Windows 7 - W7 resets bootable flag on HDD

Hello,
I have four partitions on my HDD with Windows 7 on the second one. I want the boot flag ( Boot flag - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ) on the first partition and only on it. It contains a menu, that gives me a choice of what OS to boot. Whenever I boot Windows 7 from the second partition, it resets the boot flag to the second partition only and thus I can't get back.

How do I tell Windows 7 not to do this?
Alternatively, is there a way to reset it manually from within Windows 7 so I don't have to boot a rescue CD?

(looking forward to UEFI, when the rescue CDs won't boot...)

Welcome to Windows Seven Forums.

It will help us to help you if you post a screenshot of your fully-expanded disk management layout.

Screenshots and Files - Upload and Post in Seven Forums

This tutorial may solve your problem.

Bootrec.exe Tool - How to Use in Windows Recovery Environment

Thank you for your quick answer!

I'll try the tutorial, I'm sorry that I didn't find it myself, I've probably used wrong queries on Google :-) . I'll report back, thanks again!

So I've tried the How To, but I've run into these issues:
1) The OS selection box didn't list anything (I don't have any CD with drivers, so the suggested "Load drivers" solution didn't help).
2) When I proceeded anyway, the bcdedit failed:
I'm not sure what do you mean by "fully-expanded disk management layout". I can provide fdisk info, it should show the same information:

As you can see, sda2 has the boot flag. I can reset it to sda1 with fdisk, but when I start Windows 7 again, it automatically resets it to sda2.

This is what I was hoping for.



To get into Disk Management is Start>Control Panel>System & Security>Administrative Tools>Create & Format Hard Disk Partitions

However, I suspect your problem is related to Linux and as I know nothing about it, you may have to wait for others who have used it to post a solution for you.

Here's the screenshot. I'm sorry for the language, I don't have a clue how to switch it to English. One of the notes to C: is "Spouštěcí oddíl", i.e. "bootable partition". This is what I need to change. I want the first partition to be the bootable partition. When I change it via fdisk it works fine, but as soon as I start Windows 7, it's back to C: .

It doesn't have anything to do with Linux. It can be OS X on the first partiotion, or W XP, Solaris, or even another instance of Windows 7. The only issue is that Windows 7 on the second partition changes the bootable flag.

Use this tutorial to make your C drive inactive.

Partition - Mark as Inactive

Usde this tutorial to make the first (system reserved) partition active.

Partition - Mark as Active

Next, run a startup repair three times with a reboot after each one so the the master boot record is created in your system reserved partition rather than the C drive.

Startup Repair

Great! Diskpart is what I've been looking for. I've successfully changed the boot flag from the second partition to the first. However when I start Windows again, it changes the boot flags again :-/ .
But at least I don't have to boot from a CD .

So if there's no way to prevent Windows from doing that, what is the easiest way to automate this? I don't know anything about scripting Windows .

Like I said, now that you've changed the boot flag from your C drive to the system reserved partition, you need to run a startup repair three times with a reboot between each one.

This tutorial explains how: Startup Repair

This tutorial explains why it is sometimes necessary to carry out the startup repair three times: Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times

This tutorial explains how to create a system repair disc if you don't have one or don't have a Windows 7 DVD to boot into: System Repair Disc - Create

Windows can not boot from a Linux partition.

What are you trying to do?