Solved Win 7 installed boot on Disc 1 and system on Disc 0 separate HDD's

[Chris Mesa]

After MUCH searching, I've yet to find info on this issue. Many similar, but nothing specific. Please bare with me if this is a known/solved issue.

Okay, old C drive was failing, so I decided on a new OS copy and new HDD. Bought an OEM Win 7 Home Premium 64, and installed.

Little did I know, but I should have had only one HDD hooked up!!! When I installed Win 7, I had 2 HDD's installed, and as a result, Windows installed the main files on my C drive as desired, but put the boot (MBR?) on my other HDD, F drive. Now I have 2 physical HDD's that are listed as Windows drives. So when I went to do a system image backup, all that came up was my DVD burner as a save location. My secondary HDD (F drive) was not shown. Now I know why!

Currently...

Disc 0 - (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary)
Disc 1 - (System, Active, Primary) Also shows this as having unallocated space of 9MB.

I want ALL of Windows on my main C drive.

How can I fix this without having to re-install all programs etc on my C drive?

Can I do a repair of some type?

Could I install a 3rd internal/external HDD and use that to do a system image backup, then shut down, disconnect F drive, then do a system restore/repair using the OEM installation disc?

Any ideas/fixes?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Yeah, by having that other drive connected, you now have your boot files on the old drive and the rest of Windows on the new drive.

Post a screen shot of Windows Disk Management.

Normally, you'd want C to be disc 0, but that isn't critical.

You can fix this by using EasyBCD to copy your boot files from the old drive to the new. I think there is a tutorial on this site on how to do that.

Edit: here's the tutorial;

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/209885-bootmgr-move-c-easybcd.html

Probably can also fix it by disconnecting the old drive and then running startup repair multiple times, using your Windows installation disc.

Post the screen shot to confirm what's going on.

 

[Chris Mesa]

Okay, sounds good. Give me a few to get some images, etc.

http://static.wixstatic.com/media/a...g_srb_p_1571_830_75_22_0.50_1.20_0.00_png_srb

 

[ignatzatsonic]

OK, you've got C on disc 0, that's good.

You'll need to run Easy BCD per the tutorial I linked in my first post.

You'll need to mark C as active in Disk Management and mark F as inactive. But first use EasyBCD as per the tutorial. I'm not sure, but it may be able to do the active/inactive stuff for you. If not, do that after you finish with EasyBCD.

Or you can just try the repair install thing I mentioned. May have to run it 3 times or more.

I'd probably use EasyBCD.

Confirm everything is cool by disconnecting the F drive and see if you can boot.

When you are done, you may be able to add that 9 mb unallocated to the F partition using Disk Management. If not, you could try Partition Wizard. If that fails as well, I wouldn't agonize over 9 mb.

 

[Chris Mesa]

Ran EasyBCD...WHAT A BEAUTIFUL THING!

I've had 2 other pc "experts" tell me my only option was a re-install.

EasyBCD did exactly what I needed!

Not worried about 9MB. I can delve into that when I'm bored.

Now, there is still that Windows stuff on F drive, right? How does it get deleted now that I can boot up with just C drive installed?

Yes, I ran EasyBCD, shut down pc, physically disconnected F drive, and she booted right up.

Below is what Disc Management says now...

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Yeah, that Windows stuff that was on F should still be on F because I think EasyBCD copies it rather than moves it.

It's very small--under 100 MB. You can just ignore it if you want. Your Windows on C is now self-sufficient and doesn't need F.

Might be able to drill into F for it and delete it if you wanted--I have no experience with that. Or you could reformat F if you want, after temporarily stashing whatever good stuff is on F to some other drive as a backup.

Looks like you are good to go.

A standard Windows install with one drive connected would have given you 2 partitions: C and System Reserved, with the boot files on System Reserved.

You've bypassed System Reserved and now have boot files on C. About all you give up is Bit Locker, which few people have any interest in.

You can also do a Windows install with one drive connected and end up with just C, and no System Reserved. That's what I did on my own system. You do that by making a C partition on the drive BEFORE installing Windows, rather than letting Windows make partitions DURING the install. No particular reason to do that, but I did it as multiple partitions on my boot drive kind of offends my sense of order. I can't use Bit Locker, but so what.

 

[Chris Mesa]

Yeah, again it's too small to worry about since it won't interfere with Windows.

I did the inactive thing with F drive, all good. Opens fine, data is still there.

Below is what I have now...

Thank, thank you! Such a HUGE help. I'll tell everybody about this place and EasyBCD.

 

[whs]

This will fix it:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/209885-bootmgr-move-c-easybcd.html

 

[Chris Mesa]

Just a tad late to the party! Thanks though.