Windows 7: Make Another Disk As System

Situation: I have RAID 0 as C with Windows 7 installed and E with old Vista installation.



I want to remove E disk because it is failing and I don't need Vista on it either as it is non bootable from previous crashes. However E disk is System disk and if I detach it, my Windows 7 on Raid 0 does not load with error: "A disk read error occurred Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart." When I connect E back everything boots up normally.

I forgot to say that before detaching E disk I performed Change boot drive action in EasyBCD 2.1.2 to C, but as I said disk read error then happens. I also tried startup repair with Windows 7 installation cd but it founds no problem.

Bellow is my screenshot from disk management:

Hello v007 Welcome to the Seven Forums!

In order to salvage the 7 installation you will have to do a little work while booting live from the 7 installation dvd. The first place to learn to build a new boot sector and BCD store is in the guide seen at Bootrec.exe Tool - How to Use in Windows Recovery Environment

Apparently all the boot files which includes the bootmgr file or boot loader as well as mbr information is on the drive where you have the Vista installation. The Startup repair wouldn't work for this since the lack of anything on the Raid 0 disk is too extensive.

The alternative option which is often not necessary to insure the 7 install is made bootable would be an Upgrade to Repair type of repair install which still preserves all programs, files, and folders while may need to see some device drivers reinstalled fresh in seen in another guide at Repair Install

With a little typing in at the command prompt option of the Repair tools on the 7 dvd you can save a good 80min. or so however. You will want to unplug the Vista drive first however which will make the 7 drive the default boot device. Once you replug the Vista drive back in a trip into the bios setup to change the boot order back to the 7 drive seeing that set as the first drive on the top of the list of drives would be needed.

I don't 'recommend moving the System boot files using EasyBCD as much as we have used it here countless times for most other BCD editing.

The only method which keeps the F8 System Recovery Options intact during the move and checks dozens of other variables simultaneously is running Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times after marking the target partition Active.

In your case since C is already marked Active I'd unplug E, make sure C remains HD set first to boot in BIOS, then boot the Windows 7 DVD or System Repair Disk to run the three separate repairs with reboots until C starts on its own and holds the System flag.

You can then plug back in E to access files, boot it using one-time BIOS Boot Menu key, wipe it when ready using Diskpart Clean Command to repartition in Disk Mgmt.

Simply running the Startup repair tool won't work on a drive where no boot information was seen to start with. The drive has to be made bootable as well as seeing the bootloader and BCD store placed there. That's why the guide for using the bootrec or boot repair tool is the best option for seeing results.

The Disk Part command for this would be used while booted live from the 7 dvd. "bootsect.exe /nt60 I:" H or I often seen with flash drives also made bootable by having the 7 disk in the optical drive. But that still won't create a new BCD store necessary to load 7 only for creating a USB Install Key as one alternate method.

Raid 0 is a disaster waiting to happen.

The easiest and best is to backup everything dear to your heart to an external drive.

Make a clean install of Win 7 following the tutorial here.

Do not ever use Raid 0 unless you want to rue the day you ever did.
Now that's my personal opinion. I also like solid, stable, reliable, recoverable systems.

Read up on raid systems. Inform yourself. There is plenty of info on the web explaining the various raid levels. Raid 5 yes. Raid 0 no.

I had a Raid array set up during the 7 beta testing and said "no way" regardless of Raid 0, 5, 10, striped or spanned volumes! The concept was always intended for storage and server application not for the desktop OS and often leads to problems.

To break that array up at the time since despite reformatting the drives had to be completely nuked(partitions removed) while only one at a time was plugged in. Otherwise they kept syncing with each other. I may be in the middle of a clean install next week if needed for other reasons however like a change of hardware.
(plus still running on a system image restored back in Oct. 2010! A little over due?)

Precisely,
the Raid concept is for storage and server systems and not for the desktop system.

I think many end up being confused about just what arrays are primarily used for to start with. For desktop use it's rather an outdated concept to start with originally brought forth back in the 90s due to the limited small drive capacities simply as a means to increase storage space as well as a more stable storage medium.

For the desktop arrays are simply too fragile as well as not being a performance orientated setup to begin with. v007 is finding that out now with one drive failure where the clean install of 7 following a repartition of the drive is the unfortunate side when seeing an array broken up.

Here I simply wanted to find out how 7 would perform on an array with the RC builds at the time and then had to fuss with repartitioning to isolate each drive again for other clean installs while testing. For dual boots like 7 presently seen with the new 8 Customer Preview stand alone installs on each drive with or without the help of EasyBCD are the rule with each drive made bootable on it's own.

Note you will need to use the W8 Startup repair tool for the newer version when adding a boot entry into the 7 boot options however just like you would have to for adding 7 into the Vista BCD. For adding 7 into the 8 boot options that saw an instant result there with 7 loading up without help of the 7 Startup repair tool.