Boot Menu disappears after Windows 7 installation...

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

 

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.

 

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.

 

Well, one is never too old to learn something

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!

 

Thank you for posting back.

Glad it worked out for you.