Remove dual boot on separate drives; non-functional boot drive

[fixitnate]

I've been searching on this and I've found things here and there that are SIMILAR to what I want to do but not exact. Please feel free to direct me to the appropriate thread if there's something on this already. I've seen reference to EasyBCD, which I have downloaded but am unsure if I will be able to use given my circumstances... see below.

Setup is an XP/Win7 Dual boot, want to ditch Dual Boot and only use Win7:
WinXP on an IDE "C:\" drive
Win7 on an SATA "D:\" drive
Computer boots to IDE C:\ drive, asks what OS to boot to.

Wrench In Works: I believe my IDE drive has ceased to be functional. I get past the BIOS and get nothing but a string of about 10 gibberish characters before nothing further will happen.
- Is there a way I can do this without a Win7 reinstall from scratch?
- Is there going to be an issue with programs that have been installed in Win7 and using "D:\path\" or registry entries that reference the D:\ drive?

Thanks in advance for any help or directions towards info already written up.
Nate B

 

[Guest]

well since the master boot record, MBR, resides on the C: drive and that has the information of what OSs and where they are at; i cannot suggest how NOT to avoid reintalling Win7.

unless there is a genius around here that can tell you to remove the IDE drive, boot with the Win7 installation disk with only the SATA drive connected and see if a "fix MBR" in the recovery options will write one on the SATA.

been awhile since i goofed around with the MBR.

 

[_kaos_]

boot with the Win7 installation disk with only the SATA drive connected and see if a "fix MBR" in the recovery options will write one on the SATA.

^this
Disconnect that IDE drive which has XP installed.
Insert the Win7 istall DVD and reboot
In the setup choose repair windows option.
choose the one "start up" repair or something similar(sorry can't remember exactly)
the setup will scan the disk for windows installation.
follow the steps

 

[fixitnate]

Been a busy holiday. I've gotten so far as to disconnect the IDE drive and pull the motherboard battery for 30sec... a full 30sec, not a count to 30 quickly. Had to reset system clock in bios, etc. Still gibberish characters after bios posts, never a message to insert a bootable drive like I kind of would expect with nothing to boot from. Inserted Win7 upgrade disc I have to no avail, but not entirely sure it's bootable.

That is as far as I've gotten. I'm not feeling very confident that it's going to find anything bootable. Next thought is to pull battery overnight or maybe try to reflash bios? I'm not so sure its a bad IDE drive at this point.

Any further thoughts on the gibberish characters? Might be more to that than I thought. The string I see is as follows, ASCII drawing symbols and all: ┤Bè▄$