can t boot from cdrom to install windows 8 for a dual boot with w 7.

Apologies, I did say set your partition as active, & it shouldn't be, but you should still be able to boot onto the partition that has an OS installed & you should be able to boot from CD or DVD, it may seem an obvious question, but have you done a hard shutdown (press & hold the power button in, until the system goes dead)?

 

I had the same problem with dual boot, first win 7 and installed Win 8.
I work with easy BCD and also can boot from the both systems,went In windows 8> poweroptions in power control and changed the how to act powerbutton settings to shutdown (instead of sleep)
After that I noticed that i also couldn.t boot anymore from Cd-rom drive.

Went In windows 8 by power settings and untick the options below (Quick start ect..)
After that could boot from The cd-rom again.

I don't know if it helps you in this case, because I had no mess with missing BOOTMGR.

Is it not an option to grab somwhere "Gparted",put it on a disk, try to boot with the gparted cd >delete the partition with Windows 8(only the partion with windows7 left),boot with the windows 7 dvd and recover the boot.
And see if you can come in jour windows 7.
After that you can re-instal windows 8 again.

 

I think you should repair windows 7 first, then install windows 8. This issue can fixed.

 

Is C:\ missing in disk management as well... and if it is missing how come it shows windows installed on it

 

try opening disk management by right clicking on computer and then selecting disk management... and see the status there... like how may partitions u have and what are they labeled... it should look some what like this

 

can you get into windows now ? if yes ,download an iso from The-Official-Windows-8-Repository thread and extract the install.wim file from source to a folder of your choice

now format the 67.71 Gb partition

then use gimagex to apply the install.wim to the 67.71 Gb partition

then download EasyBCD and install it

then add the windows 8 entry to the 67.71 gb

save settings,and reboot to check if you are able to log into windows 8, you wont get the GUI BOOT but still you can log into the windows8 partition

if you are not able to get into windows in the first place

then use the win 7 recovery disk and in the CMD window type

bootrec.exe/fixboot
bootrec.exe/fixmbr

still no luck

type

bootrec.exe/RebuildBcd

get back with your findings

NOTE : you will have install.esd insted of the install.wim if you download with windows 8 upgrade advisor

 

The image shows that u have C: partition and windows is installed on it and it seems that u have messed up badly since F: partition is system reserved ususally having no letter allotted... and marked as active... but it seems the boot sector has some how sifted to C:... so u delete F: from above disk management... should not effect... after it is done check system properties if it shoes E: drive and report back

 

Buddy if u are trying to install windows 8 that way then it is not going to work... Seup doesnot just apply install.wim on the partition but does many other processes... one more thing never use bootrec.exe in Win PE it never helps... I had used above to in Win PE once when booting through usb drive and messed up with boot sector of usb drive itself...

 

I just did that for 12+ system last night,basically the process you are telling will happen once you get into win 8 with OOBE screen,so if you have time and want to expremient it just try it. and bootrec dosent fail if done in the correct manner.

 

thanks for those informations !

 

That doesn't mean you messed up bad or even at all. Just remove the drive letter DO NOT DELETE F: (just remove the letter) its the system reserve and is needed. As for installing win 8 now on the empty partition all you have to do is boot from the dvd to get the custom install option, yes even on the upgrade win8 you can do clean install to a different partition.

You can do all the formatting in the installation by selecting "drive options" but you don't even have to do anything other than make the partition, windows will format it if it has to or you can, makes no difference.

I would slide the C:\ partition over but again its not nessasary I'd just do it to make it look better

Man some of you people really like to do things the hard way. All this guy needed originally was to plug in a different keyboard and it probably would have fixed his problem from the get go.

 

see the image clearly... F: is system reserved true... but not marked as active... instead C: is marked for everything which means now F: is of actually no use...