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dual boot drives - one crashed
OK, a long time ago I installed another drive in my computer so I could boot to XP (the original OS) or to Windows 7. Well, the XP drive crashed and that had the boot loader on it. I am not concerned (much) with what was on the XP drive, but it would be nice to make the Win 7 bootable now that the other drive is dead. Can I just replace the boot files on the Win 7 drive and have it boot properly? I would really, really like to avoid reinstalling all the stuff on the Win 7 drive.
So, XP boots on 320GB drive and later install 500GB drive for Win 7 and years later the 320GB drive is dead and no boot. I am assuming all the info is on the Win 7 drive but since the boot loader is on the other drive it needs replaced.
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Brent The X15 was the only aircraft I flew where I was glad the engine quit. - Milt Thompson. "Don't get so caught up in your right to dissent that you forget your obligation to contribute." Mrs. James to her son Chappie. |
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02-17-2016, 01:12 PM
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The problem I see is that the Windows registry probably has hard coded paths to the files, so if your main HD in Windows was showing as D: even after you write a loader to the boot sector it may present itself as C: instead, which will totally screw up a lot of stuff in your registry.
At least, that is what happened to me last time I did that ... but it has been 18 years since I've really done anything with windows besides wipe a drive and reinstall from scratch ... so I would hope that in half a dozen releases and countless service packs that has been "fixed". Anyway, you'll want a recovery/install disk, boot wtih it, tell it where to write the bootloader and you are good to go. |
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02-17-2016, 06:22 PM
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The Win 7 drive was the C drive and the XP was the E drive. Thanks.
__________________
Brent The X15 was the only aircraft I flew where I was glad the engine quit. - Milt Thompson. "Don't get so caught up in your right to dissent that you forget your obligation to contribute." Mrs. James to her son Chappie. |
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02-18-2016, 07:02 AM
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Then you should be good to go - just need a rescue/recovery disk to reinstall the bootloader
https://neosmart.net/wiki/recovering-windows-bootloader/ |
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02-18-2016, 07:15 AM
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Got one of those. Thanks for the link.
__________________
Brent The X15 was the only aircraft I flew where I was glad the engine quit. - Milt Thompson. "Don't get so caught up in your right to dissent that you forget your obligation to contribute." Mrs. James to her son Chappie. |
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02-18-2016, 07:23 AM
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