[ramik]

Upon release, I installed Windows 8 in dual boot with Windows 7, and it was ok. But Windows 8 partition was small.

Now I wanted to use Win8 as primary, so I cloned the small Win8 copy to the part where Win7 was, and it works but not as expected:
The boot manager shows the old Windows 8 as a Windows 8, quick boot when selected, but the new Win8 copy is detected as another OS, and selecting it will reboot the whole machine, and goes into that copy of Windows 8 (As what used to happen with Win7).

Also, the new Windows 8 clone has the system Drive as D:, while the old Win8 is still on drive C: and some app shortcuts now still point to C: (the location of the old Win8)

Is there a way to fix this partition mix without reinstalling windows?

I tried using recovery option to fix boot, but it found nothing. Also Visual BCD, and nothing...

help is appreciated

This post has been edited by ramik: 10 March 2013 - 01:13 AM

[jaclaz]

ramik, on 10 March 2013 - 01:08 AM, said:

Now I wanted to use Win8 as primary,

Queer.

ramik, on 10 March 2013 - 01:08 AM, said:

... so I cloned the small Win8 copy to the part where Win7 was, and it works but not as expected:

Wrong.

It is normal that a "clone" would not work without changes (to the Registry).

What is "strange" is the reboot. you should get at the most a BSOD.

From the "good", "booting" Windows 8 inspect it's Registry, you want to check the key HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
http://diddy.boot-la...nteddevices.htm
then mount the System hive of the (offline) registry of the non-working 8 and compare values.

Normally, and from what I can get from your report you had a primary partition with Windows 7 (and/or possibly before it the stupid Windows 7 "boot" partition of 100 Mb) that you shrinked, then created the new partition on which you installed Windows 8.
I.e. you had either of:
1st primary Partition (Windows 7 boot partition) around 100 Mb <- this gets NO drive letter when either 7 or 8 are booted
2nd primary Partition (Windows 7 system partition)<- this gets C:\ drive letter when 7 is booted and D:\ (or *whatever*) drive letter when 8 is booted
3rd primary partition (Windows 8 system partition)<- this gets C:\ drive letter when 8 is booted and D:\ (or *whatever*) drive letter when 7 is booted

OR:
1st primary Partition (Windows 7 system partition)<- this gets C:\ drive letter when 7 is booted and D:\ (or *whatever*) drive letter when 8 is booted
2nd primary partition (Windows 8 system partition)<- this gets C:\ drive letter when 8 is booted and D:\ (or *whatever*) drive letter when 7 is booted

WHICH of the two setups above?

How EXACTLY (with which tools, with which commands, etc.) did you "clone" the 8?

Most likely you still have in the mentioned keys the drive letters "the other way round", you need to edit the "offline" Registry deleting all contents of the HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices EXCEPTION made for the ones:
\DosDevices\C:
\DosDevices\D: <-or whatever drive letter has the non-system partition
then rename:
the key \DosDevices\C: to \DosDevices\Z:
the key \DosDevices\D: to \DosDevices\C:
the key \DosDevices\Z: to \DosDevices\D:
unmount the System hive, reboot and try again repairing with the recovery option, it is likely that it didn't work correctly because it was "confused" by the wrong drive lettering.

jaclaz

[ramik]

jaclaz, on 10 March 2013 - 06:00 AM, said:

It is normal that a "clone" would not work without changes (to the Registry).

What is "strange" is the reboot. you should get at the most a BSOD.

From the "good", "booting" Windows 8 inspect it's Registry, you want to check the key HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
http://diddy.boot-la...nteddevices.htm
then mount the System hive of the (offline) registry of the non-working 8 and compare values.

Normally, and from what I can get from your report you had a primary partition with Windows 7 (and/or possibly before it the stupid Windows 7 "boot" partition of 100 Mb) that you shrinked, then created the new partition on which you installed Windows 8.
I.e. you had either of:
1st primary Partition (Windows 7 boot partition) around 100 Mb <- this gets NO drive letter when either 7 or 8 are booted
2nd primary Partition (Windows 7 system partition)<- this gets C:\ drive letter when 7 is booted and D:\ (or *whatever*) drive letter when 8 is booted
3rd primary partition (Windows 8 system partition)<- this gets C:\ drive letter when 8 is booted and D:\ (or *whatever*) drive letter when 7 is booted

OR:
1st primary Partition (Windows 7 system partition)<- this gets C:\ drive letter when 7 is booted and D:\ (or *whatever*) drive letter when 8 is booted
2nd primary partition (Windows 8 system partition)<- this gets C:\ drive letter when 8 is booted and D:\ (or *whatever*) drive letter when 7 is booted

WHICH of the two setups above?

I have the 100Mb boot drive (hidden) and 2 other drive as C: for old Windows8 and D: as clone Windows8, BUT:
- when I boot the old Windows 8 I have its drive set to C: and the Clone win8 as D:, having C: as the system drive
- when I boot the clone Windows 8 I have its drive set to D: and the old win8 as C:, having D: as the system drive
this is because I did not change the MountedDrives registry keys yet

Quote

How EXACTLY (with which tools, with which commands, etc.) did you "clone" the 8?

I used CloneZilla linux dist to copy the old Win8 partition to a bigger partition

Quote

Most likely you still have in the mentioned keys the drive letters "the other way round", you need to edit the "offline" Registry deleting all contents of the HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices EXCEPTION made for the ones:
\DosDevices\C:
\DosDevices\D: <-or whatever drive letter has the non-system partition
then rename:
the key \DosDevices\C: to \DosDevices\Z:
the key \DosDevices\D: to \DosDevices\C:
the key \DosDevices\Z: to \DosDevices\D:
unmount the System hive, reboot and try again repairing with the recovery option, it is likely that it didn't work correctly because it was "confused" by the wrong drive lettering.

jaclaz

I will try this method too

This post has been edited by ramik: 10 March 2013 - 06:09 AM

[jaclaz]

ramik, on 10 March 2013 - 06:09 AM, said:

I have the 100Mb boot drive (hidden) and 2 other drive as C: for old Windows8 and D: as clone Windows8, BUT:
- when I boot the old Windows 8 I have its drive set to C: and the Clone win8 as D:, having C: as the system drive
- when I boot the clone Windows 8 I have its drive set to D: and the old win8 as C:, having D: as the system drive
this is because I did not change the MountedDrives registry keys yet

Yes, this is the issue then .
You should get this part clearer, this sentence makes NO sense technically:

Quote

I have the 100Mb boot drive (hidden) and 2 other drive as C: for old Windows8 and D: as clone Windows8, BUT:

A drive (in the sense of what is assigned a drive letter to WHEN a system is booted) is EITHER a primary partition or a logical volume inside extended, and has NO drive letter assigned to it UNTIL an OS boots and assigns them.
If you prefer NO drive (in the sense above) exists (only partitions and/or volumes do) until the Windows OS is booted and assigns to either partitions or volumes their drive letters.

Drive letter assignment are made (at install time) automatically, if you clone that OS, they are obviously copied over and remain "sticky" (and a lot of things become "mixed", including all links and the \boot\BCD).

jaclaz