Minor boot problem - Multiple Windows installations

Hello there!

Recently I bought a nice SSD SATA drive and installed a fresh Windows 7 on it but now I have 2 SATA drives with a Windows 7 on my system.

Now when I boot for some reason it boots the old Windows version (SATA drive, now E:\) on the other SATA drive unless I go into the BIOS and rearrange the boot order of the drives which is annoying since I have to do this every time.

I then get the Windows Boot Manager which let's me choose which version to start.

However, I just need the Windows 7 installation on the SSD drive (C:\) to start and would want to delete the boot records on the other drive (E:\).

Additionally I still have an old IDE drive (H:\) used as backup drive which for some reason still has Windows XP boot records also.

The C:\ drive (SSD) is working like a charm, the only thing that bugs me is the mess of boot records across all drives.

Via command promt I got this executing the "bcdedit /enum" command:



This is very confusing to me, because:

1) It's not showing the E:\ drive at all.
2) The Boot Manager is on H:\? (The old IDE drive).

How can I clean this mess up?

Thanks for reading.

This is why you should unplug all other HD's during install.

Please post back a screenshot of your maximized Disk Management drive map and listings:

1. Type Disk Management in Start Search box.
2. Open Disk Mgmt. window and maximize it.
3. Type Snipping Tool in Start Search box.
4. Open Snipping Tool, choose Rectangular Snip, draw a box around full map and all listings.
5, Save Snip, attach using paper clip in Reply Box.

Tell us what is on each partition.

gregrocker said:

This is why you should unplug all other HD's during install.

I didn't know this, will keep it in mind!

gregrocker said:

Please post back a screenshot of your maximized Disk Management drive map and listings:

1. Type Disk Management in Start Search box.
2. Open Disk Mgmt. window and maximize it.
3. Type Snipping Tool in Start Search box.
4. Open Snipping Tool, choose Rectangular Snip, draw a box around full map and all listings.
5, Save Snip, attach using paper clip in Reply Box.

Tell us what is on each partition.

I've attached the file as requested.
It is cut-off to the right side but I hope it doesn't matter as it was just blank space.

C:\ = current active Windows 7 x64 which should boot and stay (SATA SSD drive), loads Boot Manager on startup.

D:\ = as far as I remember this has been automatically set when I installed Windows 7.

E:\ = previous Windows 7 x64 bit which automatically boots when I start the machine (also SATA drive), does not load Boot Manager on startup.

H:\ = very old Windows XP 32 bit installation.

E:\ as well as H:\ are used solely as backup drives. However, both still have their old Windows versions installed as I was afraid to remove them yet.

Let me know if you need more info.

Cheers!

The correct way to delete an OS is back up its data, Mark Inactive then delete it's partition in Disk mgmt to repartition as desired.

To write the System boot files to C Mark Partition C Active, unplug the other HD's making sure Win7 HD is set first HD to boot in BIOS setup (after disk drive), boot into Win7 installer System Recovery Options or System Repair Disk to run Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times until C holds the System flag.

You can then plug back in the other HD's, boot XP if needed using the one-time BIOS Boot menu key given on first screen.

From there I would move the data off of E to H, in Disk Mgmt delete D and E, repartition as a data drive.
Partition or Volume - Create New
Partition or Volume - Delete

Then when you're ready to get rid of XP move the data from H to the new data drive you've created, from an Elevated Command Prompt wipe H with Diskpart Clean Command to repartition it in Disk Mgmt.

Thank you for this detailed reply, I will do so and report back :)

Thanks a ton for helping out, really appreciated.

I know this post is old but only now did I have sufficient time to deal with it.
However I am stuck at one point, following the instructions above.

I've marked the C:\ as Active, unplugged all the other drives and just had the SSD connected, made a System Repair Disc and booted from it, the SSD Sata drive however is not showing up in the list. It offers "Load drivers", so I load the motherboard SATA drivers but it's giving me "Failed to load drivers" (or similar wording) popup message, thus the drive not showing in the list.

Any idea what to do at this point?
Sorry for bumping my own old thread but it's not resolved yet, so I figured I'd use the same.

Nevermind, turns out it wasn't currently marked as Active, I double-checked and did that and voila, works as described.

Can mark this as solved :)