Right, whilst I realise there have been many posts on this subject my situation is slightly different. My computer originally came installed with Windows Vista 32-bit and when Widows 7 Ultimate 64-bit was released I wanted to upgrade. Obviously I had to do a custom installation as you can't simply upgrade from a 32-bit to a 64-bit system. To get around this I just installed windows 7 on my other (empty) hard drive. For a while everything worked fine and I had the option to either boot Windows Vista or Windows 7 on startup. I found that I was satisfied with Windows 7 and wanted to get rid of Vista to free up some hard drive space.
I used Paragon Partition Manager and Formatted the old Vista drive. I presumed that the system would have no trouble booting Windows 7 as the option had been there when the dual boot was available...how foolish of me. When I restarted the computer text appeared saying "no items to display". Initially I thought that the computer was just trying to boot from the clean harddrive so at the next startup I went into boot options and selected the other drive. I was then informed that "BOOT MGR" was missing and thus it couldn't load. Having misplaced the Windows 7 installation CD I ended up just reinstalling the old Vista OS. Is there any way I can get Windows 7 to boot properly again without doing a full reinstall?
P.S. After going to Computer -> Properties -> Advanced System Settings -> Advanced Tab -> Startup and Recovery Settings and clicking on the Default Operating System drop down menu only Windows Vista was present.
My system dual boots to either Windows 7 or Vista Ultimate, or, at least it is supposed to. Something happened and now the system just boots to Winodows 7 without giving me the choice to boot to either. When I use F6 I find that only Windows 7 is listed in the Operating Systems box.
New laptop has Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit. I have two business programs that won't run on a 64bit system. Partitioned the hard drive to install Vista Home Premium 32bit to create a dual boot system solely to run these two programs.Can't get Vista to load. Followed tutorial meticulously. All goes fine until the "Vista will boot for the first time" step. After this first boot, the screen returns to the "completing installation" page. However, the process dies here and the progress bar across the bottom of the screen never moves, even after an hour. Reformatted the partition and started over with same results. Multiple attempts always die after the first boot.
I have two drives (C and D) with Vista on one and Win 7 on the other (not sure if they're actual drives or partitions of a single drive, how do I tell?). I am dual booting and never use Vista. Starting to need the disk space and want to delete Vista. Is this difficult in this scenario?
I had recently installed windows 7 on my laptop running windows vista. I did not remove the existing windows vista installation, and thus win 7 was installed in a dual boot combination. Now, i want to remove vista from my laptop and use windows 7 only.The problem is that during installation, win 7 was installed on logical drive and windows vista was on the primary drive. Thus, i cannot delete/format the windows vista partition. Also I cannot transfer the boot drive to the partition containing win 7 because the vista partition is the active one.
I have dualboot XP SP3 and Vista Ultimate on my system,,and now i want to install Windows 7 over the XP OS. I wish to keep Vista with Windows 7 without reinstalling Vista.
Can I just install Windows 7 over XP , or should i be careful for MBR,or boot....
I installed Windows 7 on a partitioned harddrive with vista on the other half. After the installation i have my boot menu with:Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows vista still works but when i try and load windows 7 i get a boot error message
I have recently upgraded my win vista 32 bit to windows 7 32 bit home premium. If my comp crashes do i need a vista bootable cd or can i repair it from windows 7 cd which i purchased
I am running windows 7 and I booted into safe mode to do a sfc /scannow. I was having another small issue and thought that I would just do that to check if it would fix it. After I rebooted I got a boot menu that said that I have Windows 7 and Vista installed and I should pick which OS I wanted. This was upgraded from Vista. I picked Windows 7 and it couldn't find it. Tried again and picked Vista and it couldn't find it either. That wasn't good. I had a Vista recovery disk from Neosmart and tried that. It booted on that and detected right away that there was an issue and offered to fix it. I let it and when it rebooted, I got the Vista startup screen but it was my Windows 7 that I ended up with. It couldn't be any different because that is all that is on it.
I am assuming that because I used a Vista disk for the repair is why that happed but when I try to now use a Windows 7 recovery disk, it doesn't change back. Not that it is really important, but wondering if I can change it back. Otherwise, I guess as long as it is working, not going to worry about it.
I was wondering if it's possible to run windows 7 along with Vista (64bit). My current computer has 4 drives setup in a RAID configuration and i am wanting to add a new drive which I could run Windows 7 on.
but I only have windows 7 64. Never had Vista on the machine. Just did a clean reinstall of windows 7 from my legal FULL disk. It has activated correctly.If I choose vista it still boots to win 7..
I got an issue were i have to install windows 7.Currently i have an Dell inspiron 1721 laptop with windows vista.Problem is there is a lot of data on my machine and i dont want to format and fresh install i would like to dual boot is there a way to do this?How would you guys suggest i do this without messing up my windows vista.What programs do i need what steps do i need to take.
