Win7 install left my partition unusable

System Specs:
GA-MA-790X-UD4P
AMD 7850 Black EditionX2 @2.8 (stock fan)
Power Supply Antec EW 750
Case Antec 900 II
XFX HD4850 (ATI)
2X2GB Super Talent and 2x1GB Super Talent Mem. moduals (6400)
Total mem 6GB
LG HL-DT-ST DVD/CD Burnner
Alpine 3 1/2 Floppy
Hitachi HDP725025GLA380 250Gb, 2 partitions, SATA
Western digital WD2500AAJS-00B4A0 250Gb 2 partitions, SATA
(each HD is partitioned in half)
Network adapters Realtec PCIE GBE AND 1394 NET ADAPTER 2ea. (on mobo)
Ati High Definition Audio on Graphics card
Creative SB Audigy 2

All drivers are up to date:
Bios for mobo: F9 (newest bios)

OS Windows XP Pro on my WD drive, Windows XP 64 pro on my Hitachi drive.
Both are full versions.
Win7 ultimate is a full version

Problem:
Im going to try and make this short! :-)

First I searched the site for some answers and found nothing that really came close to my problem.
So if I missed something, then I'm sorry for the dup..
　
I got Win 7 Ultamate for Xmas, So I install the the 64bit verson on to may Hitachi 2nd partition.
Everything seamed to go without any problems, in fact it was much faster then installing any
other OS I've installed. So I check the device manager (habit) no drivers were installed for my
sound card. I found this funny as every other OS has aways asked for a disk or something.
So I quit out reboot the system. At the boot menu it ask if I wanted to boot Win7 or older Windows.

So I choose Win7, at this point a message came up and said device driver missing, put in system disk
and boot from it. Instead of looking for a driver it started the hole installation process again, telling me that it needed to move my installed window into another folder. Then countiue on with the installation. At this point I dissided to reboot into Win XP64 format the partition and start the hole thing over. Booted in XP64 started to formatthe partition. Well the process got to the point of writting the disk name and checksum. when it stop and reported itcouldn't format the partiton. Great!
At this point I boot up the systems disk (Win7) and tryed to format the partiton before installation. It reported the same thing.

Im looking for someone who has ran into or heard of this problem. My next step is to repartition the drive and see if I can recover it. Or is there a freeware software that might be able to recover it. And please, lets not talk about partition magic.

Let me note that the Hitachi drive is only 3 month old and prior to this, its not given me any problems. My hole computer is less then 5 months old with the exception of my Sound Card and 3 1/2 drive.

Ok to any one who has been reading this I got half the answer, boot up with the win7 system disk, delete the partition, realocate it to recover the partition.

For some reason I've been unable to install Win7. I don't want to loose my setup as it is so I'll return the disk, for a new one. I hope! If any one comes up with a better solution then please post it as it might help someone else.

Some times with dual boots there is confusion about which drive is the primary boot drive.

Before you installed Win 7, which drive was the boot drive. Were you dual booting the XP installs?

Was Win 7 installed and running when you rebooted, or still in the install phase?

Drew:

I have 2 HD, both are partitioned in 1/2. On the first drive I have XP pro(32) on the primary partition, extended partition I stored driver updates, for the 32bit system

On the second Drive I had XP pro(64) on the primary partition, extended partition I stored driver updates for my 64bit system. It was here that I moved the drivers out to my first drives extended partition. Then installed my win 7(64) (this is on my second Drives extended partition)

Every thing seamed to go just great! Win7 was up and running (I should note that I did this with the prerelease of win7 with out any problem, so I didn't think twice about it with the full retail). I did alittle looking around to see what might look new. As I always due I went in to device manager to insure that there wasn't any problems. Well my sound card did have any drivers installed, it made me wounder, why I wasn't asked for drivers disk or any thing. At this point I rebooted the system, boot menu came up asking win7 or old windows version. choose old windows, booted winXP pro (32). Went online found drivers for my sound card (win7) down loaded tham. Once done! I reboot the system, choose win7 at boot menu.
This is when things went wrong. Instead of booting into win7, a msg was on screen that a device driver was missing, it stated that I should boot from the Systems disk. So I put in the System disk in, reset the computer pushed F12 to choose to boot from my DVD/CD rom. Well instead of searching for a driver it right into reinstalling window7. At the screen where it ask to choose which drive, I choose the extended drive on my Second Drive, the same as I did befor. Win7 reported that there was already a os on this drive and that it would move it to another folder, before installing. It was at this time I desided to stop. and reformat the partition. So I canceled and reset the system at boot menu choose old windows version, clicked on winXP64, went into disk manager, click on the partition (G) started the format process. Well it got to 100% then reported It couldn't format the extened partition. So I reset my system, put in the win7 system disk, booted it, when the sceen came up to choose where to install I clicked on the extended partition again choose
format, and tryed formating it again, after a short time it stop and reported it as an unknown disk format. now I couldn't access the partition.

