Did you follow the steps I suggested?
Unplug the other HD's, enter BIOS setup to see that Win7 HD is set to boot first. What happens exactly?
If you can boot into Partition Wizard CD, post back a camera snap of the maximized drive window with listings. Which is active? Run Startup Repair 3 separate times no matter what it reports.
I ran startup repair one more time and now it boots. I think its time for a repair install...
I asked you if you followed the steps I suggested. You'll need to reply to each and every step we give so we know what you have done, not just post added problems you may have caused by being uncooperative.
Why would you ask for help here if you want to ignore everything we post and just rattle out your own theories and additional problems caused by ignoring us.
Sorry I should have been more clear, I followed your advice to a T and removed all my data off the drives with the irregular partition patterns, and formatted them as single simple NTFS volumes. I then put the data back on the drives, now Windows booted. Also according to diskpart my boot drive has the only active parition.
EDIT: Would you recommend doing an upgrade install?
Then you didn't follow the steps in Post 7 which clearly said to wipe the former OS HD's with Diskpart Clean Command , not just format them which does nothing to clean the boot sector where bad code may be interfering.
But if the OS stopped booting then Startup Repair is a correct solution and appears to be helping, however you want to run it at least three separate times with reboots to be assured it completely repairs or rewrites the System Boot files, after we confirm the correct partition remains Active.
Post back the latest maximized Disk Mgmt drive map and listings.
Here is the screenshot.
https://i.imgur.com/a0utD.png
It looks correct, however I'd run two more Startup Repairs from DVD or Repair CD no matter what it reports to make sure all tests confirm the boot files are sound and configured correctly.
Then if anything continues to interfere with boot remove each HD to determine which is responsible, then move its data off to run Diskpart Clean command on it.
Your idea to run a Repair Install is not a bad one but it may not be necessary to reinstall the entire OS just to assure the boot files are configured correctly. If you get that far I'd follow these same steps to get a perfect Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 in order to wipe the HD first.
Last edited by gregrocker; 01 Nov 2012 at 23:38.
Is it possible your computer BIOS is looking at the wrong drive?
Sounds to me that when no other drive is connected it defaults to the SSD, but when others are connected it is set to boot to a different one.
Go into your computer's BIOS and make sure that the SSD is at the top of the boot order.
Where are you at with it and what types of problems are you still having ?
Quote