Cloned dual boot system

BOAC · 17th Jul 2012, 14:13

I have a new 500GB drive onto which I have cloned (XXClone) the C and D (xp) drive. Win7 is on E, a separate drive.

I now have a working system but it only presents the XP boot.ini, and there is no sign of the BCD menu for "win7/Earlier version".

I have Easybcd and the Win7 DVD. How do I get it to present the bcd menu instead of just boot.ini?

Milo Minderbinder · 17th Jul 2012, 19:49

what happens if you set the machine to boot from e: ?

BOAC · 17th Jul 2012, 21:30

Will try tomorrow

BOAC · 18th Jul 2012, 07:11

Nope - cannot find any 'boots made for walking'.

I am at present 'back' on the old drives, C (various bits), D (XP) and E (W7). Bcd works normally.

Some history:

Over the many years, from DOS through 3.11, 95, 98, 2000 and XP, drives have been transferred, cloned etc (mobos and processors changed etc). I have always retained, be it right or wrong, the C as the 'boot' drive, with dual and even triple boots set up at times.

Currently I have XP and W7. With XP, boot.ini on C was always called. After 7 went in, bcd took over. After this clone only boot.ini appears.

It would help to understand where bcd 'hides' and how it is called, I think, and I might be able to sort this. It sits in C/boot. When I examine it in EasyBCD it has the correct parameters, it just is not called.

Milo Minderbinder · 18th Jul 2012, 08:04

have a read of this

How to use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment to troubleshoot and repair startup issues in Windows

green granite · 18th Jul 2012, 08:49

It's a good Idea to keep a hard copy of the recovery console commands and their usage so when you need to use it you don't need another m/c to search for them.

BOAC · 18th Jul 2012, 08:52

That looks like the way in - thanks. I need to keep going (today) in the old system though.

BOAC · 23rd Jul 2012, 12:55

Wow! Eventually found a gap in the 'need the puter' all the time and ran the 7 repair. It ran 'Start up Repair' and did nothing. Bootrec.exe likewise. Wrestled that lot to the ground. Eventually, losing hair, I deleted all bcd entries , but can only boot into 7.........It appears that 7 then needed to load 'drivers' for my new drive (500 replacing 2x160) and after it did that it kindly changed ALL my drive numbers and letters and inserted a new partition (unlettered) on the 500gb drive which 'turned out' to actually be the C partition, making the third partition D! I spent a while resetting drive letters.

Eventually with easybcd I got back to the land of the living. Not an experience I would willingly repeat!

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