How to move Win7 to 1st partition ?

[Natéag]

I have installed Win7 64bit on my third (last) partition, because
I did not want to update Vista 32 bit.

Of course it works well. But still I would like to move Win7 to
the first partition, and maybe restore Vista 32 bit to the third
partition.

I have moved it : it did not work.
I restored from a Norton Ghost restore point, and it still will
not boot. Repair from the Win7 install DVD cannot fix it.

Can it be done ?

 

[Joe Morris]

I have installed Win7 64bit on my third (last) partition, because
I did not want to update Vista 32 bit.

Of course it works well. But still I would like to move Win7 to
the first partition, and maybe restore Vista 32 bit to the third
partition.

I have moved it : it did not work.
I restored from a Norton Ghost restore point, and it still will
not boot. Repair from the Win7 install DVD cannot fix it.

One of the characteristics of the NT-based systems is that their boot
control files include references to the specific slot in the MBR partition
table used to point to the boot partition.

Oddly, ImageX makes no attempt to update the boot slot information of a
Vista (and presumably Win7) system when it installs an image. The result is
that by default an image will boot only if it is pointed to from the same
partition table slot it occupied when it was built. I've never used Norton
Ghost (I do use Symantec Ghost but that's a different product) so I don't
know if the current version might take care of this housekeeping chore.

If this is your problem, try booting a WinPE system *after* installing your
Win7 image to the first partition, then run the commands:

BCDEDIT /set {default} device partition=c:
BCDEDIT /set {default} osdevice partition=c:
BCDEDIT /set {bootmgr} device partition=c:
BCDEDIT /set {ntldr} device partition=c:

Note the use of braces, not parentheses, in the commands.

No guarantees; I've not yet tested this against a WIN7 system, but it's
worked with Vista.

Joe Morris

 

[Natéag]

One of the characteristics of the NT-based systems is that their boot
control files include references to the specific slot in the MBR partition
table used to point to the boot partition.

Oddly, ImageX makes no attempt to update the boot slot information of a
Vista (and presumably Win7) system when it installs an image. The result
is that by default an image will boot only if it is pointed to from the
same partition table slot it occupied when it was built. I've never used
Norton Ghost (I do use Symantec Ghost but that's a different product) so I
don't know if the current version might take care of this housekeeping
chore.

If this is your problem, try booting a WinPE system *after* installing
your Win7 image to the first partition, then run the commands:

BCDEDIT /set {default} device partition=c:
BCDEDIT /set {default} osdevice partition=c:
BCDEDIT /set {bootmgr} device partition=c:
BCDEDIT /set {ntldr} device partition=c:

Note the use of braces, not parentheses, in the commands.

No guarantees; I've not yet tested this against a WIN7 system, but it's
worked with Vista.

Joe Morris

 

[Natéag]

One of the characteristics of the NT-based systems is that their boot
control files include references to the specific slot in the MBR partition
table used to point to the boot partition.

Oddly, ImageX makes no attempt to update the boot slot information of a
Vista (and presumably Win7) system when it installs an image. The result
is that by default an image will boot only if it is pointed to from the
same partition table slot it occupied when it was built. I've never used
Norton Ghost (I do use Symantec Ghost but that's a different product) so I
don't know if the current version might take care of this housekeeping
chore.

If this is your problem, try booting a WinPE system *after* installing
your Win7 image to the first partition, then run the commands:

BCDEDIT /set {default} device partition=c:
BCDEDIT /set {default} osdevice partition=c:
BCDEDIT /set {bootmgr} device partition=c:
BCDEDIT /set {ntldr} device partition=c:

Note the use of braces, not parentheses, in the commands.

No guarantees; I've not yet tested this against a WIN7 system, but it's
worked with Vista.

Joe Morris

I will try that on an external drive connected as Disk 0.
An alternate solution might be to start a new installation
on the first partition, just to get a bootmanager installed.

Then copy all files (except boot ones) from a Norton Ghost
Backup.

Thanks for your help.

 

[roman modic]

Hello!

Maybe free SavePart can help you (version 3.80 has just been released)

http://damien.guibouret.free.fr/en/lisezmoi.html#Chapitre_12
"In order to manage boot, Windows Vista/Seven store into a file which partitions are bootable and where they are on disk following a
way near the one used to associate a drive letter to a partition. This is similar to the way BOOT.INI works on Windows XP, but file
cannot be edited because it is binary."

http://damien.guibouret.free.fr/en/lisezmoi.html#Chapitre_11
"Windows 2000 and followings store partition position in the registry in order to preserve association between a partition and its
corresponding driver letter. Partition position is composed of two parts: disk number that is stored into MBR (4 bytes) and offset
of first byte of partition on disk (8 bytes). So if you copy a partition onto another disk (without copying MBR) or if you move the
beginning of a partition, you have to update the information in the registry for each partition that you moved for Windows to be
able to still use the same drive letter. In the case of restoring a partition which has not been moved, this is not necessary."

Cheers, Roman