A friend on OCworkbench, suggested to try and delete the partition and then format it with the win7 systems disk. I did and it worked but this time I didn't try installing Win7. Now I have my partition back. Im sure that I'll need to put in another HD and install Win7 on it. I really don't want to remove XP64 or XP32.

Saltgrass

I was dual booting, XP pro(32) was the primary boot drive. Win7 was finished installing when I rebooted it,
and I must say its the fastest OS to date, when it comes to installing. Now I need to get the boot win7 out
of the boot menu.

Originally Posted by jrealing

I got Win 7 Ultamate for Xmas, So I install the the 64bit verson on to may Hitachi 2nd partition.
Everything seamed to go without any problems, in fact it was much faster then installing any
other OS I've installed. So I check the device manager (habit) no drivers were installed for my
sound card. I found this funny as every other OS has aways asked for a disk or something.
So I quit out reboot the system. At the boot menu it ask if I wanted to boot Win7 or older Windows.

So I choose Win7, at this point a message came up and said device driver missing, put in system disk
and boot from it. Instead of looking for a driver it started the hole installation process again, telling me that it needed to move my installed window into another folder. Then countiue on with the installation. At this point I dissided to reboot into Win XP64 format the partition and start the hole thing over. Booted in XP64 started to formatthe partition. Well the process got to the point of writting the disk name and checksum. when it stop and reported itcouldn't format the partiton. Great!

Could it be a bios misconfiguration or do you need to load SATA or raid drivers ?

Cybercore,

I would like to say No, reason being is that when win7 was running after installation, the only thing in device manager that was showing other devices, marked yellow was the sound card. Every thing else was working (no problems). I didn't go online with win7 as I did have my anti viral software installed. I should have down loaded the drivers before I installed it. I did infact take the disk to my friends house, he already has Win7 ultamate. reformated his drive and it installed without any problems.
He has the same mother board as I. The only differances is his sound card. He has the
creative X-fi pci-e plugged into a pci-e 1 slot, two xfx hd4850. Every thing went without a hitch. Reformated his drive put in his system disk and reinstalled. His bios are set up just like mine. Yes we both have the same cpu, 7850 black edition @2.8. neither of us overclock our system well some but I always install with everything at normal speed. I sure that the problem is that the system is confussed about whos primary and whos not.
So Im going to pick up a new drive and put it in for just windows7. What I need to figure out is how to get the win7 or old windows boot option out of the boot menu when I start up my computer.

Originally Posted by jrealing

What I need to figure out is how to get the win7 or old windows boot option out of the boot menu when I start up my computer.

When you loaded Win 7 with XP already installed, the boot files were put on the XP install that was the original boot drive. If you check the hidden system files on that disk in the root directory, you should see a bootmgr file and a boot folder.

The boot.ini file on that same drive probably has both XP installs listed, which is how you dual booted prior to Win 7.

You may be able to use MSconfig.exe to remove the listing in the boot menu. BCDedit might be able to do it, and EasyBCD will probably remove it for you if they will run in XP. If you are going to install Win 7 on another drive with the same conditions as before, it will probably rewrite the BCD store and change it to allow booting to the new install.

Why are you using an extended partition instead of a normal primary partition?

Yes, I was aware of the boot.ini, but what I wasn't aware of since Vista and Win 7 do not use boot.ini or at lease that is what I've been reading on the net. The XP boot.ini had both XP pro and XP pro(64) in it but no win 7 so I was lost. Look I went about 5 years with doing any kind of tinkering around with the OS and when I did it was Win 98SE and Win 95. I was diehart win 98se user. Like the old say goes, if you don't use it you'll loose it.

I used EasyBCD to get mod the BCD. that took care of the boot menu, but I also messed up the boot block the second time I went in as there were 2 entries 1 was Win 7 which I removed first, that fix the boot menu to where it was before I installed win7.
So after a short while of playing around, I went back in to EasyBCD and removed the Second entrie (windows old version) mistake. I rebooted to see what the out come up, System would boot. So after some time I figured it out. Now this is the first time
I've ever did this and that was to boot up my XP pro(32) go into repair, choose to repair boot block and I was back in again.

As for why I have primary on extended partitions both of my HD's. Well those were the options under Win XP32. when I partitioned my had drive. C is the primary and D was the extened Partition. So when I got win XP64 and put in my then newer
HD I set it up the same way primary F and G is the extended. Break down of my drives, C=primary XP pro(32), D=extented Drivers, freeware software I what to try, E=my DVD/CD burnner, F=primary Win XP pro(64), G=Extented Drivers, 64bit software I want to try out.
If you can make all my prartitions primary then please let me know how or send me in the right direction where it tells me how, so I can set it up that way!!!!!
There is a lot about winXP that Im not aware of. Most certainly Ive not explored all the things one can do with it. If I found a site on the internet that had drivers for Win98se, that were for all my equipement I have now, I'd still be running it! Also a 64bit version would be nice.

Are you OK now, or still having problems?