Installed BING after-the-fact on Acer netbook - can't boot..

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ohaya
Posts: 229
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2012 11:40 pm

Installed BING after-the-fact on Acer netbook - can't boot..

Post by ohaya »

Hi,

I have an Acer netbook, with a 160GB drive.

The original configuration had two partitions:

- Acer recovery partition (MBR-0)
- Windows XP (ACER-1)

I originally didn't install BING on the drive (I don't remember why now), but, I did use BING, booted from floppy, to change the partition size of the Acer/XP partition (ACER-1) to make it smaller, then I used BING to create two new partitions below that, so that the drive then had:


- Acer recovery partition (MBR-0)
- Windows XP (ACER-1)
- Win7 partition
- Data partition

Then, I installed Windows 7 in the Win7 partition, but it looks like what it actually did was install Windows 7 in the Win7 partition, and then add an item in the boot menu in the ACER-1 partition. At that point, I could boot into either XP or Win7, but I'd have to do so via the Windows boot menu.

Ok, so now I decided to install BING on the hard drive, so I resized the Data partition to make room for a BING partition, and then installed BING, so I have:


- Acer recovery partition (MBR-0)
- Windows XP (ACER-1)
- Win7 partition
- Data partition
- BING partition

Now, when I boot, I boot into BING, and found that there were two boot items:

MBR-0
Windows 7

If I choose to boot to the MBR-0 boot item, it boots into the Acer recovery (this is good, because I'd like to retain the ability to boot to the Acer recovery).

However, when I choose the Windows 7 boot item, I get an error saying no bootloader.

So then, in BING, I created a new boot item, "XP", with it booting to the ACER-1 partition, and the following partitions:

- Acer recovery partition (MBR-0)
- Windows XP (ACER-1)
- Win7 partition
- Data partition

Now, if I choose the "XP" boot item, I boot into the Windows boot menu, and get to choose to boot into either Windows 7 or XP ("Earlier version of Windows").

I guess that this is kind of ok. At least I can still boot into either the original Acer XP or into Windows 7. However, what I'd really like to do is to be able to "separate" the Windows XP and Windows 7 boots, so I don't have to boot through the Windows menu on the ACER-1 partition (I think that's what's happening, anyway).

In other words, I need to be able to make the Windows 7 partition bootable directly from BING.

Is it possible to do that? And, if so, how? Can I manually copy some of the files from the ACER-1 partition to the C:\ on the Windows 7 partition, like ntldr, etc. (what else)? And, if I can do that, what do I need to do in BCD Edit (on both the ACER-1 and WIndows 7 partititions)?

Thanks,
Jim
now_john
Posts: 23
Joined: Wed Aug 31, 2011 1:15 pm

Re: Installed BING after-the-fact on Acer netbook - can't bo

Post by now_john »

Hello Jim,

I think that this is the information you need. I used it recently to change windows 7 from booting to that separate partition to booting to the windows 7 partition.
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=409

The title of the article is How to Remove the Windows 7 "System Reserved" Partition.
Bob Coleman
Posts: 785
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 5:58 pm

Re: Installed BING after-the-fact on Acer netbook - can't bo

Post by Bob Coleman »

now_john wrote:Hello Jim,

I think that this is the information you need. I used it recently to change windows 7 from booting to that separate partition to booting to the windows 7 partition.
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=409

The title of the article is How to Remove the Windows 7 "System Reserved" Partition.
I doubt separating Windows 7 from XP is quite the same as getting rid of the System Reserved Partition.

It may be possible (I'm not sure) to get Win 7 files off the XP partition so Win 7 boots independently using the same method shown in the reference.

If that's possible, it will probably still be necessary to clean up the XP partition to remove the Windows boot menu unless one is willing to deal with that menu whenever booting XP. That may be as simple as removing an entry from boot.ini on the XP partition, but I'm not sure about that either.
now_john
Posts: 23
Joined: Wed Aug 31, 2011 1:15 pm

Re: Installed BING after-the-fact on Acer netbook - can't bo

Post by now_john »

This is a quotation from the knowledge base article that describes what the procedures in that article can accomplish. "Copy the Windows 7 booting files to the Windows 7 partition, apply the necessary BCD file corrections, and (optionally) remove the System Reserved partition." After you make the Windows 7 partition bootable you should be able to setup independent booting for each with BING. The boot.ini file in the XP partition would probably need to be edited otherwise you could leave the copied files in the XP partition or delete them.
ohaya
Posts: 229
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2012 11:40 pm

Re: Installed BING after-the-fact on Acer netbook - can't bo

Post by ohaya »

Hi,

I don't have a 100MG reserved partition on this system.

