Resizing partition for Win 8 stuck at pre-BIOS

[Nunchez]

It's as if nothing happened actually when I connect it in IDE instead of AHCI. But the thing is I can't boot SWI2's disk in IDE with my hard drive plugged in. That I can only do when the hard drive's unplugged. A bit confusing

 

[HippsieGypsie]

Ok. It's 3 a.m. for me. I gotta get to bed. More to come tomorrow. I think SWI2 logs in pretty early, so it shan't be long.

 

[Nunchez]

Okay thanks a lot for your time!

 

[eXcite]

I've caught up on this thread and I see that you were able to boot onto SWI2's disk. I suspect something is wrong with your boot record. I researched this because, quite frankly, I have little knowledge working with the boot record. I found this, which says you should do it in WinRE, but try it in SWI2's disk and see if it helps. Run these commands separately in an elevated command prompt.

BcdEdit /export C:\BCD_Backup
C:
Cd boot
Attrib bcd -s -h -r
Ren "C:\boot\bcd" "bcd.old"
Bootrec /RebuildBcd

I also found this, which was for XP, but try it anyway.

bootcfg /rebuild

 

[Nunchez]

Ok ill try that but do you have any idea why the hard drive works when its connected in IDE instead of AHCI?

I can actually boot into my windows installation with no problems. Since my hard drive works in IDE should I continue using it like this?

 

[eXcite]

As long as everything is working okay I don't see why not. You should really back up your files however.

 

[HippsieGypsie]

Ok ill try that but do you have any idea why the hard drive works when its connected in IDE instead of AHCI?

I can actually boot into my windows installation with no problems. Since my hard drive works in IDE should I continue using it like this?

Hi. So you are able to boot to 7? Everything ok?

 

[SIW2]

I think there is problem with your old bios and win7/8 ahci.sys

There might be a workaround.

Something along these lines:



You could try booting a vista boot.wim ( you would need 32 bit version ), then see if you run win8 setup .exe from within Vista Preinst environment.

In theory it should work.

You would need to run win8 setup.exe that is inside the sources folder - NOT the one that is on the root.


Did you install win7 yourself, or did it come preinstalled?

 

[tcman50]

In the future for people who want to form a new partition to dual boot windows 7 and windows 8, simply go into computer management, drive management, right click your windows 7 drive and chose shrink volume.

It will ask you to assign a size and drive letter to your new partition.

if your bios is not all ready set to boot from disk drive first then restart computer and go into bios and specify disk drive as your first boot device.

open your disk drive, insert windows 8 disk and restart your computer, windows 8 install screen will spin up, choose your freshly made partition as point to install windows 8 on to and your done.

to instal windows 8 one is going to need a install key (available everywhere, these install keys are not exclusive to individual copies of windows but rather to your windows 8 type, ie, enterprise, pro editions and what not). Towards the beginning of the install it you ask you for the install key.

Legal activation isn't possible right now, that will occur on October 26th when the retail version of Windows 8 goes on sale.

 

[SIW2]

I am curious as to how the issue could be related to PW.

 

[eXcite]

Well it is a third-party program. I haven't had any issues with it, but who knows?

 

[Nunchez]

As long as everything is working okay I don't see why not. You should really back up your files however.

Yeah I'm going to buy a hard drive for that just in case.

 

[Nunchez]

I think there is problem with your old bios and win7/8 ahci.sys

There might be a workaround.

Something along these lines:



You could try booting a vista boot.wim ( you would need 32 bit version ), then see if you run win8 setup .exe from within Vista Preinst environment.

In theory it should work.

You would need to run win8 setup.exe that is inside the sources folder - NOT the one that is on the root.


Did you install win7 yourself, or did it come preinstalled?

I installed 7 on my own actually. But now how would I go about installing win 8 safely? That's the only way?

 

[Nunchez]

I think there is problem with your old bios and win7/8 ahci.sys

There might be a workaround.

Something along these lines:



You could try booting a vista boot.wim ( you would need 32 bit version ), then see if you run win8 setup .exe from within Vista Preinst environment.

In theory it should work.

You would need to run win8 setup.exe that is inside the sources folder - NOT the one that is on the root.


Did you install win7 yourself, or did it come preinstalled?

What if I reinstall windows after backing up? I'm going to get a separate drive for Windows 8 because I don't want to mess around with the 1TB drive.

I found this tutorial so if I do this will this fix the bios problem by any chance?

http://windowssecrets.com/top-story/win7s-no-reformat-nondestructive-reinstall/

 

[HippsieGypsie]

Hi Nunchez. I see you're making progress.

While you're waiting for answers, you may want to refer to the forums tutorials section. It helps me quite a bit. Good luck.

Windows 8 Tutorials

 

[SIW2]

I found this tutorial so if I do this will this fix the bios problem by any chance?

That is Repair install - the same as an upgrade install except you are using the same windows version.

I dunno why the author is claiming it is some kind of secret - everybody knows about it.

It should be able to replace your existing o/s files - used in case of damage .

Not clear to me why that would help, but it is worth a go.

 

[eXcite]

Yeah, tutorials like that make me mad. Not because they don't work - they do - but because the site it's on tries to push their books. I don't need a book to tell me how to do stuff in Windows - I've got the Internet.

Back on-topic: seeing as none of your system files are damaged, I don't think that will work.

 

[Nunchez]

Hmmm since there's no harm ill just go for it and since I still do have the installation disk.

And to install win 8 should I again try using Partition Wizard or disk management in windows? That would be safer right?

 

[SIW2]

Probably safer to use disk mgmt.

 

[Nunchez]

Probably safer to use disk mgmt.

Yup I'm doing that just now and thanks again for your help.