Windows 7: A Virtual Hard Drive? Two separate hard drives now run Win 7 x64

While looking into another possible problem with a hard drive on my system,I began unplugging the devices (there are four of them) to isolate the problem and in doing so, I I seriously corrupted C drive, and began getting 0x7b BSOD messages. First I tried to do a System Repair with the Repair disk. It didn't work. I have a cloned version on an other HD for just such an occasion, so I attempted to boot from it. No dice, which surprised me. Remembering that one of the options in repair involved such a disk, I attempted to fix it that way. It refused to recognize it as well. I sat and waited a moment to consider my next move when the computer rebooted. Ok, let it run, and upon finishing POST, now I have Windows 7, Win XP (my dual boot) and Windows 7 Ultimate (Recovered) as my boot choices. Win 7 (Recovered) runs, but Windows 7 does not. XP still runs (thank god!). but here's the rub: if I disconnect either of the drives, my original (C drive) with the original installation or this cloned drive (J Drive) the system will not boot. Further, any updates say to the video driver installs to Drive J but it is obvious from running checks with EasyBCD and Security Essentials, some of the information is coming from C, some from J, therefore the "Virtual" name in the title. They are both contributing to the boot.

I am tempted to leave it but it isn't totally complete. For instance, I cannot install updates; the Windows Installer can't be found. I ran several checks and attempts on that as well. I tried using 7 Zip to get system files and that wouldn't work either.

Before deciding to reinstall from scratch, (as well as searching out the HD with indicated bad blocks), I would like to see if I can get that clone to work. If it is a matter of a missing MBR or perhaps corrupted, EasyBCD may be able to deal with it but I am not experienced with it.

One other thing: A few days earlier, the computer rebooted itself without a BSOD. The Logs gave a Critical Level entry: Kernel_Power Event 41.



I hope I've made this plain enough, so ask away!

System Specs

Asus M4A77TD
AMD AthlonIIx4 2.8GHz
12G memory
ATI 5670 Video card.
Win 7 Ultimate x64

Thank you

Do you have an Advanced Format (AF) drive or a drive greater than 2.2TB on your machine. For some reason WIN 7 ASSUMES that you want to use the AF drive rather than a different drive that you may have specified. This happens whether you are trying to do a new clean install or a repair on an already existing installation. Also, WIN 7 does this with no warning leaving you to ASSUME that you made the new install or repair where you wanted it.

I have very recently experienced the exact same problem when I updated my motherboard and processor.

Even though I did a sysprep on my old install to prepare for the new motherboard, WIN 7 still struggled with the 3TB drives. I tried a few times to 'repair' my install, but then again WIN 7 put the repaired install on another drive.

The only way that I found to prevent WIN 7 from defaulting to the AF drives was to unplug them completely. By this time, my old installation had become so corrupted thay I finally had to resort to a new install instead of the easy migration I had expected.

Once I removed the AF drives, the new install went completely smooth with no other phantom or otherwise installs on the AF drives.

I did have backup copies of my system on an image on an 'Acronis Secure Zone' (ASZ) partition, but with a clean install of WIN 7, once I told Acronis to use the ASZ, it deleted the backups and created a new empty ASZ.

Try this Link Magic Tool
Junction Link Magic

I vaguely remember that on an EasyBCD dual Boot Laptop I allowed XP to see the Windows 7 partition,
and using XP in C:\ to run Link Magic I observed that Windows 7 G:\ had more than 40 reparse points - and I think I remember they actually pointed at C:\ because when I booted into Windows 7 then the physical partitions swapped over their virtual partition letters, and Windows 7 now saw itself as being in C:\ and all the reparse points that WERE in G:\ but NOW lived in C:\ were still pointing at the NEW physical partition that was now called C:\.

Summary - Microsoft uses reparse points to re-route things within the partition that holds the running Windows.
When booting into another O.S. in another partition/HDD,
those original reparse points will only re-route into whatever partition is now known as C:\

Perhaps something untoward (e.g. your serious corruption) has resulted in a mishap with the destination(s) of Reparse Point(s), and the Active Windows is using reparse points that now reach out to a different destination.

It still would be helpful to know if you do have a AF hard drive which could be what is throwing win 7 off. IF you do have an AF drive, disconnect all but the actual desired boot drive and then do the repair from the install CD/DVD on THAT drive.

Believe me, I wasted almost two weeks before I figured out that I needed to remove the AF drives. In fact, after my experience, I will never do another install or repair with anything other than the desired boot drive installed.

Once again, if we don't know if you have an AF drive installed this would not be the solution. If you do have an AF drive installed, this is most likely the correct solution.

Finally, One of my 2.0 TB drives WAS an AF drive and both the windows install and the windows repair piddled on it as well as the two 3TB drives. It's what WIN 7 assumes with the AF drives present which is screwing everything up.

I guess I don't have the protocols here down. I just replied with a long comeback and it didn't post. Nor did one last night post.

I don't think I have an AF drive, but I'm not sure. How to ID?

So, one does not use the orange button to post? Why is it here? It says post reply so I typed then hit post reply. I see another one below the message.

Sigh!

The fact that your system does not boot when you disconnect the other HDDs suggests that the bootmgr (active partition) is sitting on one of those disks. You can check that in Disk Management.

But that would not explain the Kernel_Power Event 41. That is a different problem hard to diagnose from here.

TO WHS: That would be consistant with WIN 7 ASSUMING that was where one intended it to be.

In my case, Not only was it on another disk, but parts of the Installed OS also wound on another disk and every attempt to do a repair, put the 'repaired' portion on another disk with the END result being that there was a partial install on each of my AF disks as well as the intended disk, which I verified by examining the contents of each of them.

It took a few installs before I caught on to what was happening ASSUMING that I must have specified the wrong disk or something was wrong with the motherboard, etc.

What really tripped me off was after doing an install or repair, any programs I tried to install later also wound up on the wrong disk.

Oh, no! MOBO too?

Kernel Power may be due to power supply , cpu problems etc. I had been experimenting with the AMD processor overclocking and that may have compromised it's integrity, although I never exceeded temp or voltage spec. I only posted that so all possible pertinent info I have is shown.



So far as active partition, I've included a screen shot from the Disk Manager, with two drives circled. C is the original Win 7 drive. J is the supposed clone, possessing all the contents of C from an earlier date. C is no longer "Active". J is but the computer won't accept that as a boot drive.

This screen shot was saved to C drive, not J, so the comments concerning where stuff is loaded applies here as well. Drive D is where XP resides, as dual boot which still operates correctly (Thankfully!). The rest are storage, except for F which is exclusively Scratch for Photoshop.

So, I will most likely reinstall over the weekend. I still wish I could simply run J as the boot drive and be done with it!

To hudechrome: Check out the labeling on the disk, a disk doesn't have to be greater than 2,2TB to be an AF disk. You could also check the details at Newegg or another online store which might be the easiest.