How the hell do you move the Windows 7 x64 boot partition....

[roughiain]

Hi, All

Hope you can help me, i need to move the silly 200mb partition that windows 7 uses for booting from my c: drive to my d:

All the rest of my OS files are on the d:

Don't know why the windows installer did not put the boot partition on the d: as that was the drive it was installed on.

The reason for this is my c: drive is dying a slow painful death from bad sectors.

It is an old IDE drive.

I have googled and the common answer seems to be run the recovery software on the Win 7 dvd. I have tried this and it tells me it can't fix this error report it to Microsoft.

The only other option I have is to re-install the whole system and that is not something i really have time to do.

So hope you can give me some suggestions.

 

[LazyLion]

Um, if it is dying why do you keep it as drive c: ???

 

[kilobits]

Maybe the link below can help...

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/SwitchingMyWindows7BootDiskFromDToCWithBCDBootRatherThanBCDEdit.aspx

Approach 2: Copy the Hidden/System Boot Manager and Boot Folder over to the C: drive and run a tool called BCDEdit to move things around in 12 short steps.

This was a scary prospect for me, because from my point of view, while this was a fairly advanced operation, I just wanted to switch where the boot info comes from.

Turns out there is a new (profoundly advanced, you have been warned) command line tool called BCDBoot.
This means that I could type this from an Administrator Command Prompt:

bcdboot c:\windows /s c:

And BCDBoot would basically re-gen the BCD stuff I needed on the C: drive given what it knows about the C:\Windows install.

I ran it, and rebooted. I immediately went into the BIOS and changed the Boot Order so that my 300 GIG C: faster drive (the one I thought I was booting off of all the time) was my startup drive.

Now, Disk Management shows that C:\ is both System and Boot and all is right with the world.

EDIT: You can also try disconnecting the failing drive... and rebooting off the Windows 7 DVD / Repair Disk. The option to repair should fix this too.

 

[roughiain]

i have to keep it so the machine boots, if i disconnect it, windows will not boot

 

[roughiain]

@kilobitsperyear

That link looks killer have just run it cross fingers it works, going to shutdown unplug the crap drive and try

 

[kilobits]

Hope it helps.

I would try disconnecting the failing drive first though, and booting off the DVD to attempt a boot repair 1st. It has worked for me in the past.

Another more complicated method would be too resize the D: drive and create a 200mb partition that you can then ghost the original 200mb partition onto !

* grin *

Sometimes taking things to the brink of disaster and reviving them gives me a sense of accomplishment and extreme relief!

@kilobitsperyear

That link looks killer have just run it cross fingers it works, going to shutdown unplug the crap drive and try

 

[roughiain]

still looking for that crappy partition ;(

 

[roughiain]

@kilobitsperyear what software did you use to ghost the partition

 

[kilobits]

I used Macrium Reflect to create an image of the partition. This image can then be used to recreate it.

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp

It is free and works great. There are other alternatives such as live-booting linux cd's and Norton's ghost.... but Macrium is free and works within Windows even while you are using it.

I would still try the other 2 methods before fiddling with resizing partitions and cloning images etc.

@kilobitsperyear what software did you use to ghost the partition

 

[kilobits]

You will also have to set the D: drive as active as well in order to allow it to be bootable once the failing C:drive has been removed...

Use Repair Your Computer from Windows 7 or Vista DVD

How to make NTFS, FAT32 or FAT partition Active using Repair Your Computer

Running "Repair your computer" after booting from the Win7/Vista DVD will not alter the Active location. Selecting Startup Repair on a second repair run still does not alter the Active location.

However the second run will add the required boot files (including bootmgr and Boot folder) to the currently Active partition and will boot Win7/Vista from that partition! That's not very satisfactory but at least you can now boot to Win7/Vista and use Disk Management to make the correct partition Active again, and then you're fine.
Bootup any Windows 7/Vista installation DVD or even from NeoSmart's free Windows 7 System Recovery Disk.
It must be a 64-bit version if a 64-bit Windows is installed.
Press a key when you see Press any key to boot from a CD or DVD.
Select your Language and then Time....
Select Repair your computer (bottom left of the Install now screen).
An automatic check of your system will run.
Click Repair and restart
Bootup from the Windows 7 installation DVD again
Select Repair your computer again.
In System Recovery Options, select Windows 7/Vista, and click Next.
Click Startup Repair.
Click Finish when it's complete, and then Restart.
Windows 7/Vista should boot normally.
Open Disk Management in Windows 7/Vista (right-click Computer, select Manage, click Disk Management).
Right-click the Primary partition you wish to mark as Active,
and select Mark Partition as Active. Read the warning and click Yes to confirm your alteration.
Restart computer.

 

[roughiain]

Well did some more playing around with bcdboot and somehow got it to work. Special thanks to @kilobitsperyear.

This is were a rep system would would be great..... I know some people are against it but for times like this it would be great to be able to give something more than thanks and less than $$