Windows 7 on 2 system partitions

[hatemf23]

hi,

I just reinstalled Win7 64x yesterday and was surprised that disk management shows 2 system partitions.

C is boot with win7, D is a primary partition on the same drive, F is a 500gb partition that is also a system partition.

Windows wont boot without both C and F

Is there anyway to make C the only system partition and make windows start up from it only without having to reinstall everything?

I also noticed D isnt recognized when trying to reinstall windows without F present so I would have to wipe C and D (the whole drive) and start over which I would really like to avoid.

 

[theog]

Mark the F: partition INACTIVE.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/197157-partition-mark-inactive.html

 

[hatemf23]

Will Windows still work though?

 

[hatemf23]

I tried it and doesnt work, got a BOOTMGR missing. I didnt mistakenly make a partition active anyway...

Any other ideas?

 

[gregrocker]

Mark F Inactive, assure C is still marked Actve, reboot into BIOS setup to set Win7 HD first HD to boot, after DVD drive.

From booted Win7 DVD or http://www.sevenforums.com/performance-maintenance/51100-repair-cd-system-repair-disk.html run http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105541-startup-repair-run-3-separate-times.html until Win7 again starts and C is marked System Active.

The repair function like the installer itself should write the system boot files to the first active partition, so something caused it to skip C during install (which always marks Active) and write the boot files to F. Did you perchance install to F? You should have a Dual Boot menu if so.

If it interferes again, unplug F while you do these repairs.

 

[AddRAM]

Simply run the startup repair AS GREG SUGGESTED, until windows boots again. It looks like you now have 2 installs of 7. 1 on C and 1 on F. Is that what you meant to do ?

 

[hatemf23]

First time it repaired and restarted but second time it doesnt want to repair.. "System repair cannnot repair this computer automatically"

This is the report if its useful at all:
Repair: Partition table repair.
Result: Failed, error code = 0x490

It just repaired by setting F active again.

Whats really bothering me is disk with F is now the first disk or "disk 0" in management, it always does this and is probably the real cause of the problem but I dont know why it does it???

 

[hatemf23]

Simply run the startup repair AS GREG SUGGESTED, until windows boots again. It looks like you now have 2 installs of 7. 1 on C and 1 on F. Is that what you meant to do ?

I installed only once on C, I never touched other partitions...

 

[gregrocker]

Please mark C Active, unplug F drive, run http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105541-startup-repair-run-3-separate-times.html with reboots, no matter what it reports.

Make sure C drive is set first HD to boot in BIOS setup, after DVD drive.

Once C starts, plug F back in but assure C stays set first HD to boot.

 

[hatemf23]

Well I tried again, marking C active, marking F inactive, unplugging F then restarting.

Yes, I am running repair 3 times no matter what, what im trying to say is it doesnt finish and restarts, It gives me a failed message and offers me to send the problem to Microsoft!! and sends me back to the repair options menu.

 

[gregrocker]

You said you got the error after two Startup Repairs. But to rewrite the System boot files requires up to 3 full Startup Repairs with reboots no matter what it reports. I just wanted to make sure you'd done this.

If so then your options are to leave F as the boot drive for C, Reinstall with F drive unplugged, or shrink C from the left by 200mb using Partition Wizard Boot CD Resize Partition - Video Help, then create a Primary NTFS partition named System Reserved there and Modify>Set to Active, then run the 3 Startup Repairs.
Partition Wizard Create Partition Video Help
How to Set Active or Inactive with Partition Wizard

 

[hatemf23]

Any idea why the system favors this disk over the other? I admit F was set first disk to boot while I was installing Windows on C (the other disk). maybe this is why?

I am going to reinstall, but I want to avoid this problem happening again.

edit: read my edited last post to see what I mean about system repair.

 

[gregrocker]

Then unplug all other HD's as should always be done during Win7 install.

Follow these same steps as for http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219487-clean-reinstall-factory-oem-windows-7-a.html#post1839164 to get a perfect reinstall.

As long as you ran 3 Startup Repairs with reboots no matter what errors you got then you can also try to run from repair Command Line the bootrec commands given in Step 7 of http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219533-troubleshooting-windows-7-failure-boot.html

 

[hatemf23]

I tried bootrec to re-build the BCD using these steps:

• bcdedit /export C:\BCD_Backup
• c:
• cd boot
• attrib bcd -s -h -r
• ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old
• bootrec /RebuildBcd

I export fine but when typing "cd boot" gives me a cannot find specified path...

It seems like nothing wants to work :banghead:

 

[hatemf23]

Last bump.

 

[gregrocker]

Did you try the other bootrec commands:

bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /fixmbr

Sometimes these work when the others don't.

Then if you're about to give up the installation anyway, no need to back up BCD:

bootrec /rebuildbcd

Now try 3 separate Startup Repairs again.