drive letters switched after changing motherboard

[tercero]

I'm in the middle of re-installing windows 7 right now, and migrating my drive info over, but I'd prefer to solve this. I purchased an updated asus p5n-d motherboard (from using a not very good biostar p4m890-7se). When I installed my sata hard drive that already had a copy windows 7 working and activated, I found that it wouldn't boot. So, I used win7pe and booted to find that the drive letters have been messed up. The 100 meg system reserve was now c: instead of z:, c: was now f:, d: was now e:. I tried everything. I thought I could use the diskmgmt.msc tool in win7pe but quickly realized that's just a virtual disk and wouldn't write the info to windows 7. I thought I could import the registry and use the regedit on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices but couldn't find it on the screwed up drive (it's a *.pol file isn't it)....I'm stuck. I decided to reinstall windows 7 on a new drive, use sportmau suite to copy over the information, and then use windows setting and migration tool copy most of the setting onto the new install. I'd like to solve this though. Is there anyway to boot, or re-assign the drive letters on the drive now that they're messed up. Diskpart?

Any ideas are good ideas.

thanks,

J>

 

[Jonathan_King]

Welcome!

Try a startup repair.

You may need to mark the Windows partition as active before the repair will find your installation.

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

 

[tercero]

Thanks for the welcome. You know, it's one of the first things I tried...and failed to mark the partition active though (it failed to repair so I wonder if the active partition would help). How can I do that if I can't get to the partition? Can I do it in windows 7 repair disk?

 

[Jonathan_King]

Yes, boot into the repair disc, and open up a command prompt.

 

[tercero]

Ok. Almost there. I fixed part of this with diskpart. Set the drive as active, rebooted, it fixed the drive so now c: is c:.....but the z: which is the system reserved is still the wrong letter. So it won't boot. Crap. How can I change the drive letter on the 100 mb system reserved so it's z:


Or can I use bootcfg and manually edit the entry so it points to the correct system reserved drive..

 

[Jonathan_King]

Why don't you delete the system reserved partition?

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/71363-system-reserved-partition-delete.html

 

[tercero]

I'll try that. Right now I'm just doing a raw copy from the c: drive that work doesn't work, onto the drive (with windows 7 installed) that does, as a simple overwrite. I figure all of the boot info (plus all my files) should overwrite the working copy, and hopefully boot. Who knows? It's an experiment. Thanks for the information on deleting the system reserved. Again, I need to talk and bounce ideas off of people while I'm doing this. I come up empty sometimes (and frustrated) and it helps to have a fresh perspective.

Thanks J.

 

[tercero]

Used diskpart, deleted system reserve partition, made sure c: was the active partition. Now system repair can't find anything to repair. Tells me it can't fix automatically, and won't create a system reserved partition/volume. Aghhh.

 

[Jonathan_King]

Don't just mark the C partition as active; mark whatever partition has Windows on it (usually the largest one) as active.

Then run startup repair again.

 

[tercero]

1 terrabyte disk.
Divided as follows
First 100 gig I set as C: (and marked as active)
The rest was D: (storage)
100 mb system reserved (now deleted).

Neither startup repair, or bootrec will fix this for some reason. ;(

 

[Bill2]

have you tried this command?

bootsect.exe /nt60 C:

 

[Jonathan_King]

I wonder if you are getting hung up on the drive letter part. Don't worry about the letters at all. The truth is, whatever volume you boot from becomes C.

Once we get the boot issue figured out, if you still have trouble with the letters, we can work on it from Disk Management.

Now, maybe I'm a little confused too. When you said "it doesn't boot", what happened?

If you're sure the 100GB partition is active, and startup repair doesn't fix it, try these commands:

bootrec /fixboot

bootrec /fix mbr

bootrec /rebuildbcd

Then try a startup repair.

