Windows 7 is not as smart as it thinks it is.

[MinisterofDOOM]

I've been running Windows 7 for a couple weeks now. I initially just upgraded my Vista install. Today I decided to stick a 250GB hard drive I'm not using in the computer and start over with a fresh Windows install on a dedicated drive (before, Windows was on a partition of a 1TB drive, which I didn't like).

At first, it seemed crazy easy. Pop in the Windows updgrade disc (in windows) and tell it to install a fresh copy of Windows on the "new" drive. Cake. Windows even has an easy transfer program that lets you save your winblows settings and documents with your profile and import them to another computer (or windows install). THAT was cake.

Once I had backed up everything important, I started formatting drives left and right. At this point I had 3 physical hard drives and FIVE partition virtual drives. I formatted this, formatted that, and removed all partitions.

That's when it went really wrong. When I tried to format the partition with the original windows install, Windows refused to do it. I removed the partition, which was still an improvement, leaving me with 1 chunk of 950GB instead of two small drives. But I couldn't get rid of the old Windows.

Compounding this was McAfee, which was being REALLY stupid. I was trying to install the free suite that comes with comcast. It failed to install, because it saw the old install on the old Windows install. Even after uninstalling that it wouldn't work. Just wanting to get my PC secure, I tried formatting the old windows directory (which I kind of still wanted around for a bit longer to make sure I didn't lose any important settings) but Windows could not format it, even though I was running the OTHER windows install.

After downloading some supplemental programs from mcafee (one that cleans up ALL traces of previous installs, and one that clears temp files that might interfere with a new install) I got mcafee to work. Great, now I felt comfortable. I moved on to installing Firefox and itunes, to get those out of the way. Then I installed my nVidia drivers. Smooth as silk. At that point, I restarted the computer to complete the driver install.

That's when I got the crap scared out of me. Things were not fine, now, they were WORSE.

Windows did NOT make installing multiple instances of itself as easy as it appeared. Keep in mind, now, that I had been dual booting back and forth between two installs of windows 7 for a couple hours getting things set up, transferring settings, etc. But suddenly, after installing my nVidia drivers (which was unrelated AFAIK) the computer refused to boot.

It could not detect any devices to boot to. I played in the BIOS, no problems there, everything should be fine. I figured it had to be a Winblows issue, so I put my upgrade disc in the drive and force-booted to DVD. Bingo. Windows repair detected a boot error and repaired it.

Except it didn't repair it. When I rebooted again, I got a NEW boot failure message, this time it said "bootmgr missing, press ctrl+alt+del to reboot".Uh...s***?

Fortunately, ANOTHER go through Windows Repair corrected this issue. What happened? It's actually very simple. But I'm, still not why it happened.

When you install multiple versions of Windows (Vista and 7 particularly, from what I gather) windows is unintelligent as far as the bootmgr file. Bootmgr tells the machine what to do for Windows boots. It's the program that allows you to multiboot windows, and lets you select which and how to boot. Well, with the PC looking for it on the ORIGINAL Windows drive, and Windows existing on a DIFFERENT drive, things don't work.

That's where I get confused, though. Windows said it was NOT successfully formatting the old windows install partition. So that version of windows should have been working fine. But suddenly (several reboots after format attempts) it disappeared. All data except an empty Windows folder was gone. So the machine was trying to boot to a Windows install that wasn't there. The 2nd Windows Repair procedure corrected the bootmanager error. Things have been smooth running since then.

So, if you want cliffs notes:If you intend to take advantage of dual booting to ease the transition from an upgrade to a clean install of Windows 7, DO NOT be tempted. It introduces more problems than it solves. Just build yourself a Windows Easy Transfer file and back up your stuff like normal. That way you won't run into any irritating boot issues once the original Windows install is removed.

Now I have 1.5TB of data physically separate from my Windows install, which makes me happy. Too bad I have to install all my games again. But no big deal. Fresh installs of everything means everything will run very nicely.

[RCA]

Wow, I wouldn't know where to start if I got into the sh*t you found your self in. I will make sure to relay the info to my tech head friends.

[marlin29311]

This is what happens when you get fancy with computers

Lol.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Almost. This is what happens when you get fancy computers and are never satisfied with how they are. I needz moar gig.