I like many others have a dual boot with Vista and now want to delete it. I have read other threads about using "Startup and Recovery" to remove Windows Vista from the Splash screen and then Formatting that Vista partition.
However I have also read something about Windows 7 using boot files from the Vista partition. How do I no if Windows 7 is doing this or not. I believe Windows 7 is the primary boot OS.
I have just joined this forum today because I have a couple of questions about installing Windows 7. My Gateway desktop has a 250gb harddrive which has Windows Vista SP1 installed on a 70gb C;/(active/boot) partition and a 10gbD/recovery partition and the rest of the drive is Unallocated- and this is where I intend to install Windows 7. However I don't want it to use all of the unallocated space, so during setup will I be able to limit how much space Windows 7 can use?
Yesterday I upgraded one of my computers from Windows Vista to Windows 7. After the install completed and the computer restarted, it shows the Windows 7 "Starting Windows" screen and then loaded a black screen after that, and after a long time with the harddrive light blinking, the computer restarted itself and then stuck at the same black screen again.
I tried putting the Windows 7 disk back in the computer and running startup repair, but it said it found no problems.
I find that the Windows 7 boot screen slows down the boot process on my machine. Is there a way to restore the old Vista scrolling loading bar? I know it's there as my netbook uses it.
how to fix: Boot Screen of Windows 7 that shows Windows Vista instead
I have a Netbook brand "emachines" em350 created by Acer Model Number: NAV 51 32-bit OS 1.66 Ghz Running Windows 7 SP1 160 gb of HHD Intel Atom 10.1 LED LCD 1 gb of RAM and 6 Cell of Li-ion battery
I have attached the screen shot from Disk Manager which shows how I installed Windows 7 on a machine that originally ran Vista.After I used Windows 7 I have not used Vista for over a year so I moved the Windows 7 to the start of the HDD using Partition wizard and some instructions on the web.I now want to delete all the vista files and stop the dual boot getting the PC to go straight in to Windows 7.
Tech Support Guy System Info Utility version 1.0.0.2 OS Version: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium, Service Pack 1, 32 bit Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz, x64 Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 11 Processor Count: 4 RAM: 3327 Mb Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series, 512 Mb Hard Drives: C: Total - 509906 MB, Free - 305018 MB; D: Total - 205479 MB, Free - 183636 MB; E: Total - 715401 MB, Free - 300404 MB; Motherboard: ASUSTeK Computer INC., P5Q-PRO Antivirus: Norton Internet Security, Updated and Enabled
i have a question: Can you use a Vista Ultimate disk to boot into a Windows 7 recovery partition. What i am attempting is to fix MBR in windows 7 but i don't have a Windows 7 disk and no one i know has one. My 7 wont boot at all but it should with a recovery disk. So can i use the Vista disk to boot to 7's recovery options ?
I recently installed Win 7 on a second Hard drive. Is it possible to run the programs I had installed on the Vista Hard drive? Both are HD's are still installed.
I have been running Windows Vista 64 for about 3 years off of 2 HDD's in RAID0 and I just got a 60GB SSD which I wanted to install Windows 7 on it and still be able to dual boot my Vista 64 from my RAIDED drives. And then shrink the partition on my RAIDED drives to roughly 50% and create a new partition on them for my Windows 7 install to also be able to use to install programs and files. Which I was told elsewhere is totally possible. Windows 7 Install
When installing Windows 7 on my SSD I couldn't get it to install with the SATA MODE in the BIOS set to RAID, it would say "cannot install to this disc, check if its enabled in BIOS". So I had to set it to AHCI MODE, which worked, so I unplugged every drive in my system and installed Windows 7 on the SSD like this.
So the problem is when I plug my RAIDED drives back in they will only boot when the MODE in the BIOS is set to RAID but then the Windows 7 on the SSD doesn't boot as that only boots when the MODE is set to AHCI. In my BIOS the SSD is only visible in AHCI MODE, my RAID drives are visible in both MODES but as Intel_Array in RAID MODE and as 2 seperate drives in AHCI mode.
So I am in a bit of a pickle and not sure what to do... I don't mind have to change the SATA MODE settings in the BIOS to dual boot back and forth, but will I be able to shrink and re-partition the RAID drive so Windows 7 can use them? With the MODE set to AHCI I can boot to Windows 7 from the SSD, and after installing the Intel Rapid Maxtrix Storage Controller I can access most files on the RAID array so it does detect the RAID array even when its set to AHCI but will not boot the RAID array in this MODE.
I fear the problem may be with my BIOS, Motherboard or the Storage Drivers as the RAID mode should be able to support a RAID array aswell as a stand alone drives using AHCI. But for me it seems when I enable RAID MODE, AHCI fails to work on the SSD. This could be because I installed it on the AHCI MODE but thats all I could do.
My system:
Abit IP-35 motherboard Intel Core 2 Duo E2160 4GB DDR2 2x 250GB Western Digital in RAID0 booting with VISTA 64 (for about 3 years). 1x 60GB NEW Corsair SSD with Windows 7 (64) on it. 1x 640GB Western Digital Storage drive (currently unplugged).
