Windows 7: Set blank partition to active primary on accident, now won't boot.

I just bought a cheap laptop from Walmart yesterday with windows 7. I am not a fan of it so I wanted to see if I could dual boot windows xp. Luckly it is a IDE machine not sata. So I Downloaded a copy of windows xp (I have a license key for all the people who would shun me for it, it is paid for). Well when I was making a new partition to install windows xp on I set the new partition to active, rebooted and wala, my computer won't boot because I'm a bone head sometimes. I have access to another windows 7 comp that is Extremly slow and I put emphasis on Extremly. What is the quickest most direct path I can take to get my comp booting again. Other comp has a cd burner and I have an external hd if I need it.

Obviously, you need to move the Active flag back to the original volume.

You can do that if you attach your other comp to it so you can see the volume - then use disk mgmt or diskpart, or any partition manager to do the job.

Otherwise, you will need to get something that you can boot on your sick comp - PW free cd is pretty good.

Partition Wizard Bootable CD allows user to manage partition directly with partition manager bootable CD.

The computer should, if it didn't come with any disks, have a recovery partition set up.
So, First try to get to the Advanced Options Menu: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/666-advanced-boot-options.html

If you can't get to anything there, you will need a boot disk to launch the Windows 7 recovery options:

> If you have another computer with Windows 7 then you can create a System Recovery disk: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2083-system-repair-disc-create.html

> if you don't have access to a Windows 7 computer, but can create a disk on another, you can download a copy of Windows 7 and go through the steps to repair from that disk: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219487-clean-reinstall-factory-oem-windows-7-a.html


From those, you can run the Startup Repair.

Or use the C Prompt to reset the Original Partition to active: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/71432-partition-mark-active.html

Hope this helps

Thanks Thorsen and SIW. The bootable CD partition wizard is what im looking for sounds like.

If you're going to install XP then Windows 7 will lose the boot anyway, until you repair it to start 7 up to add XP to a Dual Boot menu. So you might as well install XP to a partition your shrink using Partition Wizard CD first.

Follow the steps in Option Two here: Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and XP

If this fails use PW CD to mark Windows 7 Active, then from the Windows 7 DVD or Repair CD run Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times. You can download the Windows 7 DVD official ISO and burn to DVD using steps 1 and 2 here.