nerd alert

[polyal]

prob for the nerds
SCENARIO:
i have xp on a 20g partition (C) and data on a 270g partition (D) [ disc 0 ]
i introduce a 40g drive and install win 7 [ disc 1 ] with disc 0 disconnected
when i turn on it boots into win7 no prob
if i then connect disc 0 . . it reports bootmgr missing ???
if i disconnect disc 0 it boots normally
if i format partition (C)[ disc 0 ] it reports ‘bootmgr missing ???’
if i delete the partition (C)[ disc 0 ] it boots into win7 no prob

the issue is sorted but why this behaviour

[Bruce]

disc 0 has XP, disc 1 has Win7.
with only disc 0, PC boots to XP fine.
with only disc 1, PC boots to Win7 fine.

correct?

[Bruce]

@polyal - do you want to keep your thread for this issue active on Bleeping Computer as well?
most forums, this one included, get a bit twitchy with this issue.

[polyal]

disc 0 has XP, disc 1 has Win7.
with only disc 0, PC boots to XP fine.
with only disc 1, PC boots to Win7 fine.

correct?

quote " disc 0 has XP, disc 1 has Win7. " . . . disc 0 was FORMATTED AND BLANK (no XP) . . .disc 1 has win7 ( which was installed with no other HD’s installed
quote " with only disc 0, PC boots to XP fine. " . . . disc 0 was FORMATTED AND BLANK (no XP)
quote "with only disc 1, PC boots to Win7 fine. " . . . correct . .

disc1 wouldn’t boot into win7 with disc 0 connected until i DELETED the original xp PARTITION ?? ( which was FORMATTED AND BLANK (no XP)
(bootmng missing error )

[Bruce]

was it a low-level format or a quick format?

with disc 0 connected, and Win7 (from disc 1) not booting, would suggest some boot record was still being detected on disc 0 or the BIOS still had disc 0 as the primary boot device.

[polyal]

was it a low-level format or a quick format?

with disc 0 connected, and Win7 (from disc 1) not booting, would suggest some boot record was still being detected on disc 0 or the BIOS still had disc 0 as the primary boot device.

it was a normal format via the win7 installation disc ( not low level )
the puzzling thing for me is ’ win7 was installed on disc 1 with no other drives connected ’

• booted normally until disc 0 was connected with its formatted partition ( i had to completely remove the partition
  to ba able to boot with both drives connected so i could access my data on the ’ 2nd ’ partition of disc 0

the bios was configured to boot from disc1 throughout

[Bruce]

maybe I’m missing something with the timings, but if disc 0 was formatted, how did you then still get to data on any other partition of disc 0?

which to me proves that the GPT or MBR record was still lingering on disc 0.

[polyal]

maybe I’m missing something with the timings, but if disc 0 was formatted, how did you then still get to data on any other partition of disc 0?

which to me proves that the GPT or MBR record was still lingering on disc 0.

disc 0 originally had 2 partitions . . 20gig for the operating system (xp) and . . 250g for data ( extended partition )
the 20gig partition was formatted and finally deleted ( not the HD ) which left the 250gig partition intact and can be
accessed . . .disc 0 has 20gig of unused space at this moment in time

[Bruce]

OK, makes sense now.
unless the drive is formatted, its boot record would still be intact.

[Bruce]

@polyal - still need help?

[polyal]

Dont need help . . .it was just a pc anomaly i’ve not seen before
regards

[Bruce]

all good. (y)