[carnageX]

I believe you would have to repair the Vista bootloader. Can be done via the Vista DVD.

[Mak213]

Originally Posted by carnageX

I believe you would have to repair the Vista bootloader. Can be done via the Vista DVD.

This is true. Once Windows 7 is installed it becomes the new Boot drive/Partition and takes that priority away from Vista. At that point you would have to set Vista back to being the boot drive and repair the boot loader.

While it can be done it isnt the easiest thing in the world. Trotter knows. I helped him fix it on his PC.

[Hampton]

yep messing about with the main boot partitin will mes everything up.
primary is primary and everything else is secondary.

[Mak213]

That isnt true. Yes it will mess everything up but it can be fixed. I know more than enough tricks. I got Trotter's system fixed in about 5 minutes. If a system just loses the boot information it isnt that hard to fix. The truth is below.

Cause Vista should be the primary. As it was the only OS on there at the time. If you installed Vista after XP, XP would still be the primary boot drive. If you installed XP after Vista, Vista would be the primary still.

It is only Win7 that takes the boot priority away from any other Windows OS.

So saying that primary is primary doesnt hold true cause Win7 stole it from Vista.

[Hampton]

when ever you instal multi OS's the last installed becomes the main boot choice by default unless you use EasyBCD to change it.

partition 0 is always wher your boot loaders will make their home, so no matter what order or which OS you install it is always the primary boot partition. all other boot partitions are secondary. unless you change them around in the BIOS. yes you can write over your primary drive/partitiion but it is not as easy to fix in Vista or 7 as it is in XP.

[mikee]

can you remove windows 7 from the bootloader with easy bcd? my computer didn't come with a vista dvd

[carnageX]

Yes you can change the bootloader with EasyBCD.

[Trotter]

Vista stole primary away from XP, then Win7 stole it from Vista. Those OS's ain't nothing but a bunch of thieves. But we did get it straightened out... finally.

[Mak213]

Originally Posted by Hampton

when ever you instal multi OS's the last installed becomes the main boot choice by default unless you use EasyBCD to change it.

partition 0 is always wher your boot loaders will make their home, so no matter what order or which OS you install it is always the primary boot partition. all other boot partitions are secondary. unless you change them around in the BIOS. yes you can write over your primary drive/partitiion but it is not as easy to fix in Vista or 7 as it is in XP.

I am sorry to say but that information is all wrong. If that was the case then why is my boot located on the 3rd partition of my drive?



XP is partition 1. According to your statement that should be the System Active Drive along with the boot drive. Yet i see my Win7 drive being the Boot drive. Hoe can that be if the first partition on the drive is the boot drive?

As i had said and will say again. Windows 7 takes the boot priority. It stores it on whatever drive/partition that Windows 7 is on. If you remove Windows 7 you lose you boot cause that is where the NTLDR, NTDETECT files are pointing to in order to boot.

The fix is much more simple as well. It is even easier than XP in fact. From Windows 7 before you go to remove the install, go into disk Management and set the drive/partition you want to boot to as the System Active drive. This is how XP, Vista and all older versions of Windows distinguish who has the boot files. Then you go into the root of that drive/partition. Make sure all system files, including system protected files are showing. Make sure you locate the NTLDR, NTDETECT, boot.ini files and the Boot folder. These are the boot files.

Then restart. The system might throw a error which is a easy fix with a simple automated fix with the Vista DVD. Dont even need to type anything.

Instructions for that are located here. Along with a download to a Recovery CD for this purpose. How do i know all this to be true?

I have been a member of the site that created EasyBCD since 2006 and i have tested and helped with the building of every version of it. Including the new Beta that is out now. I have been testing that since it started and been giving input on what is wrong and what to fix with it the whole time.

I have gotten very intimate with the boot process. From figuring out how the XP bootloader works, to the Vista bootloader to the new Win7 bootloader and how to make GRUB and various other boot loaders work with the BCD. 3 years of working on that site and working with this project have given me some very useful knowledge.

The Boot drive/partition can be any drive/partition you want. Windows designates it by the System Active Drive in Vista and before. Win7 now gives it the Boot designation. Even with GParted you can right click any drive and select Flag. There you will see the boot option to mark that partition as the boot partition where the boot files will be stored. Even with Linux like Ubuntu you can select where the GRUB files will be stored. So it is not at all limited to just the first partition on the first drive. Technically my OS drive, is my 2nd drive in my system. It only shows as the first cause Windows is located on it.

[UA_Iron]

I simply installed VistaBootPro on my windows7 partition and it made it a snap. Set the first boot order back to XP, cut the time down to three seconds and it was cake. That didnt answer the original question though.