Installed windows seven, Now can't boot to vista.

[04orgzx6r]

Problem:

I installed windows seven and it boots up automatically without giving me the option to boot into my old vista partition.


Background:

I am sure this is something simple, but I can't get it working.
I had vista installed and I used partition magic to repartition my hard drive on my laptop.
I made the new partition come before my old partition, because I wanted windows 7 to be my primary eventually.

I think it may have someting to do with making the vista partition active, but I am notentirely sure how to do that, so if you can help me out i would really appreciate it, Thanks!

 

[04orgzx6r]

Ok, so I did the commands in this post, except I changed the "XP" to "Vista" and it shows vista but it will not boot, it says I need to insert my vista disk..

Do I need to do that? Or is there something wrong in those commands?

 

[SIW2]

Hi,

No , those commands won't work here - nice try , though.

If you moved your Vista partition , you will need to make a bcd entry to reflect the new position.

Look in Disk Management and find which is the System partition.

Better still, post a jpeg screenshot, like this: ( click View and untick the Action pane and Console Tree to take a shot of the whole Disk Management window)



To post a jpeg screenshot, click Go Advanced at the bottom of this page and follow Step 8 onward of this tutorial:

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/148532-how-use-snipping-tool-vista.html

 

[04orgzx6r]

Heres my disk management, I did insert the vista disk and it tried to fix the boot, but it didn't work either:shock:



Thanks for the help in advance

 

[SIW2]

Sadly, Partition Magic is not compatible with NT6 (Vista/Win7 ) o/s - it wrecks them.

You got away with it because you installed 7 after using it.

1. Go to folder options and make sure Hidden Files and Protected Operating System files are showing.In Disk Management, rt click C and Mark as active

2. Copy and paste bootmgr and the yellow boot folder from D to C.



You will get a message saying you can't copy bcd as it is in use - skip it and the rest will copy.

3. Open an elevated command prompt and at the > prompt, type: (press enter after each command as indicated)

bcdedit /export C:\Boot\bcd {enter}

4. then type:

bcdedit /copy {current} /d "Windows Vista" {enter}

You will get a long number in brackets - the {GUID} , or identifier.

Use the {guid-you-got}, including the brackets, in these commands:


bcdedit /set {guid-you-got} device partition=D: {enter}

bcdedit /set {guid-you-got} osdevice partition=D: {enter}

close the cmd prompt.

5. Reboot . Done..

 

[04orgzx6r]

bcdedit /export D:\Boot\bcd C:\Boot\bcd

I am getting stuck here, it says that the export command is invalid and that the parameter is incorrect....

Any ideas?

Edit: It looks like I need to create or store the BCD file before I can export it, but I am a not very familar with windows cmd...

 

[torrentg]

Are you sure you did SIW2's step number 2 first?

The absence of C:\boot folder, if you did not, would explain the error message.

If so, just do this command instead:

bcdedit /export C:\Boot\bcd

 

[04orgzx6r]

Are you sure you did SIW2's step number 2 first?

The absence of C:\boot folder, if you did not, would explain the error message.

If so, just do this command instead:

bcdedit /export C:\Boot\bcd

Ya except my boot directory was named "boot" "Boot" so I used lower case

What I did after a little research was used the import cmd from D: and then the export cmd to C: and that seemed to work...
Still finishing up the rest, but I will report back, Thanks for the help guys!

 

[04orgzx6r]

Okay, That worked, and I can now get choose vista and even log-in but after that it says "preparing your desktop" forever and then finally loads a blank turqoise screen, ughh!
Anyway, I can run tskmanager and thats about it, What did I do!

BTW, what free partitioning tool do you guys use, now that I know I shouldn't use Parted magic

 

[torrentg]

I use Acronis Disk Director Suite. Others, including SIW2 like and use Paragon.

See SIW2 post here:
http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/10167-clean-install-partition.html

Either will do well for ya. Gparted is a free one though. I never used that but see that it is recommended a lot.

Is explorer.exe started, when looking in task manager? If not, go to file | new task (run) in it and type explorer.exe, hit enter.

 

[04orgzx6r]

I use Acronis Disk Director Suite. Others, including SIW2 like and use Paragon.

See SIW2 post here:
http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/10167-clean-install-partition.html

Either will do well for ya. Gparted is a free one though. I never used that but see that it is recommended a lot.

Is explorer.exe started, when looking in task manager? If not, go to file | new task (run) in it and type explorer.exe, hit enter.

No its not, I started it though and it wouln't load my profile only a temp.

But I think I fiured out that it isn't seeing the partitions correctly, it sees the partition it is on as F but it should see it as C, so once I get that figured out I should be good to go!

 

[04orgzx6r]

I am officially back up and running on vista!
I went into the regeditor and changed the drives back to the way vista needs them:sarc:
Thanks again for all of the help guys!

 

[torrentg]

Good stuff, glad you got it sorted.

 

[SIW2]

Hi,

Torrentg - thanks for stepping in there.

04 - Well done - that's not easy the first time.

I didn't type that out very well - you may find you have an unused entry in bcd - you may have a Vista entry with id {ntldr} from the commands you first attempted from the other thread.

You can see what is there, with the command:

bcdedit

You can remove that entry with:

bcdedit /del {ntldr} /f

Hope it helps.

 

[04orgzx6r]

Hi,

Torrentg - thanks for stepping in there.

04 - Well done - that's not easy the first time.

I didn't type that out very well - you may find you have an unused entry in bcd - you may have a Vista entry with id {ntldr} from the commands you first attempted from the other thread.

You can see what is there, with the command:

bcdedit

You can remove that entry with:

bcdedit /del {ntldr} /f

Hope it helps.

Haha Nice! I do have an extra entry but I didn't want to ask again, its like you read my mind

I am kinda glad it got all screwed up though, cause I learned a lot from fixing it.

Thanks again for all of the help, its users like you guys who make this a very nice place to hang around

 

[vasujain]

y dnt u try bcdeditor...i think there is some problem with the vista boot loader settings that might have got overlapped when installing windows 7.so try using the software it can fix up