[szh]

Moral: save everything away on an external USB drive, and install Windows 7 from scratch - fresh on a freshly formatted drive! To cleanly format a drive, I use an external DOS-based program ... avoid any OS issue getting in the way.

Then, bring the files back from the external USB drive, and re-install the applications.

This is the only way I have found to effectively avoid problems.

Also, I have a neat little USB drive "case" where all you have to do is just insert a drive into a slot in the top ... allows me to "change" drives in a heartbeat. Made by NexStar - it is called a "Hard Drive Dock". This makes the process a lot simpler.

Z

[MinisterofDOOM]

Yes, exactly.

[dangeris]

Good to know....My buddy just gave me a copy of Windows 7 admin version that requires no key. He's been running it for a couple of weeks now with no issues on updating. I'll be installing this within the next month as a fresh install to avoid problems and headaches (haha..famous last words) MOD,..how many gigs of RAM are you running?

[MinisterofDOOM]

Don't forget that you can install Windows Easy Transfer on older versions of Windows to simplify things. Made transferring my music library and gamesaves (which are generally housed in the windows user folders these days) MUCH simpler.

I'm running 9GB of RAM. Although Windows 7 is using around half a gig less memory at idle than Vista did, I'm still disappointed to see memory usage hovering around 1800 megs with just Firefox and my Windows gadgets running. With 9GB, that's not a huge issue, but it really has to suck for people with 4 gigs or less.

The new taskbar pin feature is a really slick upgrade from quick-launch. A lot of shortcuts incorporate advanced controls...for instance, if you have itunes running, just mousing over its taskbar icon brings up media controls below the live window preview. And windows is able to integrate progress bars into the taskbar icons...for instance, when downloading games through Steam, the steam taskbar icon will show a green progress bar filling from left to right. A neat little touch that's really convenient.

Unfortunately, not all programs fully support quick-launch, yet. Steam's the only one I've seen that uses the progress bar dealie, and a lot of other programs don't properly combine the launch icon with the window button (in older windows versions, every open window has a task bar button, of course...in windows 7 those taskbar buttons combine with the launch icon buttons to conserve taskbar space. But itunes, for instance, refuses to do that...the window button remains separate, and it's kind of annoying).

[otterman]

Almost. This is what happens when you get fancy computers and are never satisfied with how they are. I needz moar gig.

[s0m3th1ngAZ]

I just got a free copy of 7 from my brother....not to crap on your thread...but anything I should be aware of or any tips about upgrading from Vista?Can I expect a smooth upgrade from 32-bit to 64-bit?Will I need to reinstall anything?Yeah....

[MinisterofDOOM]

You can't upgrade from 32 bit to 64 bit. You will have to do a clean install. So depending on how your programs are installed, you may have to reinstall everything. You'll need to format the windows drive and install from scratch.

BUT depending on the version you have, the disc may include both versions. Retail versions have both on one disc, so you CAN upgrade to Win7 32 bit if that's the case. The free version I got from Asus is 64 bit only.

But the Windows Easy Transfer thing I mentioned will help with some things (media library, certain program settings, most saves for more recent games, most windows settings, etc.). You need to install Easy Transfer on the Vista machine and have it compile an easy transfer file, then save it somewhere safe (not the window drive you'll be formatting, obviously). Then once Win7 is running you can boot up Easy Transfer and import everything. The easy transfer files can get big, though (mine was over 80GB!) so you may have to have a second hard drive in order to carry over EVERYTHING the service supports. And they take a while to build, too.

[s0m3th1ngAZ]

Well f*** then... That's no good...though I guess it will have to work.Wish me luck!Im getting the copy from my brother's school program...home premium 64 bit upgrade for 30 bucks.

[otterman]

I'm so glad I did everything the old school way. Just put all the files I wanted to keep (pics, game saves, docs, etc) on a second hhd then reformatted my OS hhd with Windows7 64bit.

BAM LIKE A BRAND NEW COMPUTER!

[gatzze]

Don't forget that you can install Windows Easy Transfer on older versions of Windows to simplify things.

[PoorManQ45]

Where you went wrong was laying two BCDs down...

That's the only thing I can figure happened is that the second install took over and didn't properly implement the original install, or left the original install's BCD active...