Setup Installation :: Windows 8 / 7 / XP Multiboot - How To Move Partitions / Boot Sector
Jan 6, 2013
I have Windows 8,W7,Wxp working well in multiboot. But i have Windows 8 instaled in C:but it is the 2nd partition.How can i move it to first partition ?W7 and wxp are probably on the 1st D: partition.
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May 15, 2014
I have a very peculiar issue; after using various disk imaging tools such as Macrium and Paragon, my boot partitions seem to be strangely corrupted. The effects of this corruption are:
1) Plain-text boot menu instead of the new graphical boot menu,
2) Long delays before the boot menu is shown,
3) Even longer delays when doing native VHD boot, after choosing the boot entry from the menu.
I have done a lot of testing and experimentation, and on a virgin fresh installed system from the Windows 8.1 setup ISO, these symptoms do not appear. Only after I have imaged the system using the imaging tools above, do these symptoms start appearing. Unfortunately, just copying my main Windows C: partition using the same imaging tools re-creates the same issue. So I cannot rely on these partitioning tools.
I need a way - a set of commands - to re-create the boot partitions, re-initialize their BCD stores, etc. so that I can normally boot from my C: partition, as well as native VHD boot.
Needless to say, I want to avoid having to completely reinstall Windows on my C: partition, as that would be extremely time and effort prohibitive, if I only knew how to re-create and/or re-initialize just the boot partitions in question.
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Apr 3, 2014
I have (perhaps I should say had) a multi-boot system. Originally I installed my 6 Windows OS's and then installed my two favorite Linux distros. I like the ability to customize the Grub menu which Linux gives me. Unfortunately Grub did not detect all 6 of my Windows installations but one of the boot options it did detect took me back into my original Windows menu which showed all 6 of the Windows systems. So that's the setup which I have been using successfully for the past few months. (One boot menu which boots into another). Today my Windows boot menu has become unusable and probably corrupt.
At first I had the problem that I was only able to boot into Windows 8.1 (no windows menu at all). Then I used EasyBCD which I had inside Windows 8.1 At first EasyBCD indicated an inability to load any boot file at all. Subsequently after rebooting into 8.1 a few times more I tried it again. It then showed a boot menu but with only Windows 8.1 listed. I subsequently was able to use the add operating system function to add all the other Windows systems again. I then clicked save to save the new configuration. Now I do see all six Windows systems at boot but neither of them, even Windows 8.1 will boot. Where I should start to get back into one of these six Windows operating systems so that I can possible use the EasyBCD repair function to access the others. I think I had EasyBCD installed inside each Windows OS At the moment I am dependent on Linux alone for Internet access. I trust this is clear.
As nothing in Linux has changed, I assume I need to fix the problem from the Windows side of things. I do have that one option when I get into that blue Windows 8 style boot menu to "change options" I thought EasyBCD would have restored the Windows 7 style text boot menu but it did not. Other than that I have the various Windows installation disks and a Win7 repair disk as well as various full partition backups on an external hard drive. What do do about a corrupt bcd file without being inside Windows, and I don't know much about EasyBCD. Would a refresh/reset of Win 8.1 from the install disk be a good way to start? I did get the message of "files missing" when I tried to do a system recovery drive while inside Windows 8.1 today, so there are issues with that OS.
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Jan 5, 2013
I have been using Windows 7 Pro (64) for several years, and today installed a newly purchased Windows 8 Pro (64) OS. I looked on-line and found many articles on how to multi-boot back to Windows 7 after installing Windows 8, and believe I have done this correctly (more below), but when booting up I do not ever see a multi-boot menu, my system boots directly into Windows 8.
When installing Win 8, I booted from my CD/DVD drive with the Win 8 OS media in the drive. (I had previously reduced the volume of my Windows 7 drive and created a new partition that I called "Windows8". ). At the appropriate time in the Win 8 install I chose "Custom", then chose the newly created "Windows 8" partition, then proceeded with the Win 8 OS install. As mentioned above, I do not see the multi-boot menu when booting up, however when in Windows 8 I can see the Windows 7 drive in "Computer", so it was not over-written.
