Multi boot problem 2x win7 and OSX

[northwinds]

Hi all
Been a while since I posted on here, but run into another problem that I can't remember how to fix so hoping some of you people can help motivate my grey cells again!

Anyway, for various reasons I decided to change my multiboot system where I had OSX and Win7 (Video) on one SSD and another Win7 (Audio) and Win8 on a second SSD.

Basically decided I didn't need Win8 on this system so decided to pull that off so I could have both Win7's on the second SSD and therefore allow me to expand my OSX partition on the first.

Had a bit of a problem with my backup systems and a windows problem I couldn't resolve so ended up doing a fresh install of Windows 7 Pro for my Audio (I'll refer to it as win7Audio from now) at the beginning of SSD2 and then restored win7Video to the same disk afterwards.
All this I ended up doing with SSD1 (OSX) unplugged.

Anyway had to run a win7 repair to get win7Video to work but all good - I thought!

I plug ssd1 back in and boot into osx - great!
Chimera now has entries for win7Audio and Win7Video, but....... and this is the problem..... they won't boot now.

In fact regardless of which entry I choose in Chimera, I seem to get the old windows boot menu including the now non existant Windows8.

Having had a lot of help previously from racerrehabman and his excellent "Guide to Installing Windows 7, Windows 8, Mac OS X Lion, and Ubuntu Multi-Boot" I had a look there and (after unplugging SSD1) booted back into win7Video and ran "bcdedit /store c:\Boot\BCD" and basically got the old settings including Windows 8.

However, when I then booted back into win7Audio (remember, a fresh install) the same command comes back with "The boot configuration data store could not be opened. The system cannot find the file specified"

Now, checking in Computer Management I see (since the fresh install of win7Audio) that I also have a "System Reserved" partition at the beginning of SSD2.

I'm guessing I need to maybe copy the boot info from the "System Reserved" partition to both win7audio and win7video and (maybe???) then delete the "System Reserved" partition??????

would this work with Chimera?

If so can someone please remind me/enlighten me how to do this?
1)the "System Reserved" partition has no drive letter - do I need to assign one?
2)how do I then copy the boot settings and ....
3) ...to where? -as win7audio doesn't seem to have a boot store/manager/whatever on it's partition...and....
4) do I just copy the same settings to the win7video boot store/manager/whatever???


I'll just add that the reason I have a win7audio and a win7video is that I have protools (that I just paid yet another upgrade for!) on there and it doesn't play nicely being on the same drive as some of my video editing software.

Also I need to get this sorted asap as I've had this system that usually sits tidily under a desk in the middle of the front room for days now (as a result for the need to unplug/replug drives) and it's not impressing the girlfriend!

Cheers for all feedback/help!

 

[Going Bald]

System Reserved is the icon you use to boot Win7 if you did not preformat the drive and force the boot files to be installed in C partition.
If you select system reserved at the Chimera icon and boot it, and get the Win7 boot screen asking which one you want to boot, you are good to go. If you don't get a choice, you have to edit the BCD of the freshly installed Win7 to include the restored Win7 in the pick list when you boot the Win7 drive.

 

[northwinds]

Yes! Now I see - many thanks, GB!
Just one question, as there is no BCD on the new Win7Audio, how do I create one to copy the entries from the System Reserved partition?
Many thanks!

 

[Going Bald]

Yes! Now I see - many thanks, GB!
Just one question, as there is no BCD on the new Win7Audio, how do I create one to copy the entries from the System Reserved partition?
Many thanks!

??? From your description, Win7Audio was fresh install with System Reserved partition. Boot files are in the SR partition. Since you had Win7Video on a hybrid GPT+/MBR with OSX, its BCD should be on the C partition.

Post a pic of your Chimera selection screen. You should be seeing icons for OS X, System Reserved, NTFS and NTFS. To distinguish NTFS, boot the System Reserved and see which Win7 this is booting. Then click on the explore folder in the command bar, right click on the C partition, select Properties. In the properties menu at the top on the General screen on the left is a drive icon with a text box to the right of it. If you have booted Win7Audio with the System Reserved, type Win7Audio in the box to name this partition. Reboot.

You should now see an OS X icon, a System Reserved icon, a Win7Audio icon and a NTFS icon. Selecting the NTFS icon should boot to the Win7Video. Name it same way as you did the audio and you won't have any more confusion as to which NTFS is which.

 

[northwinds]

Thanks GB!
Great advice, and pretty sure I'm nearly there, although.......

I'm having problems with bcdedit when in win7Video

I do a bcdedit /store c:\Boot\BCD
and I get exactly what I expect:



Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=C:
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-us
inherit {globalsettings}
default {default}
resumeobject {a023d069-8209-11e3-92b6-6cf049b225b0}
displayorder {default}
{4050d406-f370-11e2-9383-d2d32f451805}
{b94f0d80-135f-11e3-b413-9657374d2f05}
{b94f0d81-135f-11e3-b413-9657374d2f05}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 30


Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {default}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows 7
locale en-us
inherit {bootloadersettings}
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {a023d069-8209-11e3-92b6-6cf049b225b0}
nx OptIn
detecthal Yes


Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {4050d406-f370-11e2-9383-d2d32f451805}
device unknown
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows 7 Professional (recovered)
locale en-US
recoverysequence {4050d407-f370-11e2-9383-d2d32f451805}
recoveryenabled Yes
testsigning No
osdevice unknown
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {2b4229c5-f325-11e2-9e56-806e6f6e6963}


Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {b94f0d80-135f-11e3-b413-9657374d2f05}
device unknown
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows 7 Professional (recovered)
locale en-US
testsigning No
osdevice unknown
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {6883fa4d-1314-11e3-a66d-806e6f6e6963}


Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {b94f0d81-135f-11e3-b413-9657374d2f05}
device unknown
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows 8 Pro (recovered)
locale en-US
osdevice unknown
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {08535bcb-133b-11e3-beba-806e6f6e6963}

but then I try to remove the last entry (the old non existant win8) and this happens:

C:\Windows\system32>bcdedit /delete {b94f0d81-135f-11e3-b413-9657374d2f05}
The boot configuration data store could not be opened.
The requested system device cannot be found.

Any idea what I'm doing wrong here?

Thanks again!

C:\Windows\system32>bcdedit /store c:\Boot\BCD

 

[northwinds]

Hah! Actually figured it out by myself in the end!

Although with referring back to racerrehabman's
excellent "Guide to Installing Windows 7, Windows 8, Mac OS X Lion, and Ubuntu Multi-Boot" again I realised I neede to use:
bcdedit /store d:\Boot\BCD /delete {b94f0d81-135f-11e3-b413-9657374d2f05} /cleanup
instead.
Now it's all sorted and working exactly how I wanted, so great thankd to both Going Bald and racerrehabman - you guys rock!
Cheers!

 

[Going Bald]

Glad you got it working.

Enjoy.