Also, I found this other KB article:

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=411

I've had some success, but I think it's not complete yet. Hopefully TB (David) can chime in, because I'm kind of stuck at this point.

Here's what I did.

- I kind of followed that article, copy the \Boot directory, bootsect.bak, bootmgr, ntldr, and ntdetect from the ACER-1 (XP) partition to the Win7 partition.
- I then setup a new boot item, with just the Windows 7 partition in it, and used BING BCD Edit to delete the "Earlier version of WIndows" item
- I can now boot directly into Windows 7 from BING boot menu, and I *think* that the Windows 7 partition is no longer depending on anything on the XP partiton (ACER-1).

The problem that I'm left with is booting to the XP (ACER-1) partition. It feels like that (booting to XP) is still tied to something on the Windows 7 partition.

The reason that I think that is that I left the original XP boot item in the BING Boot menu. That has, for partitions:

[0] Acer recovery
[1] ACER-1 (XP) partition
[2] Windows 7 partition

And, using this original XP boot item, I can boot, what it appears to be, directly into XP from BING.

HOWEVER, I tried creating a new "XP only" boot item, where it only has:

[0] ACER-1 (XP) partition

When I booted into that, it said it couldn't boot. I figured it was because the boot.ini on the ACER-1 partition had "partition(2)", which is the Windows 7 partition (the 3rd partition, counting from 0), so I changed the boot.ini in the ACER-1 partition to "partition(0)", since, for the "XP only" boot item, I had only the ACER-1 partition in slot 0 of the boot menu.

Then, when I tried to boot the "XP only" boot item from BING, I get an error saying that it can't find <Windows root>\system32\hal.dll !!!

I checked the ACER-1 partition, and in the <Windows>\system32\ directory, there IS a hal.dll, so I'm kind of stumped at this point, and can't understand what's going on. It almost seems like when I boot to the "XP only" boot item, it's looking for the hal.dll on the partition(s)???

Now, on the ACER-1 partition, there's apparently still a BCD (the BCD Edit still shows up in BING properties), but I thought that XP doesn't use BCD for booting (it was only used from Vista onwards??). Also, I have to admit that I don't quite understand BCD (the old boot.ini was a lot simpler), but I *did* check BCD edit on the ACER-1 partition, and that DOES look "ok", i.e., the Boot setting says "HD-0" and "ACER-1".

So, any ideas WHY, when I set up the "XP only" boot item in BING, and then adjust the boot.ini on the ACER-1 partition to "partition(0)", it can't find the hal.dll?

Should I just blow away the BCD stuff on the ACER-1 partition, and if so, how do I do that?

Thanks and hopefully TB/David will chime in!!

Jim

P.S. I think that I'm ok for now, in that I can boot XP and WIn7, but I don't like the way that this is working, i.e., it looks like if I change the relative positions of the 1st 3 partitions (Acer recover, followed by ACER-1, followed by Windows 7), something would break.
ohaya
Posts: 229
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2012 11:40 pm

Re: Installed BING after-the-fact on Acer netbook - can't bo

Post by ohaya »

Hi,

I just figured out why the "XP only" boot item wouldn't boot....

The "partition(x)" part of the Windows boot.init starts with the 1st partition as "partition(1)"!!

So, I changed the boot.ini to "partition(1)", and then was able to boot via BING into the "XP only" boot menu item.

I should have remembered that, because I think that I've been burned by that one before :(...

Ok, so now the remaining question: Does the BCD still still need to remain on the XP (ACER-1) partition at all?

And, if NOT, how to I get rid of it?

I'm hoping that the answer is "no, not needed", because it seems that if it's on the partition, then if I ever move the partition to a different relative location on the drive or in the Boot Menu item, then I'd have to adjust both the BCD and the boot.ini?

Thanks,
Jim
TeraByte Support(PP)
Posts: 1644
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 12:51 am

Re: Installed BING after-the-fact on Acer netbook - can't bo

Post by TeraByte Support(PP) »

XP doesn't normally need bootmgr or the \Boot folder (including the BCD file). If everything looks correct when you boot into XP and Windows 7 (Disk Management shows correct partition active and system), it should be fine to remove the Windows 7 booting files from the XP partition. You should be able to do this while in XP since it shouldn't have them locked.

However, before deleting the files I would make sure that XP is booting from its own files. It's possible you have XP booting from the Windows 7 files, which do use the BCD. Did you reset the boot sector code to load ntldr? If not, it's still going to be using bootmgr.
TeraByte Support
Posts: 3598
Joined: Thu May 05, 2011 10:37 pm

Re: Installed BING after-the-fact on Acer netbook - can't boot..