Startup Options - Choose a Default OS to Run at Startup in Windows 8
and am wondering if I should try Options 2 through 4 (1 of)? I build my own PCs so know something about PC's, bt not much about booting to an OS.....
Another options might be installing a third party boot manager, which I have not yet done.
my reason for getting back to Win 7 is to be able to use the PC while I learn and setup Win 8 over time. I went into this believing that getting a multi-boot capability would be very easy.
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Dec 18, 2013
I had a working multiboot setup on my Acer Aspire One ZG5, running win xp, 7, 8.1, linux. I decided to add an extra partition, and in doing the resizing lost my Grub boot loader so can no longer boot into linux, but that's not important atm. I have also messed up my windows boot loader and at the moment I can only boot into win 8.1.
Win 8.1, 7 and legacy OS (xp) show in the boot menu but when I choose to boot into either xp or 7, I am presented with the message
windows failed to start
file: /ntldr
status 0xc0000225
Previously I had the message filesystem unknown , missing NTLDR, but I ran the recovery console and that message no longer appears.
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Oct 18, 2013
I run 3 HDS. 1 SSD, and 2 normal drives.
I just clean formatted my SSD and installed Windows 8 on it, which I always put on that drive.
However I am seeing a bunch of partitions, 4 recovery partitions. Are these normal? If not, how would I get rid of them?
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Aug 3, 2013
I have 2 partitions: System Reserved (100mb) and Windows 8 (465gb). Windows 8 is marked as the system partition while system reserved is marked as Active & Boot. Is there any way I can like split windows 8, copy the files onto the new bit of unallocated space and make that partition the system partition instead of the "old" windows 8 partition?
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Oct 8, 2013
I am using the guide to install Windows 8 over two partitions and I get the error:
Windows cannot be installed to this hard disk space. The partition contains one or more dynamic volumes that are not supported for installation. I followed all the steps 100%
Found this Get the paid version of EaseUS Partition Master at discount. Magic Partition Manager Freeware for PC/Server users. Upgrade EaseUS Partition Master Free can I use this to copy partitions?
Worked it all out, the software linked above was able to convert my Dynamic drive to a Basic drive for free!
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Jun 10, 2014
I have a laptop that comes with windows 8 ..my question is can we move it to another pc?? cause i want to install Windows 8 on my desktop..
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Aug 6, 2013
I have an pre-installed Windows 8 in my notebook. When I first got the PC, I got only C:/ partition so I needed D:/ and for doing this I used EaseUS Partition Manager. This is just a guess but I guess Windows can't find those recover partitions that are in my HDD. I haven't deleted those partitions just created D:/ and here is a screenshot I just take to show you the partitions I have.
I have already tried copying the Install.wim from my BIOS_RVY partition which was about 9GB and I moved it to C:/WinRec and used this command as I saw it from internet : reagentc.exe /setosimage /path C:WinRec /target c:Windows /Index 1 But i still get the error:
"Insert media some files are missing. Your Windows installation or recovery medial will provide these files."
This method didn't worked so any other too. I wonder how can I refresh or some sort of return my notebook to the factory settings from the recovery parts I have.
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Mar 22, 2014
I'm trying to understand the licence on my Windows 8 Media. I bought Windows 8.0 last year, not an upgrade, and not with a PC.
It's got a section on installing on a PC for personal use. I want to un-install/remove from 1 PC, and install it on a New PC.
It's not clear how I achieve this.? The only 3 things it's say's I cant do:
- Use as upgrade
- Legalize a non-genuine install
- License more than 5 copies for commercial use.??
So is there a method to follow to avoid activation issues.? And it telling me this is already installed on another PC.?
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Jan 27, 2014
I recently decided to buy an ultrabook and I got me this one: LG Z360-7416, with a ssd and windows 8 (x64). As usual, it came with a lot of garbage installed which was using almost half of the ssd storage (128GB), so I decided to do a clean install. I got me a msdnaa copy of the windows 8.1 pro (x64). So, i used a pendrive to boot up on UEFI mode and selected custom install and when i get to the select partition, it shows everything fine, i select a partition and when a click on install, it returns an error saying it cannot install on my partition (i dont remember exactly what it says), and when i click on refresh, all my partitions vanishes, even going into the prompt and using diskpart doesnt show my partitions anymore. I tried to load some drivers, but it didnt work.
