several copies of windows on my drives...Which drive is my windows 7 loading from?

[dzsizan]

I have several copies of windows on my drives. one in the C: drive 11GB another on my D: which is 18 GB...I want to find out which one my laptop is loading windows 7 from so I can delete the other one. Note non of these are:..' windows.old'....

Also when i start my laptop I am always offered the choice of three windows 7..the first two work okay but are slightly different, the other is empty and does not load o f course.

Now I think a lot of my windows 7 problems come form so many windows 7 files on my separate drives..So I want to find out which one to keep and delete the rest......Oh I have tried reinstalling that does not work..it just adds more windows 7 files to my drives.

So how do I find which windows is loading and how to find the drive....please try keep it simple i'm as Mr Frank Zappa would say 'am a techno fool'......wll not quite but simple please.....no techno babble...Thank you kindly for your understanding.

Another thing I would like to point out. Since I had windows 7..it's been nothing but trouble..But in China a Chinese tech guy in a show installed a fake windows 7 for 100RMB.[ about ten quid]..and it worked perfectly every single time, never crashed once none of those stupid 'errors' so common to windows 7...I come back home for a short while and wham...The original windows 7 is back to its old tricks of being useless........Oh bring back XP, now that was a good O/S system

 

[the_crippler]

Sounds like you have a lot of different problems going on there...and not the least of which being that you allowed someone to install a sketchy copy of Windows on your machine that does who-knows-what with your personal info.


I know you said you did a reinstall, but the absolute, hands down, best thing you can do at this point is back up for important files (after virus-checking the ever-living heck out of them) wiping EVERYTHING and starting with a fresh, clean install.

If you are unwilling to do that and just want to find which drive is loading, go into your bios and see which disk is listed first in the boot order. Barring that, take one of the drives out and see which version of windows boots. (However, I'm actually betting that you have multiple installs on one drive, and that's what's coming up in your boot menu, but I can't be sure. Seriously - wipe and reinstall from scratch.)

 

[dariens007]

i dont think there is a simple answer for your question unfortunately. you might need a computer techie to help you out because what i would recommend is first backing up all your important data to a usb stick or something of that nature. make sure you have your windows installation cd or restoration cds that game with your computer. this is where it gets complicated.....you need to delete all the partitions on al your drives and clean up that mess and create a new single partition to reinstall windows that is NTFS formatted system.

i know thats not what you wanted but really trying to figure it out without being there i dont think is really possible. it needs to be redone, windows acts funky when you install it multiple times. and there is a question of whether you have a legitimate version of windows. man what a mess.

to figure out which windows is loading first i think you would have to edit the master bootloader which....is complicated lol. maybe i wasn't so helpful.... ^_^*

 

[dzsizan]

Sounds like you have a lot of different problems going on there...and not the least of which being that you allowed someone to install a sketchy copy of Windows on your machine that does who-knows-what with your personal info.


I know you said you did a reinstall, but the absolute, hands down, best thing you can do at this point is back up for important files (after virus-checking the ever-living heck out of them) wiping EVERYTHING and starting with a fresh, clean install.

If you are unwilling to do that and just want to find which drive is loading, go into your bios and see which disk is listed first in the boot order. Barring that, take one of the drives out and see which version of windows boots. (However, I'm actually betting that you have multiple installs on one drive, and that's what's coming up in your boot menu, but I can't be sure. Seriously - wipe and reinstall from scratch.)

 

[dzsizan]

Actually if you had read my post properly it was a condemnation of the ORIGINAL WINDOWS 7...The fake Chinese one was amazing. In three yeari had it installed never once did I receive an error, not once did my system crash, and my media player incorporated every album exactly as it was in my music folder....try reading the post next time instead of commenting on it
without reading, I can only assume you are an American.

