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A Virtual Hard Drive? Two separate hard drives now run Win 7 x64
While looking into another possible problem with a hard drive on my system,I began unplugging the devices (there are four of them) to isolate the problem and in doing so, I I seriously corrupted C drive, and began getting 0x7b BSOD messages. First I tried to do a System Repair with the Repair disk. It didn't work. I have a cloned version on an other HD for just such an occasion, so I attempted to boot from it. No dice, which surprised me. Remembering that one of the options in repair involved such a disk, I attempted to fix it that way. It refused to recognize it as well. I sat and waited a moment to consider my next move when the computer rebooted. Ok, let it run, and upon finishing POST, now I have Win7, Win XP (my dual boot) and Win7 Ultimate (Recovered) as my boot choices. Win 7 (Recovered) runs, but Win7 does not. XP still runs (thank god!). but here's the rub: if I disconnect either of the drives, my original (C drive) with the original installation or this cloned drive (J Drive) the system will not boot. Further, any updates say to the video driver installs to Drive J but it is obvious from running checks with EasyBCD and Security Essentials, some of the information is coming from C, some from J, therefore the "Virtual" name in the title. They are both contributing to the boot.
I am tempted to leave it but it isn't totally complete. For instance, I cannot install updates; the Windows Installer can't be found. I ran several checks and attempts on that as well. I tried using 7 Zip to get system files and that wouldn't work either.
Before deciding to reinstall from scratch, (as well as searching out the HD with indicated bad blocks), I would like to see if I can get that clone to work. If it is a matter of a missing MBR or perhaps corrupted, EasyBCD may be able to deal with it but I am not experienced with it.
One other thing: A few days earlier, the computer rebooted itself without a BSOD. The Logs gave a Critical Level entry: Kernel_Power Event 41.
I hope I've made this plain enough, so ask away!
System Specs
Asus M4A77TD
AMD AthlonIIx4 2.8GHz
12G memory
ATI 5670 Video card.
Win 7 Ultimate x64
Thank you