I have Windows 7installed on one drive and Windows Vista on another drive. When I boot up the computer it goes directly to Windows 7. It recognizes the second hard drive in Windows Explorer but it doesn't give me a choice as to which operating system to run from.
I have an HP quad core machine with OEM Vista Home Premium 32-bit installed. It has never been connected to the internet (only my home network) since I have only used it for video editing and a few other particular tasks that do not require internet access. My thinking was that by keeping it "virgin" I would maintain fast boot times and that out-of-the-box snappiness. Set it up with several specific types of software, remove everything that isn't important (like AV software), and only install things via USB when necessary. For three years I've succeeded and the box is as fast as the day I set it up. It sits sequestered in its tower still wearing its chastity belt, oblivious to the evils of the outside world.
Unfortunately my main online machine (Vista 64-bit) just suffered the indignity of a failed motherboard. It's not worth repairing. Luckily the hard drive is intact. Here is my plan of action. I'd like to know if it makes sense, if it's doable, and, if so, the best way to go about it.
I'd like to set up a dual boot system. A year ago I purchased a full Windows 7 installation using the student discount available at the time. My virgin machine is capable of handling Windows 7 64-bit, so I'd like to install that (have already downloaded the ISO and burned it to a dvd). What I want to do is throw in an entirely new hard drive and install Windows 7 64-bit on it. I would then leave the Vista 32-bit existing installation intact and untouched. I would end up with three SATA drives in the HP tower -- 1) main drive with the existing, virgin OEM Vista 32 installation, 2) brand-new drive on which I would install Windows 7 64-bit, 3) drive I pulled from my dead Vista 64-bit machine, including lots of data and settings.
I would gradually set up the Windows 7 to mirror what I was doing on the machine that just died (I still have access to all of the important settings I need on the hard drive). When I want to do my regular stuff on the net I'll use the new Windows 7 64-bit installation. When I want to do the video and photo stuff I've been doing the last three years I'll boot to the virgin Vista installation (maybe even unplugging from the net while doing so).
So, can I do this? Will I maintain the snappiness of my current setup by making sure that when I boot to the existing Vista 32 install that I stay offline? If all answers are yes, how do I do it? For example, do I just install a new hard drive and then tell the machine to boot to the dvd drive and then install Windows 7 to that new drive from there? If so, how does the dual boot part of it go (or is it automatic and I'll be asked each time I turn on the machine?)
Currently using 400GB HDD #1 working with Vista Ultimate 64Bit OS.Recently bought 500GB SATA HDD #2 installed Win 7 Pro I realize I can just set in bios to use one or the other drive, but that doesn't sound like a best way. In order to use both drives it may be best to dual boot.
I have been running windows vista home premium 64bit for some time now and had previously had it set up to dual boot with XP. I just got a windows 7 disc and thought I'd give it a try.
I reformatted the XP partition (as I was having problems and needed to reinstall anyway) and installed 7 on that partition. 7 is a great OS, very few things I don't like about it.
However, now that I was going to return to Vista to get some work done I find that I am no longer getting the option to boot to it. The boot manager does not appear when I start up my computer (tried hitting ESC at BIOS too and it doesn't give me the option for vista, only 7).
I downloaded EasyBCD and that doesnt' give me the option for Vista either, only 7.
can anyone tell me how to get back to vista? (do I have to reinstall that, will it kill 7 then).
When booted to 7 Disk Management shows the partition of 7 as C: (Boot,Page File Crash Dump, Logical Drive) and the Vista partition as D: (System, Active Primary Partition). Now I would like to remove the Vista partition and merge that to the 7 partition. I have searched around and have read many options of doing this but I can not find a definitive way of completing this.
i'm building an htpc with xbmc on my windows 7 so i'm trying to customize the boot process. I changed successfully the boot logo (win 7 one) and the boot logon screen. The problem is that my tv supports only 1280x720 res and not the 1024x768 that needs the new windows 7 boot logo, so it automatically starts with the old windows vista boot logo.Can i customize that too in win 7? If i can how can i do it? It's the same of windows vista?
I have a Dell Inspiron 15 System. It came with Windows Vista Home Basic when I purchased it 2 years back.I installed Windows 7 as a dual boot with windows vista on it(with tut from here ) and it ran very smoothly. I am happy with my dual boot system. But off late, I am facing problem of low hard disk space(as seen in SS). This is because most of programs like MS office, few games, Acrobat, Winamp etc are installed twice, one in C: (Vista) and once in D: (Win 7)Now I am very happy with 7 and want to remove Vista. Pls link me to a tutorial that can help me to remove it. I want to remove C: and E: (Vista's Recovery which came by default with system) I want to retain my existing programs, settings in win 7 as it is. Untouched. I want to merge those C and E into one.