Dual Boot Vista/Win 7 - Can't Boot to Win 7 After Vista Reinstall

No. I get a black screen bootmgr missing or words to that effect. Press Ctrl-Alt-Del to continue.

Hello.



If you exchange the HDD data cables for Disk 0 and Disk 1 so Windows 7 is connected to the #1 SATA port, running at least 3 separate startup repairs with separate restarts should move/recreate the "System" boot files to the Windows 7 partition and auto-configure the Windows managed dual/multi boot.

That is the preferred position for the "System" boot files anyway.


How to Run a Startup Repair in Windows 7

Exchanging DATA cables unfortunately is out of the question. If you knew Alienware machines, the cables are all hidden except for the very extremities and there is not enough play/slack to start swapping drives. I would have to physically dismount all drives and rearrange them and I'm not doing that, sorry.

I had looked at that repair the startup option and am just a little concerned that I'll lose Vista from the startup menu in the process

You may want to look at the following

startup repair on a partition - windows 7/Vista dual boot - Microsoft Answers

Unfortunately I'm a bit leery about following those instructions (which I had already looked at by the way) and they seem to all refer to the situation where Vista has either been added or removed AFTER Windows 7 was installed. I suppose my case falls more or less under that category but I'm just afraid of finding myself in a situation where I lose my Vista altogether and can only boot into Windows 7, the exact opposite of my current situation.

I wish I could remember what I did on my netbook ages ago, it was XP/Win 7 and the same situation, Win 7 wouldn't boot even though it was on the menu. I seem to remember using command prompt rather than Startup Repair from the Win 7 recovery console but what I did has been forgotten.

You can't reach the mobo SATA ports so you can change positions with port #1 and #2 data cables?

I could but I would have to remove a stack of stuff to get at them, that's out.

Thanks everyone for your help. I finally plucked up the courage, inserted my Win 7 SP1 DVD and restarted and using the Repair option Windows repaired some things on its own, but I couldn't yet boot into Windows 7, so restarted and this time waited until the automatic scan for installed Windows versions had finished and chose Startup Repair, it fixed something and said the I should return to that menu after a reboot so did it all again and hey presto, I now have my quad boot back safe and sound.

This is what my EasyBCD menu looks like now and I noticed an immediate change in the BCD ID numbers which previously were all the same (hence my problem):

There are a total of 4 entries listed in the bootloader.

Default: Vista Ult SP2 Main
Timeout: 30 seconds
Boot Drive: C:\

Entry #1
Name: Vista Ult SP2 Main
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Entry #2
Name: Vista Ult SP2 Test
BCD ID: {4246d21d-6dac-11e0-a583-002618086fdb}
Drive: D:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Entry #3
Name: Win 7 Ult SP1 Main
BCD ID: {4246d21e-6dac-11e0-a583-002618086fdb}
Drive: L:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Entry #4
Name: Win 7 Ult SP1 Test
BCD ID: {4246d21f-6dac-11e0-a583-002618086fdb}
Drive: M:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

That's good to hear :)

Thanks ;-)