Bubba said:
I have Vista installed on one hard drive and 7 Beta on another in my
laptop.
Using msconfig I changed the default OS in the boot order. Now my
computer
reboots continually, with no OS seletion page displayed. What can I do to
repair the OS boot selection. I installed Vista first, then booted from
DVD
to install 7. It worked fine until I changed the order of booting. Both
drives have MBR and system files. Do I need to remove one drive and
rewrite
the booth files? I really don't want to re-install again.
Hey Bubba--
I don't think you need to reinstall, but I think you need to try to repair
the boot loader that should not have gotten damaged, but somehow has
apparently gotten damaged on both OS's.
The preferred way to change the default OS in a multi boot situation when
Vista and Win 7 are in the picture is not to use msconfig. That worked well
enough during the day of XP and boot.ini tab when they were in XP.
With the dual boot setup you had, the way to have done it was:
Windows + Pause Break keys at the same time>advanced system
settings>settings button under Startup and Recovery>Under System Startup
Click the OS you want to be the default OS when you turn on or restart your
PC.
To be able to choose which operating system to use when you turn on your
computer, make sure the "Time to display list of operating systems check box
is selected", (the one on the top) and then click the number of seconds that
you want the list of available operating systems displayed before the
default operating system starts automatically.
If you have the Vista DVD from MSFT boot from it, and if you don't use the
link below to download the .iso for startup repair and burn it to a disk.
Download Vista Repair Disk
http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/windows-vista-recovery-disc-download/
When you boot from the Vista disk or the repair disk you've made, select
"repair my computer" in the lower left corner of the box>first select one OS
after it scans and finds them>repair options>select command prompt and run
these 3 command switches:
The menu I refer to is in this set of directions with a grey background.
http://vistahomepremium.windowsreinstall.com/repairstartup/repairstartup.htm
Those are:
bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /rebuild BCD
Then repeat these steps only this time select the other OS and run the 3
bootrec switches. Then restart and both boots should appear with the word
(recovered) in parentheses when you restart or turn on your PC.
Use the method I gave you above if you want to change the boot order, not
msconfig.
Good luck,
CH
