I played around with the EasyBCD program in both Win 8 & Win 7. I did get into Win 7 with the help of the Win 7 Repair Disk, but it didn't work twice in a row, and everything comes to a dead stop trying to get into Win 7. I took photos of a couple error messages. So I'm following up on that by starting to read this article Winload.exe is missing or corrupt - Recover CD does not boot
This thread is about as close to solved as wiping both hard drives, reinstalling both operating systems, and trying my luck getting Acronis to fill in the gap.
Dude, you're not approaching it systematically. When you don't know what's happening, go step-by-step. Follow gregrocker's advice, and I assure you you'll get both operating systems working better than before... Currently you're keeping 2 disks connected, which will definitely cause problems in recovery. The current BEST ways of fixing windows booting issues involve an install disc, and all other hard disks disconnected. If you CAN'T disconnect your hard disk, come back and Greg or I will give you detailed instructions to do it fully manually, whence it doesn't matter what disks are connected.
Also, your profile pic is somewhat annoying, at least to me, and most likely to others. The reason should be apparent to you. Take it as a request to change it to just about anything else.
Also, tell us : Do you want both your operating systems to be booting in UEFI from GPT disks? That is also fairly easily done, and it's much less fragile. Will involve a step of converting the GPT disk, slightly risky. Let Greg chime in on the best way to deal with this though, he has lot more experience. Just wanted to know what your preference is..
Please folllow the steps given. You came here for our help, we solve problems like this here every day. So why will you not complete the steps I gave you?
Here's a screen shot of what BCD says right now. I've just spent 2 hours trying to get Picasa on Win 8 to use the Print Screen function, have to use Windows + Print Screen to get this.
When I boot up I get a black screen with white print and 3 choices. Microsoft Windows 7 (which doesn't lead me anywhere, and what was set by me in the BCD program, I should delete the entry), Windows 8 (the default choice and it works), and Windows 7 (which is what I tried to type up in bcdedit to get the Windows 8 boot menu choice back, which it did, but it could not fix & repair the computer enough to boot into Windows 7. So now from this black screen bootup & picking the 3rd choice of, Windows 7, I get an HP logo and a Windows 8 busy signal and a couple screens saying Preparing Automatic Repair, Diagnosing Your PC, Attempting repairs, and Automatic Repair couldn't repair your PC (shutdown, or Advanced Options). Advanced Options are (from a Windows 8 type screen) System Restore, System Image Recovery, Automatic Repair, Command Prompt, UEFI Firmware Settings, Startup Settings.
I went to Command Prompt but that is quite a bit outside my expertise. I can take photos there, but they are still on my camera.
Here's a screenshot of Computer Management.
I changed the Active Volume from D: to E: on the Win 7 drive in Command Prompt, it didn't seem to change anything, but I may revert it back later.
Just a random thought..maybe Windows 8 doesn't have permission to use the bcd file on Windows 7? Damn permissions.
To boot Disk 0 Windows 7 Legacy install, set UEFI/BIOS firmware to LEGACY OS mode,
To boot Disk 1 Windows 8 x64 UEFI install , set UEFI/BIOS firmware to UEFI OS mode.
Than boot the HDD you want to boot from the One Boot Time Menu, make sure you change OS mode each time to suit.
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