Dual boot system has my system down

stevae

New member
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i have a new pavilion dv7t, and after trying to set up a dual boot system, it refuses to restart. i have 7 home prem. on the c drive, and wanted to put win 7 ultimate on the "a" drive. but after a couple of reboots, on the last reboot the computer gets to the initial prompt, and then just has a flashing cursor in the upper left corner and will not go any further. i have run memory diagnostics, hdd diagnostics, start up diagnostics and runup diagnostics and although every single one of them passed with no errors, it still will not boot. the computer is so new, that i haven't had a chance to make boot disc's yet, because i didn't have any writeable disc's on hand. is there anything anyone can tell me that can help?
 

My Computer My Computer

OS
windows 7
drive "a" was a floppy drive 15 years ago! lol!!! drive "a" is a partition i setup for another opsys. i will continue to try the startup diag. thanks.
 

My Computer My Computer

OS
windows 7
See if it finds an installation other than your Home Premium to repair when you boot into DVD/Repair CD "Repair my Computer."

If not, then you'll need to mark Home Premium active to get it started up. Boot the WIn7 DVD, press Shift F10 to open a Command line, type:

DISKPART
LIST DISK
SELECT DISK # (replace # with HP HD)
LIST PARTITION
SELECT PARTITION # (for HP partition #)
ACTIVE
Exit

Now return to Recovery Tools list to Run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times with reboots to start HP.

Once in HP, explore the new partition to see what was installed. Change to another drive letter in Disk Mgmt. Try running the installer from HP again to install to other partition. If this fails, try booting from DVD for install using Custom>Drive tools to format partition first. Let us know the exact fail point and what the error message is.
 
Last edited:
drive "a" was a floppy drive 15 years ago! lol!!! drive "a" is a partition i setup for another opsys. i will continue to try the startup diag. thanks.

Drives A & B are Floopy drives still today.
 

My Computer My Computer

OS
ME/XP/Vista/Win7
i have a new pavilion dv7t, and after trying to set up a dual boot system, it refuses to restart. i have 7 home prem. on the c drive, and wanted to put win 7 ultimate on the "a" drive. but after a couple of reboots, on the last reboot the computer gets to the initial prompt, and then just has a flashing cursor in the upper left corner and will not go any further.

Because drive letters A and B are reserved for floppy disks... it's trying to boot to a floppy drive that probably doesn't exist on your system. In fact, I'm a little surprised it let you assign those letters at all.
 

My Computer My Computer

Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
Homebrew
OS
XP Pro SP3 X86 / Win7 Pro X86
CPU
Amd 64 x2 4200 (2.4ghz)
Motherboard
Asus M2N-MX SE Plus
Memory
Kingston DDR2 800 2gb
Graphics Card(s)
Nvidia GF-8400
Sound Card
Realtek on Motherboard
Monitor(s) Displays
Acer x-193bw
Screen Resolution
1440 x 900
Hard Drives
Western Digital 500g
PSU
350watt In-Win
Case
In-Win
Cooling
Air
Keyboard
yes
Mouse
yes
Internet Speed
5mpbs
Other Info
Also ASRock ION 330 as HTPC (on XP).
Acer Aspire as GP netbook (on XP).
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