How to move Vista boot manager to new W7 installation

[davehc]

Adding this later for clarification. This is a situation where you have the Windows Boot manager and mbr installed on a partition conating Vista. You have Windows 7 installed on another partition and now wish to recover the Vista partition. This will mean you have to change the entire boot procedure from the Vista partition to the Windows 7 partition, without destroying you Win7 installation.

There are many ways to skin this cat.This is one recommended method. (Probably quicker to reinstall Windows 7) but:::

Download VistaBootPro from |MG| VistaBootPRO 3.3.0 Download

Step I.
Start the Application. It'll redirect you to the BCD backup page. Click on browse to save a backup copy somehwre safe (NOT the windows Vista partition!) Call it something obvious (Backup)



Step II.
Go to the root directory or partition, of the drive where the BCD is installed (Your Vista partition?)

In Windows Explorer make sure you have in Tools->Folder Options-> View -> "show hidden files" & Uncheck "hide protected files (See picture below)
"
Copy
i. bootmgr
ii. BOOT (folder)

Paste these into the root directory of the drive where Windows 7 is installed.

It will give an error copying 2 file's i.e BCD and BCD.log, saying they are currently being used by another application. Skip these files






Step III.
Goto the folder where you backed up the BCD earlier( in step I.)
Rename the files like this (make another backup first).

xxx.bcd -> BCD
xxx.bcd.log -> BCD.LOG
xxx.bcd.log1 -> BCD.LOG1
xxx.bcd.log2 -> BCD.LOG2

Copy all these files and paste them into the C:\Boot folder, replacing all files.

Step IV.
Reboot, and, if needed, go into the Bios and change HDD Priority from Drive D: to Drive C:.
Boot up the Windows 7 DVD
Select repair my computer.
You should then be OK

Here is another:
This is the recommended method. Probably quicker to reinstall Windos 7 but:::

Download VistaBootPro from |MG| VistaBootPRO 3.3.0 Download

Step I.
Start the Application. It'll redirect you to the BCD backup page. Click on browse to save a backup copy somehwre safe (NOT the windows Vista partition!) Call it something obvious (Backup)



Step II.
Go to the root directory or partition, of the drive where the BCD is installed (Your Vista partition?)

In Windows Explorer make sure you have in Tools->Folder Options-> View -> "show hidden files" & Uncheck "hide protected files (See picture below)
"
Copy
i. bootmgr
ii. BOOT (folder)

Paste these into the root directory of the drive where Windows 7 is installed.

It will give an error copying 2 file's i.e BCD and BCD.log, saying they are currently being used by another application. Skip these files






Step III.
Goto the folder where you backed up the BCD earlier( in step I.)
Rename the files like this (make another backup first).

xxx.bcd -> BCD
xxx.bcd.log -> BCD.LOG
xxx.bcd.log1 -> BCD.LOG1
xxx.bcd.log2 -> BCD.LOG2

Copy all these files and paste them into the C:\Boot folder, replacing all files.

Step IV.
Reboot, and, if needed, go into the Bios and change HDD Priority from Drive D: to Drive C:.
You should now be OK.