Hey guys, So I'm hoping this is a simple fix. I had windows Vista installed on my PC. I got a new SSD, installed it and promptly installed Windows 7 on it. When I booted up my PC, I was greeted with a menu for selection of respective OSs. I selected windows 7, and it boots appropriately. Problem is, when I change the BIOS to have the SSD be the first drive to boot from, I get an operating system not found (or something to that effect, can't remember the wording). So, I want to wipe the drive with Windows Vista, but I'm afraid that I won't be able to boot directly into Windows 7 (which is on the SSD). Input is welcomed EDIT: Since I will be running Live, do I even really need to run a SSD or can I get away with a flash drive for a more purpose built setup?
I've had that problem in the past; when you boot up, it says something-or-another (bootloader, I think?) file not found, correct? Disconnect the Vista drive while you install Win7. That's how I got around that problem.
Bah, was hoping I wouldn't have to reinstall windows 7 on the SSD. I was just getting things setup the way I wanted to
You should be able to change the boot sequence in Windows. Not sure how on Win7/Vista, but I've done it using XP. Once you get the right OS to boot, you can either leave it, or remove the hdd.
Did this by accident once with harddrives. Think i solved it by Disabling old drive in BIOS. Booting off 7 cd and used the repair console to fix the boot sector. You're problem is the boot sector telling it to boot windows is all contained on the old drive.
Exactly. The simplest solution is to reinstall Windows 7 without the old drive attached, this way a boot sector will be created on the new drive.
Don't need to go to this much trouble though. Run 'msconfig', select 'boot' tab. should be an option to move the lower OS up the list to first boot instead of second.
Yeah but the MBR (Master Boot Record) will still be on the old drive meaning that when it's removed, the BIOS won't find any boot loader to taker over the job of booting the computer. Please correct me if I'm wrong
I'm pretty sure the Master Boot Record is on the old drive, so re-arranging the order in msconfig doesn't do me any good. I'll disable the drive and fire everything up with the windows 7 CD and run the repair utility and report back. Bit-Tech community, thanks for being awesome
Attempted to do a windows repair from the windows 7 disk with no success. When it's supposed to list the drives to repair, it didn't have any drives listed (although when I went to load drivers, it was there)... Attempted to boot off of the SSD, and got "INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER" bit ... thinking it might be easiest to just reinstall everything
There's an MBR for each hard drive, it's not something that's specific to Windows. It's basically just the first I don't know how Windows Vista and 7 work in terms of booting because I'm still not too keen about their new OS. But as for the boot options, BCDEdit.exe is what you want to find. It's a command line program that you'll need to run in administrator mode.. but that's about the equivalent of Windows XP's boot.ini. I haven't a clue on how to use it, so here are some fancy pants instructions!
STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPP!!!!!! All of the above is correct but theres an easier way to sort this out........1. leave everthing connected up....2.download a little prog called easy bcd run it and u'll see in the menu's all the bootloaders...3. delete everything and tell it to save...4.turn off and disconnect the old h/d then reboot with the windows disc in and tell it to reinstall the bootloader....6.go in to easy bcd check to see what boot loaders it is showing , u should only have 1...win7 next tell it to rewrite the mrb and the save it, reconnect the old disc...job done, this should all take no more than about 10mins to do......And no need for the fancy pants instruction...lol
reading that reminded me of my time in boot camp when I joined the military. Whenever a company commander would see you doing something wrong, they would yell out stop but prolong the O and make a huge scene lol I'll follow these steps and report back. Thanks for the post!
Wouldn't deleting just the one you don't want be the easy route? Delete old, save, restart, fixed? Why bother deleting anything if you're reinstalling the bootloader? He could just take out the hard drive and do that as originally suggested. I'm asking this honestly because I don't know much about the Windows 7 startup process. The way some people on here are talking about it makes it sound like it's so ridiculously hard to use that you all just reinstall it. What gives?
Krog, I think he means deleting the old bootloader that is on the wrong drive, and reinstalling it on the SSD. Still haven't gotten around to this, I've been transfering LOADS of files wirelessly, and there is a lot of wireless interference in my complex, so my transfers are rather slow.
I see what you're saying. I guess I just assumed that Windows 7 installed it's bootloader (on whatever drive the OS was being installed on) as part of the install. I suppose it's time for me to get windows 7 and start messing with it and avoid looking like a total noob again.
vista and win7 will always move the bootloader to a separate disk or partition, why i'm not sure i think it's like a safty thing so that if you make a bit of a mess of the OS it still means you can boot up to make repairs...What I do know for sure is that it's a right pain in the arse at times...lol
Yeah I had this just a few weeks ago, got a new 1TB F3, and started installing windows, for some stupid reason, windows decided to put the MBR onto my external HDD. So if that wasn't on or connected, the PC wouldn't boot. I looked into trying to fix it, but nothing worked for me. Just reinstalled but with the external HDD disconnected. I tried a repair, and I think it got rid of the MBR or something, because after the repair, even with the external drive on, the PC wouldn't boot.