I was only able to install windows 7(x64), where nothing of these things happens, it installs realy easy. I tried to install windows 8 from windows 7, like an upgrade, but after it restarts, it gets stuck also. My disk is formatted on GPT, as im using EUFI on my windows 7 installation.
Tried almost a hundred times using all solutions i found online, but always the same result. And to get even more weird, some rare times it gets to the installation part, where it says the progress, but stays on 0% of unpacking files...
Its seens to be missing some especific driver to windows 8 be able to work with my ssd, but i cant get it right, but if it came installed with windows 8, it must be a way to make then work together.
Unfortunately i deleted the recovery partitions, so im stuck on windows 7.
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Mar 6, 2013
Hey, for like the 8th time now I've had to format my computer due to a blue screen error. The last error was HAL.dll missing or corrupted. My boot sector or whatever the correct name for it is, keeps getting corrupted and it will never repair, it just freezes at 2% and keeps looping. The drive I am using is the Corsair 240GB FORCE 3 SSD and I am not sure if the problem is due to SSD being bad or my motherboard being too old. I have the ASUS Striker II Extreme...
My second problem is, on my latest format, Windows 8 refuses to activate, it claims I cannot do a clean install and this is what I have been doing all the time. The other thing is that I cannot complete a Windows update, when it restarts, it says it has failed and rolls back the changes. I am not sure if this is because it wont activate but.
Now Windows has a problem with showing my real location, so I am getting the wrong weather reports and so on. One more thing I forgot to mention, I can't even check my system rating. Last time I did I check before the format my system was rated as 6.6, that was my lowest rated hardware and that was the SSD. Is that a normal score for an SSD?
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Sep 3, 2013
I have a windows 8 laptop. I bought a SSD and want to move windows to the SSD and use the HDD for media and games.
How do I do this without windows forcing me to the error page
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Jan 8, 2014
I installed Windows 8/8.1 on a system with a Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H MB. When I look at the SSD where Windows is installed I have one partition. I also installed Windows 8/8.1 on an ASRock Z77 OC Formula MB. When I look at the SSD where Windows is installed I have three partitions - 300MB (Recovery Partition), 100MB (EFI System Partition) and 111.27GB (Boot,....Partition). Why did the Windows 8 installer create three partitions on the ASRock system? I think I understand the EFI partition since the ASRock BIOS has a "Load UEFI Defaults" option. The Gigabyte MB does not have this option in the BIOS? Is that because the ASRock MB has truly implemented EFI and uses the EFI System Partition to store boot information?
Why was the Recovery Partition created? I built this system from scratch so there is not any third party involvement. If I reinstall Windows 8 using a new - never used SSD will I get the three partitions? If I format the SSD with one partition prior to Installing Windows 8 what will I get?
I not concerned about the loss of 300MB,why I got different partition configurations on fresh installs of Windows 8 on two different MB's/Systems?
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Jul 17, 2013
I'm mostly a Linux user, but I recently bought a laptop with Windows 8 on it. After a few days dual booting I decided it wasn't for me, so I decided to delete the windows partitions and usa just Linux. I would like, however, to keep the recovery partition, so to be able to easily reinstall Windows again if I felt like I needed to, but I'm not sure what partitions should I keep. Here's a picture of my hard drive partitions as of now:
Do I need more than the restore partition? Can I get rid of the boot one? What about the recovery one? And the one flagged msftres?
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Feb 10, 2013
I dual booted win 7 n 8. now i am running out of space in the drive which contains Windows 8.
Win 7 is installed on C drive and Windows 8 on D drive. How can i interchange the OS on the drive. I want to install win7 on Drive D and Windows 8 on Drive C.
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Sep 2, 2013
I've got a HDD currently using MBR that has 2 partitions.
Code: DISK 1:Partition 1 - C: (System)Partition 2 - D: (Data)
At the moment I'm using Win 8 on the MBR HDD and I would like to convert to GPT without losing data stored on partition 2. I'll be reinstalling Win 8 on partition 1 so I can take advantage of UEFI.
