Migrating/Upgrading PC - Reinstall Windows?

[catchman 13]

Gents,

 

I'm looking to upgrade my video card, mobo, and proc (ram only if necessary). I really like the way my FSX is installed. Will I be able to swap out hte components and just plug the harddrive back in without having to install windows anew?

 

Anthony

[Kosta 122]

Quite probably yes. Some addons might need reactivating...

[VeryBumpy 272]

As long as there is no radical chipset brand change(like going from AMD to Intel), yes it should work. One main tip to ensure it works well is to change the HHD drivers to MS default before shutting down prior to the MB hardware change.

[catchman 13]

I did the upgrade but the result did not turn out as expected. I cannot boot into windows. I keep getting a missing bootmgr error. I tried to use a W7 repair USB. That got me to a windows menu stating that it could not startup and it is unable to repair itself.

 

What should I do now?

[dazz 69]

I did the upgrade but the result did not turn out as expected. I cannot boot into windows. I keep getting a missing bootmgr error. I tried to use a W7 repair USB. That got me to a windows menu stating that it could not startup and it is unable to repair itself.

 

What should I do now?

 

Sorry to ask the obvious, but did you select the right boot drive in your BIOS?

[catchman 13]

Yes, it is booting to the correct drive. I even disconnected the other drive so that there is no confusion. Windows startup repair doesn't seem to be working. This is the screen I can't get past. Any suggestions?

 

[Kosta 122]

How many HDDs do you have in your computer?

 

Is your boot manager on the separate 100MB partition of one drive? (it probably is if you did a default W7 install on the clean disk)

 

Can you possibly boot into another windows while the one rests on another disk?

 

The easier solution would probably be the EasyBCD, telling it to put the boot manager onto the same partition as the windows is on.

 

And if you have more drives, maybe not the right drive is selected or something got messed up. This is why one drive - one partition - everything on it (the separate partition is only needed if you want to encrypt the main C drive).

 

That is only thing that pops into my mind, sorry if it ain't a solution.

[VeryBumpy 272]

Are you able to get to a Command Prompt and view your HDD contents?

[catchman 13]

Yes, I can get into the command prompt but I'm not sure how to try and view the HDD contents from there.

[dazz 69]

Yep, EasyBCD is what you need

[catchman 13]

SOLVED

 

ABSTRACT: When upgrading motherboards, be careful to check that your SATA ports are set to read the type of HD you have. Newer boards that come ready for SSDs are set to modes such as AHCI that are not compatible with older, IDE versions of HDs. The SATA modes can be reset to read the IDE drives in the BIOS.

1. The bootmgr error was resolved by following the steps for command prompt recovering bootloader.
   
2. HOWEVER, the problem may have been caused by the new motherboard
   
   1. 
      
   2. I changed from an older ASUS P6T i7-9XX (Nehalem) motherboard to an MSI Z77A-G45 i7-3XXX (IvyBridge).
      
   3. The Z77 motherboard had the SATA HD Drives preset for AHCI.
      
      1. AHCI is the mode necessary to run SSD drives.
          
         

      [*]I planned to migrate my prior Windows/FSX install HD. That is a standard 7200rpm HD, not an SSD. My standard HD is set as IDE.

      1. The motherboard was unable to read my windows HD because of the format discrepancy.
          
         

      [*]The documentation for the MSI Z77A-G45 does not tell you that all of the SATA ports are preset for AHCI. This may or may not be the case for other Z77 boards.

      1. The SATA format can be changed in the BIOS. This takes less than a minute and provides the final solution to the problem.
          
         

      [*]This issue may have been the cause of the original missing bootmgr. Either way, I was able to rebuild the bcd using the link above.

       

   
   

[Kosta 122]

Ahhh, the old IDE vs AHCI problem. You never think of the right thing at the first moment. Funny how easy the solution seems when you think of it