Boot Drive Change - Urgent

Farhang · 01 Apr 2011

I have a problem with windows 7 boot drive.

I don't know how but when I installed windows 7 long time ago, I installed it on C drive but somehow the boot file was made on a different drive. If you check the screenshot you can easily understand.

Windows and Primary Drive is C: on Disk 2. But somehow the bootmgr is on Disk 0. I want to remove the Disk 0 from the PC but when i do that i can't Boot pc anymore. How do I set it so the boot file is in C drive on Disk 2.

Please help, I've tried windows recovery start repair but that didn't help!

Bare Foot Kid · 01 Apr 2011

Hello.

~~First you will need to mark the Windows 7 C: partition as Active in Windows disk management as outlined in Option One of this tutorial at the link below.~~

I see it's already active, just skip the above step.

Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times

Then you will need to power down the PC and disconnect the other HDDs and connect the HDD that is currently Disk 2 to the #1 SATA post of the mobo and set it as the second boot device in the BIOS after the CD/DVD drive.

Then run the 3 separate startup repairs discussed in the main body of the tutorial to create a new set of "System" boot files to the Windows partition to get it booting on its own.

gregrocker · 01 Apr 2011

This can happen during install or repair when it will write the System boot files to the first active partition.

Best to plug your Win7 HD into DISK0 slot on mobo, set it first HD to boot in BIOS setup, after DVD drive.

Leave the incorrectly marked G System HD currently in DISK0 slot unplugged during Repairs. Afterwards, plug it in making sure it does not become set to boot first, move the data off to wipe it with DISKPART Clean All command to convert it back to Basic, as you don't want a Dynamic HD unless you're joining partitions across HD. Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command - Windows 7 Forums

It doesn't help that the Disk Mgmt listings were left out of the screenshot, so we can't see Size on Disk.

SIW2 · 01 Apr 2011

If the op wants to convert the dynamic, after backing up data - easiest and quickest is delete the dynamic volume, rt click the disk and Select convert to basic - just a few seconds to do.

Bare Foot Kid · 01 Apr 2011

Running the clean command (step #6) on Disk 0 from an elevated command window would create unallocated space that could then be formatted using Windows disk management.

Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command

Farhang · 02 Apr 2011

Thanks for the help folks!!

I followed Bare Foot Kid Advice and plugged the Harddrive 2 in place of the first one and then ran the startup recovery from a windows DVD. It worked but after restarting it said DVD was incompatible. So I just went into recovery console and typed fixmbr c and it worked perfectly

Thanks again!

Bare Foot Kid · 02 Apr 2011

Bare Foot Kid said:

Running the clean command (step #6) on Disk 0 from an elevated command window would create unallocated space that could then be formatted using Windows disk management.

Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command

Good to see you got it running and thanks for the update.

Now after you get the disk that was Disk 0 reconnected and want to create more usable storage space, use this info above to convert the HDD back to a Basic disc and then use Method One of this tutorial at the link below to create an Extended partition that will give you all the storage space you could ever need.

Partition / Extended : Logical Drives