Win7 Boot Files on secondary HDD

Finlay09

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Apr 28, 2009
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Hey ppl, I got 3 HDD's 80GB, 120GB, 320GB

the 120 has Win 7 on it, and I have My documents on the 320, while I had some basic files dragged onto the 80.

I just got a new 500GB HDD and decided I would pull out the 80 in place of it. easier said than done, after about 30 odd BSoD's I finally got the computer to boot into windows again so here I am...

I just learned about 5 minutes ago that Windows will sometimes (and in my case did) place some apparently very important boot files on the 80GB HDD.

Is there a simple way to move these files to the 500? (drag n' drop). Or will windows decide not to work with that change? do I have to do some stupid cloning procedure?


Thanks for your help in advance. Cheers, JF
 
Sounds like the 80 GB drive was the boot drive at one point in the history of this machine.

I suggest that you disconnect all drives except the 120 GB drive with Win7 and the DVD drive, boot to the Win7 DVD, and choose a Repair installation. It will look at the Win7 instance on the 120 GB drive, notice that there is no Master Boot Record / boot loader, and install them on the disk. They live outside of partitions, so copying partitions won't solve the problem.

Note: yes, you could use clone software to copy the boot files from the 80 GB drive to the new drive, but it makes more sense to boot off of just one drive. That's why all the others need to be disconnected when you do the repair, to ensure that the 120 GB drive is made bootable.