Windows 7: Urgent Data recovery (family Pictures)

I have a Disk Management problem:
My Intel PC has (2) SATA HDs.
One HDD-1has a trial W8x64Pro installed on a "system" primary partition (drive: c) (Upgraded from W7x64P)
The second HDD-0 is new, and I installed W8x64Pro on an "active" primary partition (drive: D)
I want to use HDD-0 as my single HDD; I planned to remove HDD-1 after I was sure everything was working.

I can and do boot W8x64P from the HDD-0.
The Drive letter changes of course from D: to C:
Even though I was careful to install my new W8P on HDD-0 in a clean primary partition, there must be some data that my new W8P install on HDD-0 is reading from HDD-1=(system, active primary partition.).
** I noted that my HDD-0 partition where the new W8P was installed is an "*active", primary partition not a "*system", primary partition. [I suspect this is the root of my problem?]

I discovered that if I were to remove or loose my old W8P install on HDD-1, my new W8P install on HDD-0 will not boot. I am puzzled. My current Windows Disk Manager screen shot is submitted as an "attachment".
thank you

It's nearly impossible to follow when referring to drives which are clearly labeled Disk0 and Disk1 as HDD-2 - are we supposed to guess which?

OK I'm guessing since you said the new HDD has Win8 on D that it's Disk0, the D partition way over on the slow part of the drive with all of the empty space and another data partition in the preferred lower address of the HD. For that reason alone I would do it over correctly with the other HD unplugged.

But if you want to start Disk0 as it is then unplug the other HD, set Disk0 first HD to boot in BIOS setup, then run Windows 8 Automatic Repair several times with reboots until it boots as C and wears the System Active flags.

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OOPs. My apologies.
Yes, the two HDDs are Disk0 (new) and Disk1 (old).

I don't understand when you state, "the "D" partition, way over on the slow part of the drive with all of the empty space and another data partition in the preferred lower address of the HD."

1. What is the "slow part of the drive with all the empty space"?
2. What is ..."the preferred lower address of the HD"?

Please tell me how to set-up Disk0 prior to the OS install and I will do it that way.

I was using the OS on DISK1 to set up the partitions on DISK0
I am also using an Upgrade version of W8P to install on DISK0
Since I did not want to overwrite the existing W8P on Disk1,
I installed Windows 7 on the primary partition on DISK0, then did a "custom" install of W8 on DISK0; using the partition occupied by the soon-to-be formatted (per the Upgrade W8 DVD).

I am not sure if the Windows 8 Upgrade Disk has the tools I need to prepare DISK0 for the OS install... (That is why I used the OS on DISK1 to complete the partition work and formatting of DISK0.)

Can I still use the OS on DISK1 to partition and format DISK0, and then shut-down the PC and unplug DISK1..? If not, how do I proceed.... I thought I knew what to do here, but it's clear I did not.

I will RE-do the partition placement on DISK0 as you suggest; I want the W8P install to be clean as possible.

What are the System Active Flags ?

thank you for the info... I hope my reply makes a bit more sense..

The fastest part of the HD is the left hand side where the disk reader parks. You have empty space and a data partition there with your OS way off on the slowest part of the HD. Bad practice.

To reinstall, unplug the other HD, boot the Win8 installer and follow the steps to Clean Install with Windows 8 Upgrade to a partition created in the the space on the left side of the target HD then deleting the old install using the Custom Drive Options tools provided during install at the drive selection screen.

Or if you want you can move the data off of the logical partition in center, delete it and move the Win8 install to the left side using Partition Wizard CD Resize Partition Video Help.

But since you need to recover the boot files using the steps given earlier you might as well reinstall correctly from boot.

As Greg has explained Disc 0 is totally wrong, it needs to be deleted down to unallocated space ( you have nothing on it ) during the install. If you have a partition wizard boot cd use it to delete and make the partitions. This way you won`t get a system reserved partition. Unplug Disk 1 before you do this.

With a 465 GB drive, I would just split it in half.

May I ask why you upgraded Windows 7 to the garbage of W8

It's much easier to use the booted Windows installer's Drive Options at the drive selection screen, since there is nothing wrong with getting the System Reserved partition at all - take it or leave it, doesn't matter.

Be sure you have your important documents backed up before deleting or formatting anything.

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thanks for the support.
I'll use the "Clean Install with W8Upgrade" as a guide
Hopefully I will report that all went well.
BigFatBoy

I took your advice and re-installed Windows on Drive0, after deleting everything first.
The Windows install disk worked. I was surprised by the custom drive options that were available.
The only thing I have left to do is delete the partitions on Disk1, my old hard drive, and use the space for storage.
thanks again for providing good information so I could accomplish what I needed to accomplish.

You're most welcome. Stick with the same steps in Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7
to assure you keep a perfect install, saving a backup image once setup to use in place of future reinstall.s

When all is working perfectly you can mark the thread Solved at top.

Hello,
I used a MS-W8-Upgrade disk with custom install and the "Advanced Settings" function when re-installing W8 on Disk0.
> I did notice that the W8-Upgrade install disk created a "system reserve" space, containing system and boot information in it, and placed this "reserve" before the C:drive. I have no problem with it, and it may come in handy is if I crash the C:drive into a brick wall or something.
> Since MS-W8 Disk Management tool is a bit inflexible when increasing the size of a partition, I used a free software called Partition Manager.
> The Partition Manager software has a habit of placing a 7.8MB space before every partition it creates, and I can't seem to get around it (although I am sure there must be a way).
> Do you know of another Partition manager software I could use.??
> If not, I will see in MS Disk Management will work.

thanks again.
bfb