Dual-Boot setup -> Single Boot: How do I fix Windows 8?

[delete12345]

This happened about two days ago. By going in chronological order:

I used to have a dual-boot setup, a Windows 7 and Windows 8 on two different IDE 80GB hard drives, named Drive A and Drive B, respectively. Both of these hard drives are quite old, and I'm worried that it may be near the end of their life spans.

After buying a new SATAIII 500GB hard drive, named Drive C, I decided that I want to keep Windows 8, and scrap Windows 7 (I like Windows 8, but I digress). So, I burned a CD containing Parted Magic, boot the Live CD, used GParted to copy the System Reserved partition from Drive A (all 100MB of it) onto Drive C. A few restarts afterwards reminded that me that I need to also copy the Windows 8 partition (74.59GB) from Drive B onto Drive C.

Then I removed Drive A (with Windows 7 intact) and kept Drive B in. And this is where I am as of now. I've currently booted into Drive C (meaning that I'm booting the Windows 8 partition that was copied from Drive B to Drive C), and here's what it looks like:



(Can't tell if the image is working, or it's being resized locally on this forum.)

Now, my problem is that if I were to remove Drive B (the IDE 80GB one, if you're following me), Windows 8 in Drive C will crash upon logging in with my account. It is unable to load anything or even provide basic features, such as shutting down, restart, etc. I believed it's because Drive B is labeled as Volume C; If I remove Drive B, Volume D (Windows 8 in Drive C, the 500GB one) wouldn't exist, therefore it's unable to load Windows 8 correctly.

I'm looking for a solution that edits the BCD Boot Manager for Windows 8, so that whenever I boot up the desktop computer, I can boot into Windows 8 in Drive C and safely remove Drive B (the IDE 80GB one, again if you're following).

First of all, does anyone follow me through all of this? If yes, does anyone know how to achieve this solution? Thanks in advance.

 

[theog]

How to clone your IDE drive to a SATA drive.
http://www.eightforums.com/installation-setup/17083-how-migrate-os-new-hard-disk.html

 

[delete12345]

How to clone your IDE drive to a SATA drive.
http://www.eightforums.com/installation-setup/17083-how-migrate-os-new-hard-disk.html

What about the Boot Manager? Do I ignore copying/moving the Boot Manager from the System Reserved partition from Drive A? That's all I'm asking.

 

[Saltgrass]

A picture of your Disk Management picture would be very helpful. From it, we can see where everything is, including your boot files.

 

[delete12345]

Disk 0 in the Disk Management is the hard drive I want to keep. Current OS running in the background is the partition that is shaded with slanted lines. All Windows 8 partitions are the same. Volume C is the hard drive I want to remove. There's a Parted Magic Live CD in my CD drive. I don't have any CD-R burner or any components that will allow me to burn CDs/DVDs.

Volume F is System Reserved. I'm guessing that it's where the Windows 8 Boot Manager (or Win8 Metro Boot Manager, etc.) is located, along with important boot data.

 

[theog]

How to clone your IDE drive to a SATA drive.
Click here :ar: http://www.eightforums.com/installation-setup/17083-how-migrate-os-new-hard-disk.html

What about the Boot Manager? Do I ignore copying/moving the Boot Manager from the System Reserved partition from Drive A? That's all I'm asking.

You can clone all the HDD disk 0 to HDD disk 1

 

[bassfisher6522]

Just my two cents worth, if this were me, I would have unplugged the IDE drives cables and clean installed windows 8 onto the new HDD. Then reattached the cables to the IDE drives and just format them and use them as a storage drives. It's the long way of doing it, BUT in the long run it's well worth it. Nothing wrong with cloning and using system images to move the OS from drive to drive but there always seems to be some sort of problem when attempting these types of methods however minor those problems maybe.

 

[Saltgrass]

From your attachment, your boot files and the OS partition you are booted into are both on the new drive. The fact it says D: instead of C: is probably because you still have a C: partition showing on the other drive. This is the type of thing that can happen during cloning type operations.

You can change the drive letters in the registry, but if the registry has D: instead of C: for all its other entries, it would be hard to change all of those.

What happens if you take the IDE drive out and boot? I suppose the boot files you moved to Drive 0 could be still pointed at Drive 1 or at least some of the necessary files might be located there.

As bassfisher mentions, it is always better to do a clean install, so if you can't get it straightened out, I would do that. It would probably not help to image you system at this time.

 

[delete12345]

If that's so, then gah!

I'll report back if there's anything wrong. (I hoped... *gulp*)

 

[delete12345]

Should I have to de-activate Windows 8 prior to doing a clean installation?