Solved Missing Desktop due to MBR?

Hello and thanks for reading,

I created this problem, and even know how I created it, but if a guru could help me fix it, I'd be grateful!!

Some months back I installed Vista 32-bit Home Premium in C:\ partition. When W7 came out, I installed W7 Ultimate 64-bit in D:\ as a dual boot. Now I want to keep Vista, but use W7 as the main OS I am going to build on from here on out, so I want it at the front of the hard disk in C:\ (where it will run faster) and my secondary or experimental OS in D:\ (Vista).

So I backed up Vista to an external drive, booted from a CD (DriveImage XML BartPE) and restored the Vista image to D:\ ... then reinstalled W7 in C:\.

When I booted after re-installing W7, the multi-boot menu listed Windows 7 twice, instead of Windows 7 and Vista, which I kind of expected, because W7 *had* been in D:\ and now it was in C:\ "too." I used Easy BCDEdit to correct the text.

Now the machine boots into W7 fine, but when I try to boot to Vista, I get the usual logo, then the Welcome screen, which lasts a bit longer than it would if nothing was hooey... then I get a cursor (responsive) and a black (empty) desktop.

I used Ctl Atl Del to access Task Mgr, and tried clicking the New Task button and entering explorer.exe, but it is looking at my C:\ drive for explorer, rather than where it SHOULD be looking in D:\, because a funky, unstable, nonfunctional W7 desktop finally came up INSIDE VISTA!! (mind you, W7 is 64-bit!)

I shut down and tried booting into safe mode.... Got the same result of a black screen, and tried entering D:\windows\explorer.exe but got the same error message:

"...ieframe.dll is either not designed to run on Windows or it contains an error..."

..and again the W7 desktop "tried" to come up.

I suspect it's looking in W7's folder (C:\) because the backup image I made of Vista probably contains the original MBR, which mapped Vista to C:\. I was hoping when I re-installed W7 to C:\ with the restored VISTA image already in D:\ that W7 would create a correct MBR... and it did, I think, but it left the old MBR at the beginning of the D:\drive TOO... so when I boot to D:\, the MBR record [ON D:\] is telling VISTA it is in C:\!! Hence Vista goes pokin around in my W7 (C:|) directory.

I downloaded the bootable Vista Recovery CD but it didn't find any problems, and I believe that's because VISTA isn't the problem... the MBR on D:\ is!

I don't want to have to rebuild the Vista OS... just need to remove the incorrect (old) MBR from the beginning of the D:\ drive... Can I do that?? Can I test this theory by somehow reading the first sector of that drive?

THANKS SO MUCH FOR ANY HELP!

If anyone knows of a more appropriate forum for this query, I'd also welcome that!

Resolved

Found the answer, so for any future readers:

When you clone Vista and then restore the image to a different drive letter (partition), it retains the old drive letter in the registry, looking to the 'parent' drive for files.To resolve this:

1. Boot to Vista and when you get the black desktop (or empty blue desktop), bring up Task Mgr (Ctl Alt Del).

2. Click the New Task button and enter regedit.exe then navigate to the following key:

HK_LOCAL_MACHINE -->SYSTEM -->MOUNTED DEVICES

In my case Vista was in D:\ and I needed to change it to C:\ because that's where Vista thought it was loaded. But I first had to free up the C:\ letter by renaming that entry to P: (the next available drive letter), so I Right-clicked on the entry:

\DOS DEVICES\C: and renamed it to \DOS DEVICES\P:

Then I renamed \DOS DEVICES\D: to \DOS DEVICES\C:

Then I changed \DOS DEVICES\P: to \DOS DEVICES\D:

So the drive letters, C and D are switched inside the VISTA registry, so that when Vista loads, even though it is physically installed in D:\, it sees itself as being in C:\... and sees W7 as being in D:\

Worked beautifully. Rebooted and got Vista back and W7 still works great too.

Thanks to this website for the fix:
Multibooters, Vista Dual and Multibooting - Drive Letter Problems

Good info remm,
Thanks for sharing your resolution, That will definately help someone in the future.
You can click that triangle in the upper right of your post to mark it solved.
Thanks and Welcome to the forum.

Thanks for the welcome and for the tip on reporting a resolved issue. I was looking for a "resolved" button...

Have a good one...!

You're Welcome,
Have a good one yourself.
Derek