 

[tercero]

Sorry. I need to clarify. It's not so much drive letters. That's been sorted out (c is c again, d is d again). There's just no longer a system reserve which I had named z:. I used diskpart and deleted it. I found the article on bootrec after you had mentioned it in a previous article, and went through the steps of using all of the bootrec commands. And it looked like it had completed ok. I restarted, the system booted to the windows logon with the coloured balls...and subequently rebooted. Using Windows 7 repair disk, I used a command window and saw again. No 100mb partition of system reserve. For whatever reason, it appears 7 does not want to create that reserve partition even though it show it available for use. I'm stumped at this point.

Little edit - I tried running
bootrec /rebuildbcd

after running

bootrec /fixboot

bootrec /fix mbr

fixmbr and boot worked. Rebuildbcd gives a "successfully scanned Windows installations. Total identified Windows Installations: 0
The operation completed successfully".

Well. Shit. Windows is definitely installed. I can change from x:\windows\system32\ to c:\windows or root of c: etc. And windows is definitely installed. I wonder why it won't recognize the installation and rebuild the bcd. Damn this is frustrating. And no bootsect.exe /nt60 C: is a good idea, but didn't work. one of the first things I tried.

more edit.

bootrec /scanos does the same thing. Successfully scanned Windows installations. Total identified Windows installations: 0
The operation completed successfully.

I don't get it.

 

[Barman58]

Installing win7 onto a completely empty disk will automatically add the system reserved partition this is the only way I know to achieve this.

As you now have existing partitions this will no longer occur.

What you need to do now is to replace the windows 7 startup files onto the windows system drive as these were located on the system reserved partition that has been deleted, which is why this partition was marked as active.

You should be able to achieve this by running the startup repair several times without anything in between, from the install disk - sometimes a single run is not enough

 

[tercero]

Thanks Barman. I'm trying a variation on that very idea. I was lucky to have 4 other 1 tb disks available (removed from a DNS 321). I used one of the disk to do a fresh install of windows 7. Next, I tried doing a restore from a months old image of my original system. It reimaged c: and z:, with the predictable results that the system would halt on the windows logo. I rebooted, using the windows 7 repair disk, went to a command window, used diskpart, set the 100 gig partition (containing the os) to active. Next I ran startup repair, it found something, rebooted. And it halted and told me there was an error in the boot/bcd. To inset the install disk an choose repair. I did. And I'm back to where I was. It won't get past the swirling logo. It halts and reboots.I'm almost ready to admit defeat. And I'm a bit worried about causing surface errors on the disks everytime I do a hard reboot. I'll try a couple more things and then admit defeat. I'm disappointed that windows 7 does not allow for a repair install unless you actually have the os running and log in as admin. Seems pointless.

 

[Barman58]

That is strange - I have done a few startup repairs to win7 systems over the last 18 months (Yes I'm and early adopter who like to test to destruction), every one has succeeded. This includes many where the system would not boot

Rather than go the BCDedit route after the first repair fails did you try to run the actual startup repair a second time - I have known systems where it has taken 3 or 4 runs to actually expedite the repair

 

[MadMaxData]

If you have an installation DVD, you don't need the Z:\System Reserve partition anyway. That partition only contains the repair files, which you can access by booting from the DVD anyway. I haven't deleted mine, but I have the DVD, and don't really need it.

By the way, I had the same thing happen to me twice. Windows would halt at the logo at boot. I got so frustrated that I just went and started to watch a movie, and just let it sit. 20 minutes later, my desktop was up, and never had a problem again. For some reason it just took forever to get past the logo screen the first time.

 

[tercero]

I'm trying another install...again (arghh). This time I'll try writing over the files with files from the system that won't start...preserving the /boot only. I might as well mix and match and see what happens. I think Windows 7 hates me.

 

[MadMaxData]

I thought it hated me too. For some reason it just took awhile to get past the logo screen on the first install. I have no idea why, but try a little patience next time, and see if that pays off. Can't hurt any. I know it worked for me.

 

[tercero]

I thought it hated me too. For some reason it just took awhile to get past the logo screen on the first install. I have no idea why, but try a little patience next time, and see if that pays off. Can't hurt any. I know it worked for me.

I wish it would just halt on the logo. It reboots. Over, and over and over...