Set blank partition to active primary on accident, now won't boot.

[Caseycallender]

I just bought a cheap laptop from Walmart yesterday with windows 7. I am not a fan of it so I wanted to see if I could dual boot windows xp. Luckly it is a IDE machine not sata. So I Downloaded a copy of windows xp (I have a license key for all the people who would shun me for it, it is paid for). Well when I was making a new partition to install windows xp on I set the new partition to active, rebooted and wala, my computer won't boot because I'm a bone head sometimes. I have access to another windows 7 comp that is Extremly slow and I put emphasis on Extremly. What is the quickest most direct path I can take to get my comp booting again. Other comp has a cd burner and I have an external hd if I need it.

 

[SIW2]

Obviously, you need to move the Active flag back to the original volume.

You can do that if you attach your other comp to it so you can see the volume - then use disk mgmt or diskpart, or any partition manager to do the job.

Otherwise, you will need to get something that you can boot on your sick comp - PW free cd is pretty good.

Partition Wizard Bootable CD allows user to manage partition directly with partition manager bootable CD.

 

[Thorsen]

The computer should, if it didn't come with any disks, have a recovery partition set up.
So, First try to get to the Advanced Options Menu: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/666-advanced-boot-options.html

If you can't get to anything there, you will need a boot disk to launch the Windows 7 recovery options:

> If you have another computer with Win7 then you can create a System Recovery disk: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2083-system-repair-disc-create.html

> if you don't have access to a win7 computer, but can create a disk on another, you can download a copy of win7 and go through the steps to repair from that disk: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219487-clean-reinstall-factory-oem-windows-7-a.html


From those, you can run the Startup Repair.

Or use the C Prompt to reset the Original Partition to active: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/71432-partition-mark-active.html

Hope this helps

 

[Caseycallender]

Thanks Thorsen and SIW. The bootable CD partition wizard is what im looking for sounds like.

 

[gregrocker]

If you're going to install XP then Win7 will lose the boot anyway, until you repair it to start 7 up to add XP to a Dual Boot menu. So you might as well install XP to a partition your shrink using Partition Wizard CD first.

Follow the steps in Option Two here: Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and XP

If this fails use PW CD to mark Win7 Active, then from the Win7 DVD or Repair CD run Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times. You can download the Win7 DVD official ISO and burn to DVD using steps 1 and 2 here.