windows 7 on another harddrive (Installed After).

Im finally happy with Windows 7 and would like to remove windows xp and use that HDD for data.

Before formatting WINXP harddrive, i did a small test by disconnecting the SATA cable. I checked boot sequence, tried booting but got a boot error. Does this mean the boot.ini file is on the WINXP Harddrive?

How can i solve this problem so i can remove dual boot and have only windows 7 as my operating system?

Thanks in Advance

Ryan

[Akira Takano]

Type the following command into the windows 7 command line.
(you get to it by going to start/run and typeing cmd.exe)

FDISK /mbr

this shoule fix your problem.

[Evil_genius82]

Tnx ill give that a go Akira! So does this create a new boot.ini file on the windows 7 hdd?

Thanks

[Evil_genius82]

Unfortunately FDISK does not work for windows 7. I followed up another alternate to FDISK and was told to try win 7 repair (via installation cd)

Will update when solved.

Thanks

[PCResolver]

Hi Ryan,

just to be sure that you're clear on what is being recommended.

1. Disconnect the XP disk (it DOES have the boot.ini file)
2. Windows 7 is now broken (it needs the boot info that was on the now missing disk)
3. Repair Windows 7 by booting from the disk and repair
4. No more XP

Good luck

[Evil_genius82]

Hi ,
I tried what you suggested but ran into a problem...

1) I disconnected winxp HDD
2) Ran WIN7 setup
3) Selected Repair.
- When running repair, NO operating systems showed up to fix.
What i cant understand is I was able to view WIN 7 OS files when selecting 'Search for HDD
Driver'. So why does it need a HDD driver if data can be accessed?

Any ideas on what i can try next?

Thanks

[kaninelupus]

OK.... sounds like BootManger has tied itself to XP HDD (not sure why). Reconnect everything, boot Win7, hit Win+R and type "msconfig". Go to the Boot tab and select the XP OS.... hit Delete. This will not actually delete your XP install but remove its entry from the Boot Manager.

If no issues on reboot, then you should be AOK to format the XP drive and move on :)

[Evil_genius82]

Hi,
I did what you said & windows 7 only shows under boot!
would you like me to see what shows up under boot.ini on windows xp?

[Evil_genius82]

Damn, still no solution.
I can always format everything and start fresh but its a shame there is no easy way to fix this problem. Ill search around a little more this week, and if i find a way through ill post it here.

Thanks everyone

ryan

[Evil_genius82]

Hi again, does anyone know if i create an image of windows 7 and then restore it without windows xp that it might solve this problem?

[Evil_genius82]

Solved!
When running Repair, Windows 7 OS was not showing. I changed IDE to AHCI in BIOS config & it showed up! I then ran repair without winxp drive attached and selected 'Startup repair'.

After a minute, system reset & problem was solved.

Thanks for all the help people.

Ryan