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Sep 15, 2014
I had a 17 GB unallocated partition. I changed it to a Primary partition. It is empty. Can I merge it with the C: partition ? Picture--- edit--- A picture---
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Jan 14, 2014
using the UEFI install instructions from this forum. I do meet all of the requirements (Windows 8 64-bit iso, ASRock Z87 Extreme4 mobo, blank SSD). When I get to Step 7 in the UEFI guide, I only get 2 partitions instead of the 4 shown(Recovery, System, MSR, Primary). I only get System and Primary. I decided to delete all partitions and just run the setup on the unallocated drive...everything worked fine. I am just wondering what the consequences are of not having those 4 partitions. I still have the UEFI interface when I boot up so it appear that is working.
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Feb 1, 2014
Why windows 7 and windows 8 introduced a limitation when using Disk Management, and is NOT possible to create more than 3 Primary Partitions? However, using DiskPart from command line it is VERY possible, no warnings or notices.
Code: C:Windowssystem32>diskpartMicrosoft DiskPart version 6.3.9600Copyright (C) 1999-2013 Microsoft Corporation.On computer: PAINKILLERDISKPART> listMicrosoft DiskPart version 6.3.9600DISK [code]....
As far as I know, there is a maximum of 4 Primary partitions on a hardisk, or 3 primary and one extended, and IN the extended partitions more that 4 logical drivers.However, from any disk utility like the old, deprecated, and buggy Partition Magic, acronis disk partition utility, gparted Linux, parted, cfdisk, fdisk, or even on the older Windows like Xp, nt, 2000, 98, me, ms-dos, freedos, I WAS ALWAYS BEEN ABLE TO CREATE 4 PRIMARY PARTITIONS, but with the new WINDOWS 7 and the new WINDOWS 8, it appears this limitation of only 3 PRIMARY PARTITIONS instead of 4. Don't know about Vista as I have skipped that version of windows on every PC that I have build or worked.
Or is working like this because of some hidden reason which I can't figure out by myself what could It be, and the only thing that I can observe is that while technology is evolving (hardware and software), we have limitations like this, to create only 3 primary instead of 4 primary while using Disk Management from administrative tools or right clicking on the computer and "manage" console.
Personally I am a little irritated/annoyed that now the disk management is having "handicap" and I can NOT find a serious reason for this idiocratic limitation. As we are "evolving" the normal path It would be more normal to be able to use more that 4 primary on a hardisk, from my point of view, not limiting to ONLY 3 Primary.
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Feb 2, 2013
I have just installed Win 8 Pro to a new SSD and have read that frequent rewritten files and folders should be moved to the HDD, Which ones are they referring to and how would I do this? When they say that frequently used applications should go on the SSD what are some examples? What about games?
120G SSD (Intel 520)
320G WD Raptor HDD
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May 29, 2014
Protecting partitions from factory reset?
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Dec 8, 2013
I've recently made a Windows 8 and a Windows 8.1 installation disc from the ISO images on MSDN. Each image includes Core/Core VL and Pro/Pro VL, 32 and 64 bit editions of each. I have the installation keys for all of these installations, but I don't want to have to type an installation key every time I go to use this disc. I've tried adding an installation key using WinReducer8 (which I do not recommend), but it only adds one key, which means I cannot choose which edition I want to install.
When I made my AIO Windows 7 ISO, I had no issues, as Windows 7 doesn't force you to add an installation or product key; you select your desired edition and you're good to go. Attached Image 1 shows what I'm referring to.
Now, however, Windows 8 has to choose your edition by the product key you enter (well played, Microsoft), and I want to find a way around this.
Win7 64 Test.pngWin8.png
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Jun 6, 2013
Need to move partition over, did a minimal image restore with my new laptop. What it does is skip the recovery partition setup. So instead of 4 partitons I have 3. The problem is the first partition is now a 401 mb unallocated partition, the second is the EFI partition, and c: drive is last. When attempting to move unallocated 401 mb to the end of drive, so I can extend it, the program I use, EaseUS partiton does not "see" the first 401 mb and intead shows 0.0 unallocated space. Because of this I cannot resize/move the partition. What other method is there to remedy the situation.