Post by TeraByte Support »

See http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=324




"ohaya" wrote in message news:1087@public.bootitng...

Hi,

I have an Acer netbook, with a 160GB drive.

The original configuration had two partitions:

- Acer recovery partition (MBR-0)
- Windows XP (ACER-1)

I originally didn't install BING on the drive (I don't remember why now),
but, I did use BING, booted from floppy, to change the partition size of the
Acer/XP partition (ACER-1) to make it smaller, then I used BING to create
two new partitions below that, so that the drive then had:


- Acer recovery partition (MBR-0)
- Windows XP (ACER-1)
- Win7 partition
- Data partition

Then, I installed Windows 7 in the Win7 partition, but it looks like what it
actually did was install Windows 7 in the Win7 partition, and then add an
item in the boot menu in the ACER-1 partition. At that point, I could boot
into either XP or Win7, but I'd have to do so via the Windows boot menu.

Ok, so now I decided to install BING on the hard drive, so I resized the
Data partition to make room for a BING partition, and then installed BING,
so I have:


- Acer recovery partition (MBR-0)
- Windows XP (ACER-1)
- Win7 partition
- Data partition
- BING partition

Now, when I boot, I boot into BING, and found that there were two boot
items:

MBR-0
Windows 7

If I choose to boot to the MBR-0 boot item, it boots into the Acer recovery
(this is good, because I'd like to retain the ability to boot to the Acer
recovery).

However, when I choose the Windows 7 boot item, I get an error saying no
bootloader.

So then, in BING, I created a new boot item, "XP", with it booting
to the ACER-1 partition, and the following partitions:

- Acer recovery partition (MBR-0)
- Windows XP (ACER-1)
- Win7 partition
- Data partition

Now, if I choose the "XP" boot item, I boot into the Windows boot
menu, and get to choose to boot into either Windows 7 or XP ("Earlier
version of Windows").

I guess that this is kind of ok. At least I can still boot into either the
original Acer XP or into Windows 7. However, what I'd really like to do is
to be able to "separate" the Windows XP and Windows 7 boots, so I
don't have to boot through the Windows menu on the ACER-1 partition (I think
that's what's happening, anyway).

In other words, I need to be able to make the Windows 7 partition bootable
directly from BING.

Is it possible to do that? And, if so, how? Can I manually copy some of
the files from the ACER-1 partition to the C:\ on the Windows 7 partition,
like ntldr, etc. (what else)? And, if I can do that, what do I need to do
in BCD Edit (on both the ACER-1 and WIndows 7 partititions)?

Thanks,
Jim

ohaya
Posts: 229
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2012 11:40 pm

Re: Installed BING after-the-fact on Acer netbook - can't bo

Post by ohaya »

TeraByte Support(PP) wrote:XP doesn't normally need bootmgr or the \Boot folder (including the BCD file). If everything looks correct when you boot into XP and Windows 7 (Disk Management shows correct partition active and system), it should be fine to remove the Windows 7 booting files from the XP partition. You should be able to do this while in XP since it shouldn't have them locked.

However, before deleting the files I would make sure that XP is booting from its own files. It's possible you have XP booting from the Windows 7 files, which do use the BCD. Did you reset the boot sector code to load ntldr? If not, it's still going to be using bootmgr.

Hi,

Is there a way to tell if XP is booting from the Windows 7 files or not? I guess that if I delete c:\bootmgr and c:\Boot directory, and then XP doesn't boot, that would tell me definitively that the XP is booting using the Windows 7 booting files? But is there some other, less disruptive way, of telling?

I did not "reset the boot sector code to load ntldr, at least not intentionally.

I saw your subsequent post, with the link to the KB article. Reading that, I'd need to boot into the "XP only" partition via BING (the one with only the XP/ACER-1 partition), and then run 'fixboot'. Is that right? Do I also need to run 'fixmbr'?

Also, does it matter which XP CD I boot to to run the 'fixboot'? This Acer netboot didn't come with an XP install CD. I just have a recovery CD set.

Thanks,
Jim
TeraByte Support(PP)
Posts: 1644
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 12:51 am

Re: Installed BING after-the-fact on Acer netbook - can't bo

Post by TeraByte Support(PP) »

You could look at the boot sector and find out. Otherwise, renaming bootmgr would let you know (you should get an error that it can't be found when trying to boot it).

You do not need to run fixmbr. If you ran it you would need to reactivate BING.

You should be able to use any XP CD that will let you into the Recovery Console. Note that you can also use a Vista or Windows 7 DVD or Repair Disc. Instructions can be found in this KB article (note the instructions for XP in the Additional Information section).
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