• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Windows 8 corrupted my Windows 7 Drive

NickelPlate

NickelPlate

Senior member
I recently installed Windows 8 on a separate hard disk and have been dual booting from my MB boot menu (F12). I've noticed on occasion that after running Windows 8 that booting into Windows 7 would start the disk check as if there were errors. Apparently Windows 8 has some sort of hybrid shutdown thing that causes this.

Today I booted to my Windows 8 drive again and tried to copy some files from my Windows 7 drive to my Windows 8 drive. Something got corrupted in the process and neither installation will boot now, hooray for me! Thanks Microsoft.

I thought installing Win8 to a 2nd HD would avoid messing with my Win7 installation but I was wrong. I don't care about the Win8 install, but I would like to get my Win 7 installation running again. It always boots into startup repair which of course fails to fix the problem after scanning for about 30 minutes.

I tried booting to my Win7 DVD and running the repair option but it's the same thing and fails each time. It's also reporting no restore points to restore to.

So what are my options here? I'm trying to avoid reinstalling Win7 as I'm not sure what will get overwritten in the process. I have mostly everything backed up but I'm just really trying to avoid having to start over again. I didn't need this headache.

Thanks,

NP
 
Did you install Win8 with the other hard drive attached? If so, that's your problem. If you're going to install separate operating systems on separate drives, disconnect everything else during installation. The old days of messing with bootloaders and whatnot are done.
 
Initially I did but Windows 8 wouldn't install while the Win7 drive was connected so I disconnected it and installed Windows 8 no problem.
 
Last edited:
Well I just shit canned the Win8 drive and reinstalled Win7 on it. I still have my other main Win7 drive and have pulled most of the data I need off of it. The only thing I can't get is I had some Windows XP virtual machine files (the .vmc and .vhd files) that I can't access from the new install because they were hibernated.

Is there anyway to make my old Win 7 installation bootable again? At this point I'd consider 3rd party utilities since the MS repair function doesn't work, go figure.
 
Should have made image files of your OS drives before you started, and maybe once per week thereafter. I also use Windows 7 backup program for the same purpose, but reinstalling from one of these backups is painfully slow, at least it was the few times I restored to my SSD drive. Acronis True Image 2012 is way faster at restore.
 
Same exact thing happened here (Had 7 on Drive/part 0, installed 8 to part 1) and after being sorely disappointed in the desktop suitability of 8 :colbert:, did the same thing as you. Luckily most of my data is backed up but it set me back a bit having to reinstall the best MS OS ever made.
 
Yeah I finally just gave up. Besides the repair console/recovery disc, I tried all the usual command prompt stuff CHKDSK, BOOTREC /FIXMBR /REBUILDBCD /FIXBOOT etc, nothing worked. I didn't lose much except my hibernated virtual machine files and hours of my time.
 
I have a computer that's configured with a removable hard drive bay for my Operating System (O/S) drive. There are also 4 other hard drives inside my workstation.

Recently, I installed Windows 8 on a new hard drive that works inside the removable hard drive bay. I noticed that when Windows 8 finished booting, there would be a short delay while it seemingly "corrected" all 4 of my internal hard drives. Perhaps it was applying some kind of indexing "fix" to the drives.

When I shut down the computer and reinserted my Windows 7 drive into the bay, my computer started to run an automatic scan disk during bootup on all 4 of the internal drives. 25 minutes later, I was at the Windows 7 desktop and all 4 internal drives were fine.

Over the next few days, I went back and forth between Windows 7 and Windows 8 by inserting the appropriate drive. Basically, I was just spending some time getting familiar with Windows 8. Each time I went to Windows 8, there would be a short delay while the O/S seemingly "corrected" all the internal drives. Likewise, each time I went back to Windows 7, it would take 25 minutes to get through an automatic scan disk of all 4 drives during bootup.

Finally, on one occasion, when starting Windows 8, there was an on-screen message that stated one of my internal hard drives needed a "repair." Windows 8 went on to attempt the "repair." After the "repair" process, the drive no longer appeared under Windows 8!

With panic setting in, I reinserted my Windows 7 drive and after more than 2 hours of scan disk, I arrived at the Windows 7 desktop. My heart sunk as I discovered the drive no longer appeared under Windows 7 either.

As a last resort, I shut down the computer and inserted my Windows XP O/S drive that I also have in another removable hard drive bay. Amazingly, the "missing" drive showed up and I could access everything. What a relief!

I proceeded to copy the entire contents of this drive to a brand new external drive (formatted as NTFS) connected to a USB port. All was well.

Just for the "fun of it," I went back to Windows 7 and deleted the existing partition on the "missing" drive, set up a new partition and reformatted the drive. Then I copied all of the recovered contents from my USB drive to the newly formatted drive. I have been using the drive for 2 months under Windows 7 without a glitch. So that drive is absolutely fine.

I have NOT gone back to Windows 8 again. If I do, I will physically disconnect the SATA cables in all 4 of my internal drives PRIOR to going into Windows 8.

Basically, I feel that Windows 8 is a far less efficient O/S than Windows 7, just as Windows 7 is a far less efficient O/S than Windows XP. Microsoft continues to make retrograde progress with its operating systems.

Incidentally, I considered switching over to a Mac. My twin brother did just this. Our conclusion, the Mac is even worse. He's gone back to a PC.
 
Myron, disable "Turn on fast startup" in the Power Options control panel, and that would likely fix your issue. One of Win8's tricks is that when shutting down it doesn't actually shut down, but rather it does a form of deep hibernation for the OS so that it can spring back to life quickly. As a result the disks aren't cleanly dismounted, which is why Win7 wanted to repair them, and then when Win8 comes back up it sees the disks have changed, etc.

"Turn on fast startup" is essentially incompatible with multi-booting.
 
What you can do is reinstall Windows 7 on your current partition but do not format it, you will have a messed up installation as files especially ones from the Program Files folder will overlapse but you will get a chance to find your old files, back them up on an external HDD, then do another format
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top