Boot Menu disappears after Windows 7 installation...

[Ironside65]

Let me describe briefly what led up to the problem I'm having now and then I'll describe in detail the current situation.

Briefly, the past: My PC (a 64-bit triple core system) consisted of the following two HDDs (Hard Disk 0 as D: and Hard Disk 1 as C:) with OS being Windows XP SP3 32-bit. I purchased Paragon Partition Manager 10.0 Personal and created a second partition on C: with the intentions of installing Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (the full package, not the upgrade) as a second OS in the second partition. Although this was over a month ago and I was doing this at night, I remember doing the following -- 1. I created a Paragon Recovery Disk, 2. I tried to use the "install new OS" via PPM while in XP, I kept getting the error message "Windows 7 64-bit cannot be installed while in a 32-bit environment" (or something to that effect), 3. So I rebooted the PC and installed Windows 7 64-bit from its installation disk and directed it into the second partition I had created previously. From that point on, I could never get Windows 7 to boot without it booting into XP unless I booted from the Paragon Recovery Disk and manually selected the OS to boot from. I never would get any kind of Dual Boot Menu. I tried several different resolutions but all to no effect. So within the Windows 7 OS I installed Paragon Partition Manager 10.0 64-bit and created a new partition on D: and made the first partition on D: and the two partitions on C: hidden, and reinstalled Windows 7 in the newly created partition.

Here's the current situation:

Basic Hard Disk 0
Local Disk (*) | Data (F:) | Windows 7 (C:) See detail below
216.3 GB NTFS | 176.9 GB NTFS | 72.4 GB NTFS

Basic Hard Disk 1
Local Disk (*) | Local Disk (*)
96.9 GB NTFS | 135.9 GB NTFS


Windows 7 details:
Windows 7 (C:)

Volume letter: (C:)
Volume label: Windows 7
Type: Primary
File system: NTFS
Root entries: 79494
Sectors per boot: 8
Sectors per cluster: 8

Serial number:EA2C-58EA-2C58-B375
Partition ID:0x07 NTFS
NTFS version:3.01
Total size:72.4 GB
Partition size:72.4 GB
Used space:24.9 GB
Free space:47.4 GB
Activity:Yes
Hidden state:No

Here are the details from BCDEDIT

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7600]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>bcdedit

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=C:
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {globalsettings}
default {current}
resumeobject {b6757f87-c8c5-11de-94cd-9c75b8206da2}
displayorder {current}
{b6757f8c-c8c5-11de-94cd-9c75b8206da2}
{b6757f8e-c8c5-11de-94cd-9c75b8206da2}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 20

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {current}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows 7
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence {b6757f89-c8c5-11de-94cd-9c75b8206da2}
recoveryenabled Yes
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {b6757f87-c8c5-11de-94cd-9c75b8206da2}
nx OptIn

Real-mode Boot Sector
---------------------
identifier {b6757f8c-c8c5-11de-94cd-9c75b8206da2}
device partition=C:
path \NTLDR
description Windows XP SP3

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {b6757f8e-c8c5-11de-94cd-9c75b8206da2}
device partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume5
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows 7
osdevice partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume5
systemroot \Windows

C:\Windows\system32>

Right now if I reboot the PC hangs at the display of the motherboard manufacturer and does not even make it into the POST screen. So I have to boot into the recovery disk and then take it from there. I no longer care about the dual boot option, I just want the damn thing to boot normally into Windows 7.

Any questions or suggestions or recommendations would be greatly and deeply appreciated.

Guy

[SIW2]

Hello Guy,

Please post a screenshot of the Disk Management window.


If you simply want to boot into 7:

1. Choose the 7 partition you want to keep, e.g. C

2. Boot PM cd, rt click C and Mark as active.

3. Restart and go into Bios - set the HD containing your chosen partition as FIRST in the HD boot order.

4. Boot the 7 dvd - windows loading files, select language and keyboard, Next. You get a screen saying "Install Now". Don't click that.

At the bottom of the same screen , it says "Repair My Computer" - click that.

Run Startup Repair 3 times.


Hope it helps.

[Paragon_Tommy]

If you are able to boot to Windows 7, install PM 10, mark the XP partition inactive and hide. As SIW2 mentioned, The Windows 7 Recovery CD will automatically fix your Windows 7 boot problems. Once you get Windows 7 to boot without any assistance, EasyBCD is an intuitive tool to modify your OS boot options.

[Ironside65]

Well, one is never too old to learn something;D

As was kindly suggested, I changed the order of the hard drives in the BIOS so that correct hard drive is booted from -- and after running the Windows 7 installation DVD and selecting to repair the operating system... I AM NOW BACK IN BUSINESS :-)

Also, I never knew how to use the PrtScn button on the keyboard... until now :-)

For what it's worth see the attachment.

Thanks very much to the two gentlemen who responded to my question!

[SIW2]

Thank you for posting back.

Glad it worked out for you.;D