Windows 7: How do I boot to my other drive?

I reinstalled windows to a different hard drive.



I have 4 hard drives all identical looking, how can I boot to the older installation of windows 7? which is no on drive E

How do I figure out in the bios which one of the hard drives is drive e?

I tried them all but keep getting weird errors.

Post back a screenshot of your maximized Disk Mgmt drive map and listings, using the Snipping Tool in Start Menu.

Why don't you ask ahead of time before randomly installing without any plan at all and then asking for help? This is incompetent bordering on reckless.

Thank you I will post this image.
I can see how it seems reckless, I thought if I installed it to a different hard drive that would be smart though.
Now I need to switch back to the other which is on E and boot from there.

Thanks I cant seem to figure out which drive is what since most of them are the same except one.

You are currently booted into Windows 7 on Disk1 in screenshot, as shown by the Boot flag on the partition which means it is the one currently booted. Is this the one you want to keep?

However the System Active boot files are on the E partition. Is this the old Windows 7 which you want to get rid of permanently? Are you ready to do that now?

To move the System boot files to C will require the Windows 7 DVD or System Repair Disk.
Do you have those on hand now? If so answer the questions and we can give you the steps.

Hmmmm let me think about this then, its very complicated since I have all these extra hard drives.

Maybe I will get another from amazon and just copy both of them over to a new one and merge them together so I dont lose any data.

I better sleep on this before taking any action.

You have half of each OS disk free so you could shrink the one you want to delete by half using free Partition Wizard bootable CD, create a Storage partition to move data into then move the rest to the OS partition you want to keep.

Then you could delete the OS partition you don't want after moving the System boot files if necessary, resize the storage partition into its space using PW CD Resize function: Partition Wizard Move/Resize Partition Video Help.

However you didn't answer the question if the OS you're booted into in the screenshot (C) is the one you want to keep, since it will require some surgery to move the System boot files to it using the PW boot disk and Windows 7 DVD or Repair Disk.

Yes thank you for your help, I guess I will just keep it on that hard drive.

Its all I can do anyways I will just throw out the other drive and get a new one that is clean without any OS. Im tired of formating all the time neways it never seems to work, somehow the os installed on the wrong drive anyways.

Which HD?

You still have not said if the Windows 7 you want to keep is shown in your screenshot as C or E? You were booted into C when you made the screenshot.

However if Windows 7 was correctly installed from boot then when booted either HD it will show as C. So which do you want to keep? If you want to keep the one which is showing as C in the screenshot it will have to be repaired because the other HD holds its System Boot files.

I am going to keep the C one since the E one is all out of wack but hmmmm, I have no idea to know which one is E now that I think about it.

Again, the one you were booted into when you made the screenshot is C. However it needs the System boot files from E in order to boot until it is repaired.

So please confirm that the one you were booted into when you made the screenshot is the one you want to keep.

Power down to unplug E HD, swap its data cable to C HD.

Boot into Windows 7 DVD or System Repair Disk to run Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times until Windows 7 on C starts on its own and holds the System Active flags in Disk management.

You can then plug back in E. If needed you can boot it using the one-time BIOS Boot Menu key, or access its data from C. When ready move the data off and wipe it using Diskpart Clean Command to repartition in Disk Mgmt.