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Removed XP from Dual Boot with 7 - BOOTMGR missing


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#1
02rja

02rja

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Okay, lesson learned here, i didnt realise removing a dual boot would be this much of a hassle.

Ive had XP 32 bit SP3 on one partition, 7 Ultimate 64 bit on another, and all my data on a third, ive been running a dual boot system for some time with both OS, and earlier, i figured i never use XP any more, so id format that partition, and merge with the windows 7 one.

Big mistake, i selected format disk using Acronis disk director, waited for it to restart, and i get a message NTLDR is missing, press Ctrl alt Del to restart, searched the internet endlessly, found the most common advice is to use the recovery disk to fix the bootmanager and voilla. So I:

  • Used recovery disk: automatic fix - didnt work
  • Used command prompt, bootrec.exe etc etc (basically following this guide http://neosmart.net/...r from the DVD) - it said, "cannot find the path specified" when i used "del C:\boot\bcd"
  • Tried resetting the BIOS
  • Removed all CDs and floppys

Now the message has changed to BOOTMGR is missing, again, tried using the recovery disk: didnt work, the old XP partition was left "half formatted" from acronis, as i was never able to restart and finish the job.

Right now i am using the win7 disk to format the old C (XP) partition and install a copy of win7 on there just so i can get into an OS and use EasyBCD to fix my bootmgr, then hopefully get rid of the "temporary" win7 partition.

Please help me get this working!
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#2
02rja

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okay little update, i installed another version of windows 7 on the old XP partition, managed to use that to run Easy BCD and get back into my old windows 7 environment (the one i want as my only OS)

Now i would like to re-jig the partitions so Win 7 is the primary one i have one more logical partition for data.

However, the old C drive (one i put XP on) is still the Primary, Active partition, i cant see a way to change the primary partition to my current one with windows 7 on, anyone know how?

I can add a screenshot if you are confused, kind of hard to explain...
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#3
02rja

02rja

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got it working... ill leave this post open for the mean time and edit this reply later... as i think something is sure to go wrong sometime soon

EDIT: Lots of things went wrong.

I sort of got it all working, and then i used disk director to make my windows 7 install the primary drive, and active. that worked fine... then i made the old OS partition change from primary to logical, hoping to then reformat it and merge with the current OS partition, now here is when i ran into trouble.

Upon reboot, I could not get into my OS again, this time i just get a blinking underscore. I ran recovery disk, automatic recovery didnt work, Ran ChkDsk on C: E: drives (OS partitions), Errors on the E: drive (this was the old OS drive, nothing on it so i used DOS to reformat it... that all went well)

I tried to recover bootmgr again, didnt work, so i tried to install 7 on the freshly formatted drive, i get the message "windows could not prepare the computer to boot into the next phase of installation" "run ChkDsk on C:" I run chkdsk on C and it says its fine... Try to install again, i get the same message.

Now when i turn my computer on i get the message "A disk read error occured, Press Ctrl Alt Del to restart"

Im getting sick of these problems, when i get it fixed im going to leave it alone. PLEASE PLEASE HELP!

EDIT 2: Tried re-formatting, windows 7 wouldnt install again on the old partition, so i tried installing windows XP, now the error has gone back to NTLDR is missing press CTRL ALT DEL to restart, I tried running recovery console off XP CD, it said it rebuilt the bootmanager, and is detecting Windows XP, but still... not starting.

Edited by 02rja, 30 May 2010 - 03:51 PM.

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