Accidental Dual-Boot

[dehenree]

Hello everyone,

A few weeks ago I purchased the 64 bit version of Windows 7 as well as a new hard drive to go with the upgrades I was making to my PC. I left the old hard drive in and did a clean install of the 64 bit Windows 7 to the new hard drive. Now I must have both hard drives plugged in to boot the 64 bit Windows 7 that is on the newest of the two hard drives. I am curious to whether there is any way to correct this boot process without wiping my newest drive of what it has on it. I look forward to hearing back from you guys. Thank you. ( I was thinking maybe copying the "Windows" folder from the old hard drive but then it still would not be installed on the newest drive) If someone knows that it would work, that would be a great/easy fix. Thank you again.

- Dehenree

 

[RetiredChief]

Here is one How too: http://www.pcworld.com/article/183281/remove_a_windows_7_dual_boot_part_i.html

Myself, I'd just to the reinstall (WITH THE 2nd HDD disconnected!!)

 

[dehenree]

Whew. Looks like I may just have to do re-install. I could kick myself for having left that second HDD connected!

 

[dehenree]

Thank you very much for the response btw.

 

[caqde]

You don't have to what happened is that your boot manager was installed onto drive one. It is possible to install the boot manager onto the new drive so that windows will boot from that drive. If you run the recovery console from your Win 7 Install disk with that drive as the only drive you can go to the command prompt using the Win 7 disk and run Bootrec.exe /RebuildBcd. when you are done type exit and restart the system. Hopefully that will work.

If you want the other drive in your computer I would swap their Sata or IDE cable positions as the reason that drive got the boot sector was because it was the first in line according to windows as Windows will reposition the boot loader depending on what drive is first after A) Installing the OS and B) a Service Pack Installation. (Learned this the HARD WAY).

Other options for Bootrec.exe -> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392

Use the above link if that command doesn't fix your problem there are 3 other commands that can be used with Bootrec.exe. One or multiples may need to be used to create a new BootLoader on that drive for Win 7, but there is no reason to reinstall Windows yes it is "easier" but it is also time consuming.