Booting From Second HD- My Goof Yipes?

LadyLee · 15 Apr 2014

Oh brother!!! ! I am the person everyone calls to fix their PC's and I've been doing that for years with no problem. Now, I've completely done the worst thing to my own PC and can't get out of it.

My desktop HP has two WD hard drives in it and I totally forgot to disconnect the smaller one and install from the Win7 CD on the larger one. I thought everything was just fine after the install. Then realized on removing the Windows CD that I was being asked which drive I wanted. When I got into Windows, I instantly realized my error.

Now, I've got the pagefile on the C: (larger drive) and the Boot Mgr is on the slave drive. Windows 7 does not even see the second hard drive.

What I'd like to do and can't seem to do, is to delete and format the whole mess and use the Windows Cd to reinstall correctly. Naturally, I've been all over the web to find a way but so far, no luck.

If I disconnect the second drive cable and do a fresh install and then plug it back in, will I be able to format the disk or not?

Help in any way is appreciated. I just downloaded Easus and burned the ISO but I haven't tried it yet.

As of now, I have the entire large drive trying to boot but not able to because I zero'ed the slave drive. The boot partition is there and it says active but it still has the boot manager I can see.

The larger drive which I want 'everything' on, has the pagefile but no boot mgr. Although diskmanager sees a 'system reserved' active partition.

Donna

gregrocker · 15 Apr 2014

Hi Donna -

Please post back a screenshot of Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image or a camera snap of the booted Easeus CD drive map.

Tell us what is on each drive to the best of your ability. We will give you the steps to make Win7 bootable again or delete the errant install to correctly Clean Install Windows 7 to your target HD.

Are you able to back up everything to an external, or where is your storage now?

LadyLee · 15 Apr 2014

Thanks Greg, I will take a screenshot "if" it will boot again. I turned it off and I'm on my laptop out of frustration. I had to give the 'unallocated' part of the drive after I filled with zeros trying to get the whole thing clean. Right now, it is installing 132 MS updates and I can't do anything.

I have literally everything on my external HD. So, I'm set to start with complete blank drives if I can get there.

gregrocker · 15 Apr 2014

Here's how to try to start Win7 you installed on the larger HD which can't boot now that you wiped the smaller drive where you think the boot files were placed:

Unplug the smaller HD which you didn't install Win7 on.

Mark the Win7 Partition Active following the Diskpart method in blue link Option Two to determine its' partition number and mark it Active. If Easeus will boot it can also mark the Win7 partition Active and will be easier since it shows a drive map you can rightclick on to Set Win7 partition Active. Post back a camera snap if you can of the map and listings, attach with Paper Clip in Reply box.

Next run Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times to write the boot files to 7 partition and make it bootable, up to 3 times with reboots until Win7 starts.

If it won't boot after 3 attempts then I'd cut my losses and reinstall, making sure this time to delete all partitions during install, create and format new as you wish, install to first partition after the small boot partition it creates. Clean Install Windows 7

whs · 15 Apr 2014

The shortcut is this, LOL

Bootmgr - Move to C:\ with EasyBCD

gregrocker · 15 Apr 2014

It won't boot. Does EasyBCD now have a boot disk to apply the changes?

LadyLee · 16 Apr 2014

Whew, Sorry folks for the delay. When it rains it pours and all of a sudden I had a batch of other things like "teeth" to go take care of.

So, I'm attaching my screenshots and haven't done any suggestions yet. This is just the way I wrote the first post.

On my way home from the dentist I did have 2 thoughts........ Why am I fighting this. I have a WD external that I copy to and why don't I just keep the larger of the 2 disks in my desktop???? Or, if I have to have a second hard drive, then why don't I just get another small WD Caviar Blue? They must be super cheap by now??

On the other hand, I don't mind a challenge... and this is a 'beaut'

See attachments pls and thanks so much for all comments. I will wait until after you see these jpg's to do anything.

Oh... I did get it to boot but had to use Easus to rebuild bootmgr on the slave which I was forced to name "J" the primary on the slave automatically became "K".

My bios is saying to boot from the larger HD. I can set the HD group priority in my bios.

Donna

gregrocker · 16 Apr 2014

To make C independently bootable, power down to unplug the other HD, boot into the Win7 installation media or System Repair Disk to run Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times until Win7 starts and holds the System flag on its partition.

You can then plug back in the other HD, make sure it does not get set first HD to boot in BIOS setup, then wipe it with Diskpart Clean Command, repartition in Disk Mgmt.

Another method now that you can boot WIn7 is to from within the OS move the Bootmgr - Move to C:\ with EasyBCD - Windows 7 Forums as suggested earlier.

LadyLee · 16 Apr 2014

I will give the EasyBCD app a try tomorrow and see how it goes.

LadyLee · 17 Apr 2014

Whew!! The BCD app seems to have done the trick. I've attached a jpg so you can see how it looks now and that's how I'm leaving it for another answer PLEASE.