[SOLVED] Moving MBR to another drive to install W7 on it

[MegaMech]

Hello, W7 refuses to install because none of my drives are GPT. I want to install W7 onto my blank SSD. I did some googling but want to make sure I implement the right method based on my circumstance.

I have four drives:

Main::W8.1 (1TB SSD)

Partition with Ubuntu (80GB P., total 2tb)

W8.1 install that was deleted manually (1tb)

Blank SSD with an MBR. When I installed Ubuntu I chose this disk for MBR.

I think moving the MBR to drive 1 would be best... I'm asking cause I want to prevent making an irreversible change that breaks everything. I do not want to lose any data on the other disks.

Should I just: bcdboot c:\windows /s c: If that works, how delete MBR from the blank SSD? Does dskmgmt.msc work? After MBR is deleted: diskpart select 4 | diskpart clean | diskpart convert gpt

Or should I download a separate program that likely requires a bootable USB stick to do this?

Thanks

 

[USAFRet]

"moving MBR" ?
No.

Disconnect all drives except the one you want Win 7 on.
Install to that drive.
Done.

 

[MegaMech]

Thank you for the response,

I get the same error. Should I reformat the disk? It has an MBR partition of 350MB. Will I ruin booting into the other disks if I delete this partition?

"The selected disk has an MBR partition table, on EFI systems windows can only install to GPT disks"

 

[USAFRet]

Thank you for the response,

I get the same error. Should I reformat the disk? It has an MBR partition of 350MB. Will I ruin booting into the other disks if I delete this partition?

"The selected disk has an MBR partition table, on EFI systems windows can only install to GPT disks"

What else is on this physical drive?
How do you currently select what to boot into?

 

[MegaMech]

The Linux ubuntu boot selector menu. I choose between ubuntu and windows 8.1.

The disk is basically blank. I was putting some files on it. It used to boot w8.1 but I reformatted it awhile ago into a data disk.

I can still load the ubuntu boot selector without this ssd plugged in but it wont run windows I think.

 

[USAFRet]

The Linux ubuntu boot selector menu. I chose choose between ubuntu and windows 8.1.

The disk is basically blank. I was putting some files on it. It used to boot w8.1 but I reformatted it awhile ago into a data disk.

I can still load the ubuntu boot selector without this ssd plugged in but it wont run windows I think.

Disconnect ALL other drives.
Install the Win 7. Delete all existing partitions on that driev as you go through.
You'll have to manually modify the ubuntu menu to do anything with the new Windows drive.

 

[MegaMech]

Disconnect ALL other drives.
Install the Win 7. Delete all existing partitions on that driev as you go through.
You'll have to manually modify the ubuntu menu to do anything with the new Windows drive.

Yes I disconnected the other drives.

So I should just delete the MBR. That should be fine?
So just use diskpart clean?

You misinterpreted my comment about the Ubuntu boot menu into the idea that I completely ignored your advice. Obviously, the ubuntu boot menu is not available when only the SSD that I want to install w7 is plugged in.

So back to the original question.
Dispart clean. Yes or no? Or something else? And I should be safe deleting the MBR? I won't lose my files on the other drives? If this breaks launching into an OS, that's easily fixable with a few more steps like manually editing the Ubuntu boot menu as you say, which I am fine with. I can also just manually choose which hard drive I want to boot into from the BIOS. W7 install does not contain an MBR delete feature. I have to delete the MBR while in either Ubuntu, W8.1, or a bootable USB Stick.

 

[MegaMech]

And to further clarify: I cannot install Windows 7 until I have dealt with the MBR. And I cannot delete the MBR from within the W7 installer.

 

[USAFRet]

No need to diskpart clean.
Just delete all the partitions during the Win 7 install, and continue on with a blank drive.

 

[USAFRet]

And to further clarify: I cannot install Windows 7 until I have dealt with the MBR. And I cannot delete the MBR from within the W7 installer.

Booting from a properly constructed Win 7 USB install should absolutely allow deleting all existing partitions.

 

[MegaMech]

I deleted the 350MB partition using dskmgmt.msc, will try installing w7 again.
The delete partition button was greyed out in the w7 installer for the 350MB partition.

 

[MegaMech]

Ya it works now. I just needed to delete that 350MB partition and extend the other partition. Than in w7 installer I deleted and clicked new.


Thank you for your help.

 

[MegaMech]

So, now the bcd is kinda broken.

I have another drive that is often unplugged because it's old. It has W7 Ultimate. Whenever I try booting windows 7 or 8.1 it think that I'm booting into W7 Ultimate, even if that drive is unplugged. (I temp swapped into this w7 ultimate disk. It seems that messed things up. Or, adding the other drives once W7 on the SSD worked, kinda broke the other things, this may have been a case where installing W7 with the other drives plugged in may have been a good idea).

My PC won't even run the W7 install disk. I get the 0x0000225 error. I can still boot Ubuntu and W7 Ultimate.

update:
Ah, I seem to have fixed all the issues. Whew.