Need assistance with boot issues? Try resetting the old Windows 7 setup.
Need assistance with boot issues? Try resetting the old Windows 7 setup.
Hi Guys, So I've recently gotten round to building up my new tower and couldn't be happier - Win10 on a WD Black NVMe Drive, i7-9700k @ 4.9GHz, GTX 1060 6Gb etc etc. My problem comes in that I want to have a dual boot option from my old tower so I can access a load of stuff I have on there when I want to. I figured this would be easy. It should be in theory. However, my old rig started life as a HP Enterprise system. It ran what I believe to be a cache raid system whereby it has a tiny 20Gb Intel SSD, as well as the 500Gb spinning disc. The way it was explained to me at the time was that read and write went to the SSD first and then was written to the HDD. This brings me onto the issue. When I plug in my HDD to my new rig and mash F2 to get into the BIOS, the HDD is not there as a boot option! Exiting from that and heading into my Win10 boot, it allows me to see the Win7 drive. I can see the OS files. I can see the public documents (although not the documents of specific users). When I enter the disc management tool in Win10, I can see the partitions of the HDD, including one which shows as OS, however underneath it, it only says "Primary Partition". The "boot, pagefile and crash dump" monikers are missing. When I plug in the old 20Gb SSD, there's nothing on it. It just shows as "Unallocated". It seems to me that my MBR has gone missing somewhere along the line here and since I have no experience of undoing the witchcraft that seems to be cache raid, I'm reaching out for help. Can anyone explain how I can make my old HDD bootable again? Couple more points to note: I've not got an image or backup of the Win7 disc so simply doing a fresh install is not an option. Also, the tipping point for me building a new rig was the power supply failing on the old tower. Since it's HP Enterprise and therefore proprietary (rip off merchants!!!), I cannot even plug the old drives in back the way they were and do anything from the old system. Anyone any ideas? All help appreciated. All the best, Rob
UEFI plus Legacy refers to combining modern UEFI firmware with older BIOS support, enabling compatibility across both systems.
It supports launching from an earlier OS that wasn’t set up for UEFI. However, in your situation I’d consider you SOL if you can’t restore the original system. The idea behind SSD caching is that some information stays on the SSD, even before writes are saved to the HDD, making the drive unusable by itself. If you managed to boot the old system, you might check if disabling the SSD cache is feasible—it’s unlikely—but at least you could make a full image of the drive and restore it to just the HDD. Connecting the HDD to the new PC could still prevent the old system from starting, as any changes on the HDD might confuse the RAID controller and mark the volume as corrupted.
I'll attempt to assist you with your situation.
1. Your hard drive contains all the necessary OS files visible in Windows 10—excellent.
2. The drive is likely operating in MBR mode (you can verify this using MiniTool Partition Wizard)—that's also fine.
3. The original boot partition exists elsewhere, which isn't a major concern. You just need...
4. ...to run a program named EasyBCD and install BCD on your hard drive. Proceed carefully, selecting the correct drive beforehand.
Additional steps:
5. Ensure the partition is active and update BIOS to UEFI+Legacy.
Further troubleshooting:
6. If you encounter a BSOD, download Paragon Adaptive Restore ISO, use Rufus to create a USB image with only the Windows 7 drive connected, and select "Adjust OS" during boot. After a short wait, you should be able to restart your old Windows 7 installation. If you can't locate Paragon Adaptive Restore, let me know.
7. New motherboards may pose issues with mice and keyboards. For older systems, consider using a PS2 mouse and keyboard to install USB drivers post-boot. Before beginning, ensure you have these components ready.
8. If you decide against using the old PC, you can purchase a basic PCI-E USB controller. Windows 7 should recognize it without issues—then simply connect your mouse and keyboard for driver installation. You might also place batch files in the startup folder with specific parameters to automate the process.
EDIT: I noticed you mentioned difficulties with the mouse and keyboard on a new board. Before starting, consider using a PS2 device to simplify driver setup.
Alternative option: Skip steps 4 and 4b and use Paragon Adaptive Restore for boot repair—it may also add the required files.
Uncertain. Reading the drive isn’t possible if the setup differs from what SSDs and HDDs typically use. I assume there’s an issue, though I’m not sure how drives are normally configured. It might have been designed that way initially, but now the user thinks they can see everything except booting. Trying my approach could help.
Uncertain whether it's accurate, but even with a standalone mode enabled and a write cache active, changes made might not get saved to the disk, such as Windows files required. In any scenario, the user should back up crucial files elsewhere before proceeding.
This attempt doesn't delete any files. It's not about formatting. Backing up is always a wise idea, though it's not strictly necessary.
Hey everyone. Thanks for your input. Initially I went with your idea to switch the BIOS settings to support UEFI plus legacy. That helped a bit but then I reached the Win7 "Starting Windows" screen. Just as the colored balls began spinning to form the logo, it turned into a bluescreen. It displays an error message, but it restarts too quickly for me to see it clearly. The next time I attempt to boot, it opens Startup Repair. I've tried this several times and believe the issue might be that the MBR or something similar is missing. Even though it boots and recognizes it as a boot option, it can't progress further into Windows. Any other ideas? Your feedback means a lot. Thanks for all the support!