Dual Boot wont go away

I was trying out Win 7 and using it on a separate hard drive from my primary OS. I deemed it too buggy to be worth my time and formatted the drive containing 7. Now, i still am required to choose operating systems when booting...and obviously get an error if i choose 7 (and its the default somehow so i have to be around every time it boots or i get the error). I have formatted again since then and it did not fix it. Is there something in the bios that needs to be changed to fix this now? The drive should be completely empty.

Thanks in advance

Yes you need to go into the bios setting and change the hard drives order , once you slect the one you want which has an OS it will then load or at least it should . the option for this is usually under the same area where you select which to boot from , it might be the selection above or below the boot order , look for something say hard drives .

I was trying out Win 7 and using it on a separate hard drive from my primary OS. I deemed it too buggy to be worth my time and formatted the drive containing 7. Now, i still am required to choose operating systems when booting...and obviously get an error if i choose 7 (and its the default somehow so i have to be around every time it boots or i get the error). I have formatted again since then and it did not fix it. Is there something in the bios that needs to be changed to fix this now? The drive should be completely empty.

Thanks in advance

You will need to edit the boot.ini file and remove the W7 line reference, or you are not comfortable doing this download and install EasBCD to correct the boot file.

You will need to edit the boot.ini file and remove the W7 line reference, or you are not comfortable doing this download and install EasBCD to correct the boot file.

you only need to do that if it was install on the same drive ( partition ) not on separate drives

Thanks, i will be changing the boot order in bios presently but i am looking for a permanent fix so i don't have to select one or the other. how do i access the boot.ini file to get rid of W7?

Thanks, i will be changing the boot order in bios presently but i am looking for a permanent fix so i don't have to select one or the other. how do i access the boot.ini file to get rid of W7?

You said you used separate hard drive to install windows 7 , correct ? If so ? Then just formate that drive and windows 7 is gone , afterward just select the other hard drive which has the other operating system and save your bios setting ( F10 ) , that it

Just boot to your Vista install disk and choose repair and that's it!

Just boot to your Vista install disk and choose repair and that's it!

He shouldn't have to take that route if he was to make the correct changes in the bios setting . Dentman if you can't locate where this is ? try doing this use only one hard drive , the one which has the other operating system and see if you are able to load windows . If that works just make that your master drive and the other your slave , just make sure you also change the hard drives jumpers for master and slave .

When you boot your Vista system, the following happens (somewhat simplified): The Bios runs and figures out which drive to boot from, and where the master Boot Record is. Then the Master Boot Record looks to see what boot options are available. If there is more than one boot option available, the user is prompted to choose which operating system that they wish to boot. Once the user makes that selection, then the OS loads the volume boot sector for that OS, and then windows takes over.

A Windows system has only one MBR. The Windows installer checks for other operating systems when it is installed, and will modify the existing MBR. The only possible way to have separate MBRs on separate drives is if the disk containing the initial Windows installation is physically unplugged from the system so that the installer of subsequent Windows installations are unable to find it. I know that this isn't the case for you because had you done this, you would not be presented with an option to choose which OS to boot. Therefore, simply reformatting the drive with Windows 7 will do nothing to remove the option. So resetting jumpers and such is poor advice, because all it will do is screw up your configuration, and will still not remove the entry from the MBR.

Incidentally, Vista does not have a boot.ini file, so you will get nowhere there. And information about any installed operating systems is not contained in the BIOS; the BIOS deals with hardware. Dentman is correct that you just need to repair your MBR, which can be accomplished in a couple of different ways, and is as easy as pie. You can use a tool, such as EasyBCD to do it, or you can use the Vista OS disk. I have never used any tools, so I can't comment on how to use them, or how well they work. I have always just simply used the recovery option. This should help:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392

The only possible way to have separate MBRs on separate drives is if the disk containing the initial Windows installation is physically unplugged from the system so that the installer of subsequent Windows installations are unable to find it. I know that this isn't the case for you because had you done this, you would not be presented with an option to choose which OS to boot. Therefore, simply reformatting the drive with Windows 7 will do nothing to remove the option. So resetting jumpers and such is poor advice, because all it will do is screw up your configuration, and will still not remove the entry from the MBR.