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Feb 20, 2013
I have brought a Dell Inspiron 17R SE. It came with a 1.5TB HDD With a rotating speed of 5400 RPM. As the day is passing the Laptop is becoming slow and slower. So I have thought to buy a Samsung 840 Pro 128GB SSD and install it along with my HDD. So my question is that is there any way to move all the files from my C: drive to that SSD and make that SSD as boot drive without losing all my files. Then my 1.5 TB HDD would be my data storing drive.
Samsung 840 Pro 128GB Specs - Solid State Drives MZ-7PD128 | Samsung Memory & Storage
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Jan 6, 2013
Is there a way I can go from windows 8 to windows 8 pro without doing a clean install?
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Oct 27, 2013
Recently I got my new laptop running under Windows 8.1 and was surprised with how the partitions were sized.
Here is the screenshot from the DiskManagement:
So I shrank the size of C: disk as you can see and got unallocated space. I want to attach that space to D: disk. I thought that is possible to extend recovery partition to unallocated space, then shrank recovery partition, and newly appeared unallocated then attach to D:/ disk. But failed with that.
I don't think that I really need those 900Mb and 350Mb recovery partitions and that they are useful, but it would be unwise to delete them while I don't know what are they for. Latter 20Gb recovery partition at the picture at least has the significant size to store something
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Jan 13, 2013
How to hid all the partitions in the factory installed HDD for Lenovo Y580.
This is the scenario.
Firstly, i successfully migrated all of the following partitions:
OEM/Hidden partition,
C partition: boot drive/ program files and data drive &
D partition: containing drivers
from my Lenovo factory installed HDD to the SSD and to use the SSD as the primary boot drive . Now, i plan to use the factory installed HDD as my data drive. (I am using a caddy tray for this whereby i plan to swap out the optical drive and pluck in the Lenovo factory installed HDD). However, for "safety reasons" i do not plan to re-format the entire factory installed HDD but rather to keep those partitions just in case if my SSD fails.
Hence, how do i turn all the three partitions above (in the Lenovo factory installed HDD) to become dormant? I want the computer to boot up from the existing SSD but then to treat the factory installed HDD as the data drive and not to read from any of the three partitions in the factory installed HDD.
I am planning to use EASUS as my disk partition freeware.
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Sep 15, 2014
I am having problems installing UEFI & a Error 0x80004005 with Windows 8.1 OEM saying it can't create partitions for UEFI then creating 2 partitions for MBR installation instead. This using a 400 TB, hard drive, setup with a GPT system & nothing else & ready for Windows 8.1 to create the partitions.
The first time it happened I used MiniTool Partition Wizard Professional, to delete the partitions created by Windows 8.1 & convert the MBR to GPT, then used Wipe Disk function to erase all data and set all the bits to a 1.
The only thing that I can think is upsetting the installation is that I have left the other drives in the system including 1x3 TB drive, 1x2 TB drive and a second 4 TB drive.
The 2 TB drive has "Win 7 Ultimate" installed using MBR, the 3 TB drive is empty but ready to install Windows 8.1 setup with GPT, and the other 4 TB drive has a UEFI Windows 8.1 installed but broken.
I have also tried to install UEFI Win 8.1 on the 3 TB drive but it failed with the same error code as above.
This UEFI takes a lot to get ones head around dose't it, and me being much older than I once was makes it even harder. I have tried this installation at least 3 to 4 times now and doing these "Wipe Disk Functions" every time has so far lost me 3 whole days just in wasted time.
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Mar 24, 2014
After creating a UEFI bootable USB thumb drive with Rufus (using Windows 8.1 Enterprise ISO x64), for a Dell Optiplex 3010 (configured as UEFI only, no CSM, latest firmware version, Windows 8 installed), I didn't see a USB boot option, so I tried to add one manually. Unfortunately I erased the existing boot option (boot manager) by mistake. Although there were two boot options for PXE booting, the machine will not start anymore, even when there is an active WDS server on the network.
I also see Led's 2 and 3 lighting up, meaning according to the manual 'hardware ok but bios possibly damaged/corrupt'.
I understand I cannot start the machine from a bios boot disk because of GPT partitioning, and the UEFI USB boot disk I made might be corrupt (as it didn't show up as a boot option), however I don't understand why it won't boot from the PXE network card, as these boot options are still there.
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