Windows 7 boot manager default entry doesn't work

When I start up Windows, I have two options, "Windows 7" and "Windows 7 Home Premium (Recovered)", and only the second one works. This is annoying because it defaults to the first entry.

Some background info: I added a second hard drive to my laptop, and I used an Ubuntu install disc to move Windows 7 to the second hard drive and install Ubuntu to the first (larger) hard drive. When I start up my computer, the Grub boot loader gives me an option between Ubuntu Linux and Windows 7.

When I first tried to boot into Windows, it had problems (caused by finding itself on a new drive I assume) and attempted to do startup repair which didn't change anything. It had detected a Windows 7 installed on drive "E", attempted repair, but on reboot I got to the same place. Next I used the Windows 7 Repair disc that I had burned earlier, which appeared to do the exact same process of attempting startup repair, however this time when I rebooted I got the option between "Windows 7" and "Windows 7 Home Premium (Recovered)". The first option causes it to do what it did before, and the second option gets me into Windows 7 fine. Windows still sees its hard drive as "C" which is good.

While looking for solutions to this, I found the bcdedit utility. I attempted to rename "Windows 7 Home Premium (Recovered)" to just "Windows 7 Home Premium" to test whether it changed anything, but when I boot up I still get "Windows 7" and "Windows 7 Home Premium (Recovered)". I don't even know where the "Windows 7" entry comes from.

Here's the output of `bcdedit /v`:

Code:

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier              {9dea862c-5cdd-4e70-acc1-f32b344d4795}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \bootmgr
description             Windows Boot Manager
locale                  en-US
default                 {74e62c05-aa3f-11e1-90f0-e412b6135969}
displayorder            {74e62c05-aa3f-11e1-90f0-e412b6135969}
timeout                 30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {74e62c05-aa3f-11e1-90f0-e412b6135969}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description             Windows 7 Home Premium
locale                  en-US
recoverysequence        {74e62c06-aa3f-11e1-90f0-e412b6135969}
recoveryenabled         Yes
osdevice                partition=C:
systemroot              \Windows

A bit later I experimented with some options, and noticed I could see even more entries with `bcdedit /v /enum ALL`:

Code:

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier              {9dea862c-5cdd-4e70-acc1-f32b344d4795}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \bootmgr
description             Windows Boot Manager
locale                  en-US
default                 {74e62c05-aa3f-11e1-90f0-e412b6135969}
displayorder            {74e62c05-aa3f-11e1-90f0-e412b6135969}
timeout                 30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {74e62c05-aa3f-11e1-90f0-e412b6135969}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description             Windows 7 Home Premium
locale                  en-US
recoverysequence        {74e62c06-aa3f-11e1-90f0-e412b6135969}
recoveryenabled         Yes
osdevice                partition=C:
systemroot              \Windows

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {74e62c06-aa3f-11e1-90f0-e412b6135969}
device                  ramdisk=[\Device\HarddiskVolume2]\Recovery\windowsre\Winre.wim,{74e62c07-aa3f-11e1-90f0-e412b6135969}
path                    \windows\system32\winload.exe
description             Windows Recovery Environment (recovered)
locale
osdevice                ramdisk=[\Device\HarddiskVolume2]\Recovery\windowsre\Winre.wim,{74e62c07-aa3f-11e1-90f0-e412b6135969}
systemroot              \windows
winpe                   Yes
custom:46000010         Yes

Windows Memory Tester
---------------------
identifier              {b2721d73-1db4-4c62-bf78-c548a880142d}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \boot\memtest.exe
description             Windows Memory Diagnostic
locale                  en-US

Device options
--------------
identifier              {74e62c07-aa3f-11e1-90f0-e412b6135969}
ramdisksdidevice        partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume2
ramdisksdipath          \Recovery\windowsre\boot.sdi

Two of those entries have the same identifier, that can't be right. And I still don't see the "Windows 7" entry. I'm confused. Any help?

Welcome to Windows Seven Forums.

You may need to run a startup repair three times with a reboot between each occurrence.

Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times

When using separate HD's its always cleanest to boot your choice of OS HD's via the BIOS. Set preferred to boot first in BIOS setup, then boot other HD using one-time BIOS Boot Menu key.

I would install EasyBCD to Win7 to delete the stray boot listing on the Edit OS Menu tab. EasyBCD (free Download at bottom of page - no name or email required)

EasyBCD wasn't much help, it just sees the same thing that `bcdedit /v` does.

The Startup Repair three times thing didn't change anything, but seeing the Disk Management utility was useful. The RECOVERY partition (which I just assigned to drive E: now) that I left on the first hard drive still exists, and is marked as System and Active. I think that partition is controlling the boot loader, and when I've been using bcdedit it's been editing a not-actually-used copy of the boot loader on the C: partition. That's a bit strange because the Grub menu definitely is set to try to boot windows from the .... I'm an idiot. It's trying to boot Windows from /dev/sda2, which is the second partition of the first hard drive (the recovery partition). I somehow mixed up when I first saw it and didn't think about it again. I'll see if I can re-jigger Grub to actually have the main Windows 7 install on it.

EDIT: I just ran `sudo update-grub` in Linux, and now the Grub menu has a "Windows 7 on /dev/sdb1" option which works perfectly fine. Not entirely sure why it didn't show up the first time right when I finished installing Linux - I think I had just needed to do at least a single startup repair before Ubuntu recognized it as a Windows partition.

Solved