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I have Windows XP installed on one drive, and have just installed Windows 7 on another.
I can boot into either thanks to the boot menu. However, if I unplug the XP drive, Windows 7 fails to boot. The boot menu is installed on the first drive.
The same happens if I use the bios to select the Windows 7 disk as the startup disk. I get BOOTMGR missing. I'd like to remove the old disk soon, since it won't be needed, and replace it with a larger one for storage.
When I boot into Windows 7, and run the bcdedit
command line tool, it shows that the bootmgr is on d: and windows is on c:.
So, how can I install the bootmgr on the drive with Windows 7 on it?
3Saying Windows A is on C: and Windows B is on D:. is entirely useless, note. Separate versions of Windows on the same machine can each have their own drive letters, and drive letterings are meaningless as descriptions of where the partitions are. Microsoft provides a
diskpart
tool, withlist volume
andlist partition
commands, for providing exactly this sort of information in situations like this without the confusion of drive letters. It wasn't necessary in this case, but always use the output ofdiskpart
to show a hard disc layout in future, not meaningless drive letters. – JdeBP – 2011-07-07T14:15:55.8231Well within the context of running Windows 7 that's EXACTLY what it says. If I paraphrase, let me say that Windows XP is on Drive #1 and Windows 7 is on Drive #2. There is a boot menu on Drive #1 (with xp) which lets me choose. Why on earth does Windows 7 not install a boot manager on disk #2?? – Matt Connolly – 2011-07-07T23:34:30.107