Are you saying he has 2 OS on the same drive ?

After re-reading it over , your right he must have 2 OS on the same hard drive and probably is partition into 2 drives with both OS having its own partition . So yes by changing the jumper will not do nothing , though if it was the other way around which I thought he had by his post it would work .

So woejipums you don't have 2 hard drives ? But rather 2 partition on one Hdd and yes the recovery options or repair is the way to go .

I had the same problem as you before: I had Windows XP Pro on one hard drive, and then I installed Vista 64-bit on another hard drive, but both of the hard drives were connected. As groovicus said (Post #9), this changed the MBR of the hard drive having XP Pro. Later it turned out Vista had some compatibility problems with some important software I need to use, I decided to get rid of Vista. I did a google search, and found out about VistaBootPro: http://www.brothersoft.com/vistabootpro-62925.html.

It cost me $8.95, but it did the job of removing the Windows Vista entry. Here is what I did:
Started up XP. Downloaded VistaBootPro. Installed it in XP. Ran the program. Deleted the Vista entry.

I also changed the "Earlier Version of Windows" to "Windows XP Professional", made it the default OS, and changed the waiting time to 10 seconds.

I have looked into the MBR of the hard drives (Hex dump. I used 7 tools Partition Manager 2009), and couldn't figure out a safe way to change the bootloader. Running Windows XP setup disk, used the Recovery (?) console, then fixmbr and fixboot didn't work for me either. Instead it made the hard drive unbootable.

I had the same problem as you before: I had Windows XP Pro on one hard drive, and then I installed Vista 64-bit on another hard drive, but both of the hard drives were connected. As groovicus said (Post #9), this changed the MBR of the hard drive having XP Pro. Later it turned out Vista had some compatibility problems with some important software I need to use, I decided to get rid of Vista. I did a google search, and found out about VistaBootPro: http://www.brothersoft.com/vistabootpro-62925.html.

It cost me $8.95, but it did the job of removing the Windows Vista entry. Here is what I did:
Started up XP. Downloaded VistaBootPro. Installed it in XP. Ran the program. Deleted the Vista entry.

I also changed the "Earlier Version of Windows" to "Windows XP Professional", made it the default OS, and changed the waiting time to 10 seconds.

I have looked into the MBR of the hard drives (Hex dump. I used 7 tools Partition Manager 2009), and couldn't figure out a safe way to change the bootloader. Running Windows XP setup disk, used the Recovery (?) console, then fixmbr and fixboot didn't work for me either. Instead it made the hard drive unbootable.

Hi ... Are you saying you had 2 separate hard drive each having its own OS ( XP , Vista ) You were having MBR problems because you remove Vista and had to use third party software to get your system working again ?

I have 5 hard drives all connected , 3 have its own OS ( XP pro , Vista and W7 ) I can boot anyone of these from within the bios setting . Not once do I have any problems loading any of them . I can even remove any of the 3 OS drives and still be able to load the other 2 without any problems . I do all my changes within the bios setting ...

Each of the above situations is different. You can successfully install OS's on each drive and get them to boot - or you can install multiple OS's on each drive and they won't boot. This has to do with the way in which the BIOS hunts for bootable drives, and if it encounters one with boot info for the other other OS's.

Each of the above situations is different. You can successfully install OS's on each drive and get them to boot - or you can install multiple OS's on each drive and they won't boot. This has to do with the way in which the BIOS hunts for bootable drives, and if it encounters one with boot info for the other other OS's.

I agree. Though the prices for hard drives nowadays is so cheap it would be much less problems if people use separate hard drives for each OS , rather having multiple OS on one hard drive .

Just setup RAID 5 on W-D VelociRaptors - they just ain't cheap! Yes, you can get a cheap hard drive - but you get what you pay for.