Convert Dual Boot to Single Boot, 2 HD's

[SIW2]

You're welcome.Glad it worked for you.

You need to keep 7 drive first in HD boot order, of course.

 

[ArtieB]

Similar problem

Apologies if this isn’t the best way to approach my question, but my circumstances (including trepidation) are so similar to GGibson’s that I thought I’d give it a try. The only real difference is that I have Windows 7 on drive D: and XP on drive C: (XP will no longer start, but that’s another and probably irrelevant story). Disk Management reports the following:

[Win 7] -- Disk 0 (D: ) (Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)
[Win XP] -- Disk 1 (C: ) (System, Active, Primary Partition)

I can provide the output from BCDEDIT, but it appears that that would be superfluous if I correctly understand that the solution for GGibson was to use the Win 7 DVD to run startup repair 3 or 4 times.

In the BIOS I have set drive D: as the boot disk and then booted from the Win 7 DVD and started the startup repair. When I click on “View Details” when it first reports problems with startup and offers to repair and restart I get:

System Recovery Options
Repair Details:
The following startup options will be added:
Name: Windows Home Premium (recovered)
Path: Windows
Windows Device: Partition=C: (238472 MB)

Name: Windows Recovery Environment (recovered)
Path: Recovery\94006040-cbd5-11de-9243-c8b359b83714\Winre.wim
Windows Device: Partition=C: (238472 MB)

I tried disconnecting the C: (disk 1) drive, and got the same report from startup repair. I find the reference to C: a little disconcerting. Can I expect that if I run startup repair 3 or 4 times, I’ll end up with a bootable, system drive D: that will boot to Windows 7? I have a full backup made with Win 7 backup and I’m assuming that if worse comes to worst I can reinstall Win7 and then restore from that backup.

Thank you very much.

 

[gregrocker]

Yes, if you run Startup Repair 3 separate times it will rewrite the MBR to Win7 and startup since Win7 is marked active.

Win7 Startup Repair is automated with all former bootrec and bootsect recovery commands. But it assumes that a given fix will work until you come back for another, as it attempts to fix and then finally rewrites the MBR to Win7.

Afterward check in Disk Management that Windows 7 partition is showing as "System ". Then you can delete XP.

 

[ArtieB]

Thanks!

Thanks for your prompt reply Greg, this worked perfectly.

 

[cswann1]

Hi everyone. First post here and I wanted to share my recent experience with going from dual to single boot with Win 7.

I had XP pro and Win 7 on the same physical HDD but almost never booted to XP so it was pointless to keep it.

I did this the wrong way, but I got everything working again so if someone makes the same mistake I did maybe this will help.

I used my GPartEd CD to delete my XP partition and the re-sized my HDD to recover the space. Little did I know that the MBR was hosed (I think).

MY PC wouldn't even try to boot Win 7 and worse, the Windows 7 Setup DVD wouldn't even see that I had the OS on my HDD.

So I went back to my GPartED CD and checked the Boot flag on my (only) Windows 7 partition. Now my PC tried to boot but was unable. So back in the CD/DVD drive went my Windows 7 Setup DVD and after three tries with the startup repair tool all is well.

Next time I try anything like this I'll be sure to look here for advice FIRST

 

[gregrocker]

Glad you sorted it out.

The partioning app I've found that works best with Win7 is free Partition Wizard bootable CD.

 

[SIW2]

That is to be expected if XP was the system partition - it would be the same if you used any bootable partitioning app.

Gparted is an extremely valuable tool and is constantly being updated - there are occasions when it is the only app. that will do the job.


Glad you are up and running.


[

Hi everyone. First post here and I wanted to share my recent experience with going from dual to single boot with Win 7.

I had XP pro and Win 7 on the same physical HDD but almost never booted to XP so it was pointless to keep it.

I did this the wrong way, but I got everything working again so if someone makes the same mistake I did maybe this will help.

I used my GPartEd CD to delete my XP partition and the re-sized my HDD to recover the space. Little did I know that the MBR was hosed (I think).

MY PC wouldn't even try to boot Win 7 and worse, the Windows 7 Setup DVD wouldn't even see that I had the OS on my HDD.

So I went back to my GPartED CD and checked the Boot flag on my (only) Windows 7 partition. Now my PC tried to boot but was unable. So back in the CD/DVD drive went my Windows 7 Setup DVD and after three tries with the startup repair tool all is well.

Next time I try anything like this I'll be sure to look here for advice FIRST

 

[joevidetto]

Hi - This topic was invaluable to me and so well explained. I am just wondering if there is a way to move the MBR with explicit commands rather than having to reboot several times with the System Repair option.

 

[AddRAM]

I will see if Wolfgang can help.

But you can look this over.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/20864-mbr-restore-windows-7-master-boot-record.html

 

[whs]

Hi - This topic was invaluable to me and so well explained. I am just wondering if there is a way to move the MBR with explicit commands rather than having to reboot several times with the System Repair option.

You have to explain a bit more. Why do you want to move the MBR which has a fixed place in the first 512 bytes of a disk.

 

[joevidetto]

I am installing a new, larger SSD to replace an older SSD/Hard-drive dual boot system, where XP was the first install on the hard drive, and later an SSD was added with Win7 install to create a dual boot. I understand from the thread that system recovery is the way to do this with rebooting several times, but I thought there might be a 'cleaner' way to do this directly. It seems there is not.

 

[AddRAM]

You mean startup repair, but that does not always work either.

But remember, a partition must be marked Active for startup repair to write the system files.

But anyway

Try this, it may do what you want.

EasyBCD - NeoSmart Technologies

 

[joevidetto]

Thanks very much.

Today I booted into my old XP installation hoping to set the Win7 disk to ACTIVE - but the control panel would not start the Administrative Disk Manager utility, and from the command line, despite setting the Win7 partition to focus via diskpart select disk=4 and confirming focus via the *, running the active resulted in "No partition selected".

Do you know if it's possible to set the Win 7 partition to system withOUT logging into the first-installed XP system where Win7 was added later to a multi-boot config ? Everything seems like you need to change from booting into XP. And my XP config is 'broken' and unreliable - I'm thinking I may have to find a working XP system and create a new system repair disk that contains a working Admin Disk Manager tool.

Thanks again for your help and suggestions.

 

[AddRAM]

Where`s your windows 7 install DVD, just use Diskpart to set 7 Active

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/71432-partition-mark-active.html

Method 2 or 3

or make and use a Partition Wizard Boot CD to set it Active, method 3 in the same tutorial

Bootable Partition Manger | MiniTool Partition Wizard Bootable Edition