Win 7 Boot sector

[rwest]

My current set up:
Hdd 0 - Partion 1 has XP on it.........Part2 is allocated but not formatted
Hdd 1 - Partion 1 has Win 7 on it.......Part2 is full of backups

I want to reinstall Win 7 on Hdd 0 and combine both partititions to one. I think this should be fairly easy by removing Hdd 1.

After the fresh install on Hdd 0, if I reattacth Hdd 1 will the original boot sector take over and give me a dual boort option? Win 7 or Win 7? I want to move away from the dual boot.

I want to move to a single boot on Hdd 0 and still acees the files on Hdd 1. I think as long as I select the first Hdd in Bios to boot it should work. If I select the second hdd in BIOS I expect I may still have the option for dual boot but the 'earlier version of windows' option just won't boot beccause it will have Win 7 on it

This is what I want to get to:
Hdd 0 - Single parttition with Win 7 on it
Hdd 1 - Partion 1 Win 7 - .Part2 still full of backups

I want to trnsfer my game files from the earlier win 7 install to the fresh install and if it doesn't work, will I be able to boot the original Win 7 install ?

Basically if I screw with the first boot option on Hdd 1 will the second boot option still work?

[MikeMoss]

Hi

Download and install EasyBCD.

http://www.intowindows.com/download-...for-windows-7/

It will let you change the boot setting on your computer so that it will only boot to the operating system you want.

It's easy to use, and it's free!

Mike

[rwest]

Mike thanks alot for the info, I actually have easy bcd. I used it to change the name of the boot. I didn't realize it would actually modify the boot sector. Duh!

"I'm still thinking FDISK !"'

l'll take a look at the settings in EasyBCD and see how much I trust myself not to screw things up.

I'm not in a huge hurry to mess with it. I just came to tthe conclusion of not needing XP. I was concerned with some of my programs not working in 64 bit environment. I'm finding out that Win 7 is more versatile with older programs than Xp is. I'm likie GLC though, I still prefer the WIN 2000 interface - it's really just me getting used to 7. At least 7 doesn't hide functions as bad as Vista. It just thinks your'e not supposed to access them.

[andper10]

I believe I posted a thread about an issue similar to this a while back, but I ended up giving up. Does anyone know if I can clone/image a current XP install onto a new hard drive drive and then remove the original hard drive and still have the option to dual boot with XP and Windows 7? When I tried to do it before I couldn't get the computer to boot without the original XP drive plugged in. The original drive is 160GB and I would like to move it to a different computer as it has a small capacity by today's standards and it is taking up a drive bay. I am not willing to reinstall XP or Windows 7 to get it to work.

[MikeMoss]

Hi

I'm not guaranteeing this but I believe that EasyBCD will allow you to set the new XP drive to be the bootable drive.
It will ad the necessary files and registry entries.

Boot the computer with both drives plugged in then run EasyBCD from your original drive.

I would first set the computer to Dual Boot, to both drives using EasyBCD.
This should be safer then just switching it from one to the other in one step.

When you reboot and see that you have an option as to which drive to boot into (confirming that the new drive is now bootable) boot into the new drive and then run EasyBCD again, and this time remove the old drive from the list of bootable drives.

Your computer should now boot into the new drive directly.

Mike