There seems to be a problem with all the Windows 7 Loaders, including both the Hazar and Daz versions. Specifically,the problem occurs when the loader is used on more than one Windows 7 Ultimate partition on the same hard drive. The drive in question is a PATA Primary drive. The location or sequence of the primary partitions doesn't matter. There are two ways the problem occurs: 1) The loader is installed directly to both a 1st and a 2nd Windows 7 partition on a given drive. or 2) The original Windows 7 partition, which has the loader installed and working, is cloned to another primary partition on the same hard drive. Either way, not only is the 2nd loader installed Windows 7 partition unbootable, but the originally working 1st loader installed Windows 7 partition also becomes unbootable. Once the problem occurs, deleting all the Windows 7 partitions and then trying again will fail even on the 1st try. Only restoring the boot sector to its original state will allow a new 1st Windows 7 with loader to boot properly. Note that I have tried at least 4 different Loader tools, all with the same result. One final note... I am running BootIt Next Generation on my first hard drive (HD0). I am NOT using the BootIt Next Generation feature that allows more than 4 primary partitions. All my hard drives (4) have the BootIt Next Generation Extended Master Boot Record (EMBR) format. The hard drive with the Windows 7 partitions is the last hard drive (i.e. not the hard drive with BootIt Next Generation). What could the 2nd loader installed partition be doing to cause this problem? Can it be fixed? Any help would be most appreciated. Thank you.
It sounds like another take on a bug I fixed for Windows 7 and Vista dual booting. This will depend on if both versions of Windows 7 share an active partition or if they both run independently. I think if they are both sharing an active partition it would work, but if each is running on its own the GRLDR wont be able to pick between both of them. The best solution if you don't want to change your drive setup is to try a bios mod.
Daz, How would the partitions be defined to ensure that they share the same active partition? I use Partition Magic to partition my drive.
Daz, Thank you for your confirmation that I am not going crazy! Yes, both iterations of Win7 are running in separate partitions. I'm very reluctant to try a bios mod. It's not worth the risk to me. Right now, I am using 30 day renewals, which is fine for the time being. I will probably eventually limit Win7 installs/clones with loaders to no more than 1 per hard drive. Thanks again!
I'm not sure how that would be handled. I know on my system I have XP installed in partition #1 then both of my Windows 7 partitions (32 and 64 bit) use the XP partition as the "Active" partition. I do run a bios mod on the PC though so I can't say if thats the reasons both versions of Windows 7 are fully activated. Different setups/hardware = Different results
I'm having the same issue as described here, Windows 7 running on two separate partitions on same drive, each one active when booted. Daz Loader works fine with single partition but as soon as I attempt to close the OS to 2nd partition (which I want to use primarily for video editing so as to not have any extra progs/services running), it breaks the loader. Windows won't boot on 2nd partition until I run "BOOTSECT /NT60 ALL /FORCE" command but it loses activation. Strangely, have had instances of the original partition losing activation as well once cloned to 2nd partition but it seems hit or miss each time I attempt. As with others reluctant to attempt modded bios, would like to find a software workaround so that two windows 7 partitions can both be activated. Daz posted above back in May that latest versions have no trouble with dual/quad boot setups but problem still exists after running loader version 1.9.5. See Win7 version info attached. Any suggestions? Thanks, Kevin
Is it a non-standard setup? As in is one partition hidden from the other so there is in fact 2 completely standalone OS's which are being launched from a custom boot loader? The loader does work on standard setups (2 or more OS partitions but they all share a single active system drive) but if the OS's are identical and each is standalone then it doesn't work as the loader doesn't know which bootmgr to use. Maybe preserving the boot could would work but then maybe it wouldn't Do you have an OEM recovery partition? These are also problematic and I always recommend removing them. If the other partition is detecting the SLIC (details line, v2.1) then you just need to launch the loader with the /bios parameter so that just a certificate and serial are installed.
not that anyone is particularly interested ,but when vista came out I used a product called HyperOS as a boot manager etc. I was able to use hazers bootloader in multiple systems and every one worked perfectly . when windows 7 came out I was able to use that too using the same system with multiple installs of vista and Win7 on the same drive (partitions) more recently mostly windows 7 installs of various builds and in 32 and 64 bit alll via loader and all were visable to each other . you can even have xp in the mix without problems . but very recently I have switched to BIOS mod and its just a case of installing anything i like from windows 2k ,xp ,vista,server and windows7 , and all live in harmony along side each other . daz loader is by far the best loader though ,but bios mod is cleanest.
I actually did not have any issues dual booting win7 and using the loader in the past. I would sugges what daz suggested, make sure only one partition is the active one on both systems and you should be good to go I think. I would suggest to rename one of the partitions to something like "Active" that way you know which one matches on both systems and make the partition "Active" the active partition then try the loader again. I don't want to compete with Daz here but maybe my loader script will work for you. It is based off of Hazar's auto activating dvd kit only I enhanced it. You will have to integrate into the w7 DVD and reinstall Win7 but it might just work. It is a very simple loader compared to Daz's but still survives the WAT validation lol.
Daz, Based on your descrption my setup would qualify as non-standard. I am running XOSL as third-party boot manager and each Windows 7 partition is hidden from the other, have had to generalize the bcdstore in order to get Windows boot manager to load them both independently of each other. No OEM partitions here. I will try the /bios parameter you mentioned and see if that helps. If I unhide the partitions from one another and keep a common active partition between the two, my fear is that this would interfere with cloning/restoring/backing up partitions as necessary. Perhaps that is a wrong assumpion? Anyway, that was my intent of using a third-party boot manager in the first place, so I could work with partitions independently and not have the setup get borked by the Windows boot manager. Sam - thanks for the tip as well, admittedly I shun at the thought of a reinstall.
lol I hate it too but as long as you either do a backup or don't format then you should be fine because all your files will be retained. I honestly just had to format and reinstall 3 OSes the other day just because I converted from Nvidia to ATI and could not remove all the Nvidia software, btw that includes 1 of XP Pro and 2-3 of Win7 Pro x32/x64 lol
Well as long as you had one small partition, say 100MB and moved the BCD and bootmgr there and then point all partitions to it then it shouldn't interfere with your backups. I believe EasyBCD has the option to change the boot drive but creating the partition for it would be down to you.
Daz, what's the solution for the samsung laptops? i use your loader from version 1.9 to 2.0.9 and it doesn't work. thanks in advance... god bless
Check Daz's own thread... generally u have to check the "Ignore existing SLIC" under the advanced option