Can't format drive after dual boot removed

[Guest]

I installed C:\Vista and D:\WinXP as a dual boot setup using two SATA drives
and EasyBCD 1.52. Everything was fine and I continued to use them both until
I felt everything was stable. I decided it was time to remove the training
wheels (XP dual boot) using EasyBCD 1.52. I rebooted and everything was fine.
Now I wanted to format D:\. Right clicking on the drive and selected Format
it would not allow me to do it. I then proceeded to delete everything on the
drive. I can delete everything, but Boot and Bootmgr. It tells me that they
are in use. To prove this I unplugged the D:\ drive and the system would not
boot.
This is what is showing in EasyBCD:
http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k180/irvdk/Boot.jpg
Can someone tell me what is wrong and how to fix it?

 

[John Barnett MVP]

The boot records have been placed on your second hard drive. I had a similar
problem (but not with SATA) I have two hard drives, on drive 0 i dual boot
XP and Vista, on drive 1 i have a backup partition and other backup images.

While XP and Vista dual boot on drive 0 everything is fine. However, i
reformatted drive 0 and installed Vista on its own. Vista, in its infinite
wisdom, created a 10GB partition on my second hard drive (drive 1) and
installed all the boot records. When i dual booted with XP and Vista all
boot records were stored on the XP partition on drive 0.

I believe it is a BIOS problem so check to see if your BIOS had an update
(mine doesn't, even though the machine is only 2 years old). If there is no
BIOS update then the only option is to stay as you are with the boot records
on your second hard drive. Although you should only have a 10GB partition
for these files, the rest of the drive should be okay for formatting.

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows - Shell/User

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..

 

[Guest]

Hard for me to believe that there is not a way to tell windows that the boot
records is not on the correct drive. Surely you could go into the Registry
and make a change???
Irv
PS..I am running the latest available Bios

 

[John Barnes]

Go into your BIOS and change the boot order to have the Vista drive first in
boot priority (after the DVD player). You may have to do this in two
places, one to put the HD in the proper boot order and another to place the
Vista drive at the top of the HD priority.
Then insert the Vista DVD and start the install until you get to the place
where you have the repair options. Do a repair start or startup or whatever
it's called and you will be okay. Prior versions in test required as many
as 3 tries before it worked, so don't give up if the first and second tries
fail. Do the startup repair, reboot and you should be okay to format the
other drive.

 

[Guest]

Tried it four or five times to no avail. It will not take it. It keeps
showing that the Vista installation is on the D:\ Partition of the C:\ drive.
No matter what I do it will not change.
Irv

 

[John Barnes]

Try unplugging the non Vista drive and do your startup repair. Leave the
drive unplugged until you boot, or at least try a couple more times. Let us
know any error messages you get when you try to reboot after the repair
completes if it doesn't boot. (you can always plug it back in if it still
continues to fail)

 

[John Barnes]

The BIOS passes control to the MBR (in an MBR system) which locates the
proper volume boot record (active partition) to find the boot files. BCD
for Vista ntldr for NT systems.

 

[Guest]

I thought I might not have been clear enough to you so I did this to help.
Have have tried doing that, but then it does not see the windows Vista
installation and wants to reinstall.
http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k180/irvdk/CompMgrmt.jpg

Thanks for taking the time to help me.
Irv

 

[John Barnes]

Make sure to make the C partition active before trying these steps. In Disk
Management, right click and select mark the partition as active.

 

[John Barnett MVP]

John i've tried all that on my own system and it didn't work. As soon as the
second drive was plugged in again i got a no operating system found error.
Did a repair and vista put the boot records on the second hard drive.

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows - Shell/User

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..

 

[John Barnes]

He has no active partition when the first drive is removed.

 

[John Barnes]

The os can be on a logical drive or non active primary partition, but the
boot files have to be on an active partition