Boot problems following use of EasyBCD

gregrocker · 12 Mar 2012

When you have the luxury of separate HD's it's cleanest to boot them via the BIOS boot order or one-time BIOS Boot Menu key to avoid problems like this. You did right unplugging the other HD's during install, but when you plugged them back in you should have set preferred to boot first in BIOS, then booted the other using Boot Menu key given on first screen (normally F8 on Asus')

I saw nothing mentioned in all the rambling about a second Win7 installation which is what's booted in the screenshots. It is booting off of the XP partition as depicted by it holding the only System flag. Are you getting a Multi-boot menu to choose it successfully? Is the other Win7 shown on this menu?

Did the I:Winre partition come that way from the factory? Is it also the Recovery partition as it appears judging by size? It was likely the System partition which is hard to determine since both Disk0 partitions are now incorrectly marked Active, but if it was System it has lost its boot files which apparently moved to the only remaining System partition on XP.

Perhaps we should start by moving System back to I , but let's wait for your answers and SIW2 to weigh in.

ppbrec1 · 12 Mar 2012

You're right ofcourse with regard to using the boot order in the BIOS rather than mess about with the Paragon Boot Wizard but this was a first time effort for me and impatience got the better of thorough research.

Boot problems following use of EasyBCD-quote-greg-capture.png

As to the present W7 yes I did indeed do a clean install on the free HDD which came with the PC and having already got a drive with XP on it I left that attached this time and have the conventional Dual Boot screen as a result. The choices presented lead to the correct OS's but no, the original W7 is not shown in the menu.

As to the WinRE partition "I" - yes the factory set this up as a recovery partition.

gregrocker · 12 Mar 2012

How are you attempting to boot the original Win7 then?

You can unplug the other HD's, mark F Inactive: Partition - Mark as Inactive - Windows 7 Forums

Then from DVD or Repair CD run Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times.

If this fails switch the Active flag to F and try again with the three repairs.

This will move the System boot files to the Recovery (as it likely came from Factory, so Recovery would run from boot) or Win7 so that it will be correctly configured.

ppbrec1 · 12 Mar 2012

At present I am not attempting to boot into that drive.

If I unplug the other two drives (which are functioning properly) then the system boots into the I / F drive - it does boot into W7 but hangs at the "Preparing your desktop" screen and eventually the screen goes to black and in the bottom right hand corner it advises that it is not a genuine copy of Windows. So, whilst I can boot into the drive / OS, I can not use it.

I have tried the Startup repair on a number of occasions but will make sure that I have tried all the various combinations you have suggested.

If that produces no success I think I shall try to get hold of someone at the suppliers tomorrow to establish exactly what this "I" partition is all about. Unfortunately its a bit pot luck as to who is on the Support Desk and does normally take a considerable amount of time.

I'll let you know the outcome

gregrocker · 12 Mar 2012

According to all we've seen here with OEM machine partitioning the size would have to make it a Recovery partition holding the factory image used to reimage the HD from within WIndows or from boot using it's hotkey. In most cases these partitions when in first place are System Active meaning the System boot files are located there so that it can boot using just the hotkey.

However it's lost its System flag (holds the System boot files) which is incorrect and it has two Active partitions on a single HD which I have never seen before in thousands of these cases. So I would sort that first as given earlier to at least have it configured correctly and see where it goes.

Hopefully SIW2 will drop in soon to add his wisdom.

ppbrec1 · 13 Mar 2012

Regrettably I was unable to give sufficient time today to make contact with the PC's suppliers, but hope to do that tomorrow.

I have marked the "F" partition as inactive but that does not seem to have made a difference, so I'm hoping that Novatech can provide the info on what the "I" partition is supposed to contain and if they can suggest a fix. We'll see!

ppbrec1 · 16 Mar 2012

Just a quick update. Trawling through my backup material I found a disk image I had taken with Paragon Hard Disk Suite 11 last year. Whilst I do not want to overwrite the data on the main partition I am quite happy to restore the WinRE recovery partition (I) to a good state. Naturally this has not rectified the situation on its own as the link remains unaltered on the "C" partition.
So I have e-mailed the PC suppliers to see if they can advise me of what I may need / be able to restore to complete the exercise. No response as yet, so we shall wait and see if that is a possibility.
No reply as yet - and the files I need may be inaccessable

gregrocker · 16 Mar 2012

You can always copy out your data to external or flash using the Win7 DVD or System Repair Disk with this method: Copy & Paste - in Windows Recovery Console.

Or use free Paragon rescue disk to recover data.

Have you tried marking C Inactive and WinRE Active, then running Startup Repair up to 3 separate times with reboots with both other HD's unplugged? If it fails change the Active flag to C and try again. Once Win7 starts you can plug back in the other HD's and add it using EasyBCD, or boot it using BIOS Boot Menu key while setting the other Win7 HD first to boot since it is also booting XP via Dual Boot Menu.

You can have a picture of marking Active/Inactive if you use the very valuable tool free Partition Wizard bootable CD. After marking one partition Active, click on Disk # to highlight it, from Disk tab select Rebuild MBR, Apply. This may preclude the need to run Startup Repairs from the DVD/Repair CD.

ppbrec1 · 24 Mar 2012

To conclude this topic I'll just post a quick note to acknowledge that I feel I have given sufficient time to this problem and now wish to move on with my life!!
.
Gregrocker, thanks for your various suggestions but regrettably I have not been able to get my original main drive back to a bootable / "genuine" state as I had initially hoped.

The PC suppliers have not returned to me with any suggestions and so I have had to make a decision.One actually made quite easy as, with the passage of time, I rebuilt more and more of the partition I had been reluctant to lose, for although the drive would not boot, all its contents were available via the OS I re-installed on my spare drive. My data was already backed up in any case.

So XP was re-installed (and now activated by telephone) and the subsequent re-instal of W7 has given me the correct set up for dual booting. Happily the W7 re-instal must have looked exactly like the original as that was reactivated online.

The end!

gregrocker · 24 Mar 2012

Glad you got it back up and running. Cleaner is always better so you came out on top!

If you want to post up a screenshot of your maximized Disk Management drive map we can look it over for you for any possible gremlins. Otherwise you can mark the thread Solved at top.