Windows 7: Win7 installation boots into recovery partition?!

Hi everyone, I will make this as clear as possible, thanks for helping/reading.

My boot menu originally consists of Vista (C:\) and recovery partition (D:\). To install Windows 7, I shrank C and made a separate partition (W:\)

Now I have 3 partitions: Vista (C:\), New Simple Volume (W:\), Recovery (D:\).

I installed Windows 7 to the (W:\), and it reboots a few times during installation. My situation goes as follows:

Initial installation---Reboot (1 of 3)---bypasses the boot menu and continues installation---Reboot (2 of 3)---boot menu shows up and I can choose to continue the installation of Windows 7, or go to Vista. When I choose Windows 7, it finishes installation---Reboot (3 of 3)---No boot menu is shown. Computer boots into recovery partition.



Why is this happening? Repairing Windows 7 or Vista using recovery partition doesn't help either. It basically just forms a loop by booting to the recovery every time.

Interestingly, the only way I can start Vista again is by reinstalling Windows 7 and wait until the boot menu screen show up after the reboot (2 of 3).

Thanks for your time everyone!

Did you try a Startup Repair?

1. Check and see if the Recovery partition is marked Active.

2. If so - mark Vista partition Active instead.



3. Then install 7. (if 7 is already installed - run startup repair from 7 dvd 3 times)

Thank you, as you can see, the recovery partition (D:\) is inactive.



For some reason, I was unable to continue to the final reboot during Windows 7 installation. It just booted me to a recovery screen listing several options.

Yes, instead of continuing the final installation step, that is actually where the reboot brought me to.

These screenies show what I encountered.

Startup Repair

Interesting.

You can get into Vista ok now.

What does bcdedit show - and does 7 installation look as is if it's all there?

Open an elevated cmd and type

bcdedit

then press enter.

post the output.

I got into Vista by reinstalling win 7 and took advantage of the second reboot which shows the boot menu.

Because if I let Windows 7 continue its installation, it will reboot to the recovery partition.

Having that said, the Windows 7 installation is not completed as we speak. I guess it is a 'good' thing right now.


Bcdedit:

You could try adding an entry for 7 manually - see if that will boot in

bcdedit /copy {current} /d "7"

You will get a {GUID} returned - use that, including brackets in the commands below

Code:

bcdedit /set {GUID} device partition=W:

bcdedit /set {GUID} osdevice partition=W:

You coud also get rid of ntldr - you don't use XP.

bcdedit /delete {ntldr} /f

I assume you have made a backup image of your existing Vista partition.

Edited: Nevermind

Why did you do it this way ?? to actually kinda make your own Windows 7 recovery partition ??

plus was this a fresh FULL clean install or an upgrade ??

Just wondering as im dealing with something like this at the moment and trying to come up with some idea's for something to work for what i need / trying to do.

Originally I had 2 partitions, one for Vista, and one recovery.

Then I shrank C so that I can have a new partition to install Win 7.

Then after the Win 7 installation it boots into the recovery partition resulting in a loop that I can't break...