Windows 7: How do I set my boot order straight using CMD

Greetings Seven Forums,

It's been about 10 hours + since I started working on this computer. It's a Dell Dimension E520 which came with windows XP. It belongs to my moms friend and she asked me to fix it. I already installed windows 7 ultimate about 10 times. The only issue is when the computer boots up. I've set the boot order straight so it begins from the hard disk but it still only checks the cd/dvd slot.

I have tried rebuilding BCD/MBR still nothing. I installed windows xp but I couldn't install mass storage drivers using F6. I just did a fresh install. As long as the windows 7 dvd is in it asks be to press any key to boot the dvd, as long as I ignore that it will boot just fine into windows 7.

Without the dvd it just hangs on the second bios page then after some time shows up with disk error. I have even changed the Raid to Raid/ATA. The only other way to boot is by using the F12 key and choosing the hard drive. I've tried all I know but nothing has worked so far.

Is there any way to set my boot order straight using command prompt in windows 7 please and thank you.

Do you have more than one HD?

If so, change the HD boot order in bios.

Posting a screenshot of diskmgmt window would be helpful.

The computer has one 160GB HD. I'll post a screenie asap.

There is obviously something wrong with the bootmgr/active partition. For Windows 7 there should be a 100MB active partition (unless you installed into a predefined active partition).

You can inspect all of that with the bootable CD of Partition Wizard (the link is on the left side of the webpage). See whether there is a 100MB partition and whether it is active.

If you want to reinstall an 11th time, predefine a partition on the HDD with these commands. You find Command Prompt on the installation DVD.

Diskpart
List disk
Select disk n (probably 1 in your case)
Clean
Create partition primary
Format fs=ntfs quick
Active
Exit

Then install Windows 7 into that partition.

There is a 100mb partition reserved.

Double post, my bad. Is there anything wrong with the main partition? Maybe I missed something :c


Update: The difference between this install and all the others is that I left Raid/ATA turned on. Well it either that or something happened because I just restarted and I didn't have to press F12 and I also have the DVD out. I'll reboot a few times just to make sure.

helpmarty,
Are you saying that now all is in order?

That picture looks OK. Nothing wrong from looking at it.

It looks like it. Wow, I should have done that much earlier. Restarted a couple of times and all is well. Reboots just as it should. :-)

Thank you whs SIW2 and karlsnooks for the assistance. I'll come back and get settled into seven forums once I'm done with this. Appreciate it :-)