Before I booted, my partitions were like this:
I booted from the SSD and selected the new startup entry I had created for WIN7_NEW.
But I got "BOOTMGR is missing".
I rebooted to WIN7 and now my partitions are like this:
It seems tha imaging instead of cloning did not solve the problem.
Am I right?
I tried it again:
I booted from the HD to WIN7_NEW (remember that now it is an image, not a clone).
WIN7_NEW was not C.
Using EasyBCD I deleted the entry I had added for the ssd and I added a new entry for WIN7_NEW.
I booted from the SSD to WIN7_NEW.
I got "BOOTMGR is missing".
How did this work?
Migrating to SSD - drive letters?
I think I already did these.
Do you think I should follow (again?) the steps described in this url (that solved the problem)?
I didn't see where you placed Boot Manager in the Win7_New partition using EasyBCD.
That's the "backup/repair" button in EasyBCD, and the "change boot drive" function. It will plant Boot Manager and boot menu in the partition you specify, i.e. Win7_New... if you'd done it, but I think you unwittingly overlooked that step.
Remember, your existing boot partition (where Boot Manager and the boot menu lives, and which is marked "active") is WinXP on the spinner. You never had your Win7 partition on the spinner marked "active" and containing Boot Manager and the boot menu.
So when you copied Win7 into Win7_New on the SSD (no matter "cloning" or "system image" backup to an intermediate .MRIMG file and then restore to the SSD), you still don't have Boot Manager in the now "active" Win7_New partition on the SSD.
Just put the BIOS back again to have spinner first in the boot sequence, boot to the original Win7, use EasyBCD to "change boot drive" to the SSD, and now you should be able to again set the BIOS to boot from the SSD... and it should now work fine, since Boot Manager has now been planted in the Win7_New partition by EasyBCD.
But I don't understand why you want to or need to boot from the SSD. You said you wanted to retain the ability to boot to WinXP, and presumably the old Win7 on the spinner as well just for backup purposes until you're satisfied with the new setup and will likely delete this partition and re-purpose it for "data", in addition to Win7_New on the SSD (which will be your new default). So why not just keep booting from the spinner, which already has all three OS's on its boot menu I believe?
If you boot from the Win7_New partition on the SSD you're going to have to add back the WinXP partition on the spinner to the Win7_New boot menu anyway (using EasyBCD). So what difference does it make which drive you actually have Boot Manager in? It's the boot menu that provides the ability to choose any Windows on any drive to actually then boot to.
I'd just keep things simple. Keep the spinner as drive #1 in the BIOS boot sequence, and forget about needing Boot Manager added to Win7_New via EasyBCD. Boot menu in the WinXP partition is satisfactory right now, to let you boot to any Windows you want to. Why change that??
I used the "change boot drive" function and saw "EasyBCD has successfully made drive G: the new boot partition".
I booted from HD to WIN7_NEW, but WIN7_NEW is still G and not C.
I also booted from the SSD to WIN7_NEW, but again WIN7_NEW is G and not C.
I booted from the SSD to WIN7_NEW.
%windir% goes to G:\Windows
Things are now like this:
Theoretically, at this point you should be able to uncable both the original 300GB spinner as well as the other 250GB spinner, leaving only the SSD seen by the BIOS.
And you now have a Boot Manager planted in Win7_New on the SSD, and that partition is a "primary" partition and is marked as "active". So the SSD by itself should be usable to boot from, with neither of your other two drives connected.
Let's try that, and see what happens. When the other two drives disappear, the BIOS should automatically promote the SSD as first/only in the boot sequence, but you should get into the BIOS just to confirm that.
With only the SSD present, I can't imagine Win7_New being anything other than C. This is a significant test to perform, with only the SSD connected and the other two drives disconnected.
I still have an uneasy feeling about the fact that your original Win7 partition was logical rather than primary, when you copied it to the SSD... where you then changed it to primary (using Partition Wizard). I also am uneasy about the third drive, with its own copies of WinXP and Win7.
Anyway, please report the results of the SSD-only experiment. Does it boot successfully, or complain? If it does boot, is Win7_New shown as C or not?
I uncabled the HDDs and booted from the SSD to WIN7_NEW.
I saw a windows screen "Preparing your desktop".
I then saw just a blue screen (my windows copy IS genuine, despite what it says at the bottom right corner).
Nothing was happening. I opened Task Manager and I saw that windows had the letter G!
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