I have a multiboot system with Win 10, 8.1 and 7. My OS Drive was getting funky and I suspected was about to die, so I bought a new drive, cloned the original to the new drive (I had also backed up all drives using Acronis) . Boot up to the new drive problems, plug in the old drive, problems, restored the backup to the old drive using Acronis, problems. All three OS are showing but, I was getting a message "device not found" and then other messages. Go back to the new drive using built-in startup repair and safe mode and a ton of commands, finally got back into Windows10 and the 8.1. No such luck with Win7. Selecting that OS shows the windows splash screen and a second of the animation, then it reboots. On reboot I can get the safe mode/safe mode screen, but none of the options boot into safe mode, they all just reboot. I used the sfc /scannow command from within Win 10 (but on the Win7 partition) it stated it found errors and fixed them, I did this three consecutive times and got the same messsage, so I'm thinking its not really fixing anything. Tried to using the installation media repair was useless, Start up repair finds errors and supposedly fixes them (repeatedly), can't do a repair install (upgrade) because of I can't boot into Win7. Used ever tool I can find and nothing. 1. Is there any way to fix this, or can I manually rewrite/copy the files needed to boot. 2. Failing that is there any way to do a repair install of WIn7 from a disk? 3. and failing that how do you install Win7 alongside Win10 and after Win10 is in place. I know that in the past installing an older OS after newer OS was in place messed things up. Reading this http*://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows_install/how-to-dual-boot-windows-7-or-windows-8-with/9ac7acc1-2152-4907-a9de-bd507273a57d makes it seem it is no big deal and won't cause any problems, is this accurate.
Why? It's better to buy a separate computer if you really need them. A few days ago, looking at the options, you could get a few dollars even for the pro OS pre-installed. Everything is possible to get, both Windows7, 8-8.1, and 10. I can understand, if You want for example Windows & Linux multiboot, even then is possible understand if you want for example W10 & W7, but why three Windows, any way cannot understand.
My comment wasn't directed to OP but to YOU. Since i have no idea what the problem is i'm not trying to "help" by recommending to buy more PCs .
agree with the non-free canine but for mega multiboots of windows, vhd native boot FTW - no troubles with partitioning etc but yeah ops problem is that his bcd is stuffed up. no doubt his cloning program copied the bcd with the OLD disk ids (new hdd - new disk ids) so at the least he needs to get friendly with bcdedit.exe and start working his way through highlevel view: use bcdedit /enum all to find his win7 boot entry verify the entries for device and osdevice are right (something like bcdedit /set {default} [os]device partition=c: if theyre wrong) maybe load the system hive of his win7 registry, and fix entries in MountedDevices
did you make mbr + sys partition + os partition properly? if yes and backup is still failing than most probably backup is corrupted.. also have you tried easybcd to correct boot os options?
Thank you all for your answers. Sorry I haven't replied in a bit, been swamped at home and work. @kaljukass I do have one "backup" machine, it houses window XP, but that said your suggestion is way too expensive as compared to multiboot or VM's. I need XP and 7 because these versions drive hard or software that the others can't support. I am a cheap bastard and refused to "upgrade" replace equipment/software at the drop of hat. I have tried VM's in Virtual box and VMware, while running software in these is a breeze sometimes hooking up to the hardware is sometimes problematic. VM's also seem to be a bit slower and clunky. Utilizing the bootrec commands (/fixmbr; /fixboot; /scanos and finally /rebuildbcd I was able to fix the issue and boot into to Windows 10 and 8.1 (Windows 8 working, lucky me ehh?). Windows 7 must have gotten messed up in the transfer to the new disk and the original disk has become one with the universe (died) I do have an Acronis back up all three OS, but the Windows 7 portion of that seems to have gotten corrupted as well. I am going to work on that and see if I can get that running, if not I'll just reinstall it. One more question (or two): Is there a better bootloader than windows? How do you delete and replace the windows bootloader with its replacement? I have grub2 on a disk and was able to locate and boot into some the OS from that.