OldGuy said:
So right now I go into the BIOS and change the boot drive and I can get
to Xp or Win 7 that way. Wish I could figure out how to get that boot
menu back.
You'll be doing it from the Win7 OS side. As Win7
boot manager, would know how to work with both BCD
based OSes as well as boot.ini based ones.
EasyBCD should have known how to do this. Or, find
a recipe using bcdedit (the Microsoft tool).
BCDedit is command line based. It's fine as long
as you find the right recipe page, as it's quite
powerful, and all you need is good working examples
to do it. EasyBCD would have been easier, had it
worked.
*******
If you boot the recovery console (command prompt) from
the Windows 7 disc, there is a different tool you can use
there. Click the "Bootrec.exe options" here, to read the
details. Note the elaborate procedure to save the BCD,
in case the rebuild doesn't go well.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392
One problem with that procedure, is the backup procedure
assumes the boot files are on C:. As shipped, my Windows 7
laptop was a two partition installation, C: containing
the system files, and SYSTEM RESERVED containing the boot
files. SYSTEM RESERVED also doesn't have a drive letter. Which
would make the above references to "C:" rather comical. So be
careful not to take the instructions too literally.
The reason Windows 7 has two partitions, is in support of
BitLocker, the encryption tool. In order for Windows 7 to boot,
you can't encrypt everything. As a result, Microsoft put
the boot files on SYSTEM RESERVED. So that all of C: could
be encrypted. BitLocker is not supported on all versions
of Windows 7. If you know for a fact, you will never install
Ultimate via an Anytime Upgrade, then use BitLocker to protect
all of C:, you can "convert" Windows 7 to using a single partition.
It'll involve moving the active flag to C: (so the Microsoft
first stage know where to look). And there is also some more
command line Voodoo to complete the transition. I did the
procedure to my laptop, knowing that BitLocker is not currently
in usage, and BitLocker will never be used here.
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=409
There's really no reason to be dabbling in that, unless you
really need to free up a primary partition. But if you had applied
that in the past, and now everything was on C:, the recipe
in KB927392 would make more sense to you.
An alternative way to do BCD work would be:
1) Backup C: and SYSTEM RESERVED, with Macrium Reflect Free.
Have a Macrium emergency boot CD available, in case of
trouble.
2) Do the bootrec /rebuild from the recovery console, as
I think there is sufficient context (active flag position
plus available boot folder), for bootrec to do its job.
It's a single command, and then, cross your fingers
and reboot.
Using step 1 there, bypasses the need to cook up a means
to do the protection of BCD when repairing. The Microsoft
recipe is intended to keep files around if there is trouble.
If you back up the "critical" partitions of C: and SYSTEM RESERVED,
that's all the protection you need. Simply restore, if you
cook the thing.
And this assumes the total file content on C: is reasonable.
If you have a terabyte of music files on C:, perhaps running
a backup isn't all that clever, as it would take three to five
hours. I know some of my Windows partitions here, take ten minutes
or so to backup, so I can suggest a backup as an easy means out
of a dilemma. Some people will have a much larger partition, and
then finding room (and time) for the backup, isn't all that easy.
It's not the size of the partition that counts. If you have a
terabyte partition and 26GB of OS files total, then it's not going
to take that long to run a backup. It's if you have a terabyte
partition and it's 98% full, that'll take a while.
Paul