 

[dzsizan]

i dont think there is a simple answer for your question unfortunately. you might need a computer techie to help you out because what i would recommend is first backing up all your important data to a usb stick or something of that nature. make sure you have your windows installation cd or restoration cds that game with your computer. this is where it gets complicated.....you need to delete all the partitions on al your drives and clean up that mess and create a new single partition to reinstall windows that is NTFS formatted system.

i know thats not what you wanted but really trying to figure it out without being there i dont think is really possible. it needs to be redone, windows acts funky when you install it multiple times. and there is a question of whether you have a legitimate version of windows. man what a mess.

to figure out which windows is loading first i think you would have to edit the master bootloader which....is complicated lol. maybe i wasn't so helpful.... ^_^*

 

[dzsizan]

Darien...You were spot on, because thatis what I did. Using QQ i had a hinese tech guy I know remotely control my laptop from Shenzhen...giving me any physi instructions required such as inserting disc and left him to it......
He did tell me though. That I would be better off putting in the fake one he inserted because it it had been corrected and and many of the problem i am having here in the UK with the original will re-emerge...Fortunately I will be returning to SZ so it is only a temporary fix I need.....He also loaded a 'Chinese updated codec for the media player ..and now it is collecting album information prperly...Incredibly I tired Microsoft for just such a thing to be told...that any updated codec would have to come from an outside source...So fine I found another, and guess what..full of damned viruses and candy stuff.....so much for MS giving a dan about their customers.......
I honestly believe that company is the worst customer service one I have ever come across.

 

[the_crippler]

Actually if you had read my post properly it was a condemnation of the ORIGINAL WINDOWS 7...The fake Chinese one was amazing. In three yeari had it installed never once did I receive an error, not once did my system crash, and my media player incorporated every album exactly as it was in my music folder....try reading the post next time instead of commenting on it
without reading, I can only assume you are an American.

Nope - I read it and I saw which version you figured you were having problems with. The thing is you still have multiple versions of Windows on your machine, which is the crux of your issue. Legit copies of Windows act very screwy when they detect pirated software elsewhere on the system. Also, pirated software has a bad habit of containing all sorts of nasty things that hide on your system and cause problems later. I'm not saying that this is 100% of the problem, but it can't be eliminated. With this many problems on the system and and no clear-cut sign of where it's from, it's best to start from scratch and with a legitimate copy of Windows. If you want to be technical about reading stuff, the TOS of this site says that we shouldn't even be helping you at all when you're admitting to using pirated software anyway.

But, if you want to be cranky and racist against Americans instead of fixing the problem, you can do that, too.

 

[Austin R]

Did you check which one was updated last?

 

[orlbuckeye]

I have several copies of windows on my drives. one in the C: drive 11GB another on my D: which is 18 GB...I want to find out which one my laptop is loading windows 7 from so I can delete the other one. Note non of these are:..' windows.old'....

Also when i start my laptop I am always offered the choice of three windows 7..the first two work okay but are slightly different, the other is empty and does not load o f course.

Now I think a lot of my windows 7 problems come form so many windows 7 files on my separate drives..So I want to find out which one to keep and delete the rest......Oh I have tried reinstalling that does not work..it just adds more windows 7 files to my drives.

So how do I find which windows is loading and how to find the drive....please try keep it simple i'm as Mr Frank Zappa would say 'am a techno fool'......wll not quite but simple please.....no techno babble...Thank you kindly for your understanding.

Another thing I would like to point out. Since I had windows 7..it's been nothing but trouble..But in China a Chinese tech guy in a show installed a fake windows 7 for 100RMB.[ about ten quid]..and it worked perfectly every single time, never crashed once none of those stupid 'errors' so common to windows 7...I come back home for a short while and wham...The original windows 7 is back to its old tricks of being useless........Oh bring back XP, now that was a good O/S system

Well someone installed windows using the Boot manager to be able to boot to 2 different versions. You can look at the boot manager and see with option boots from C and which boots from d.

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/data-center/modifying-the-windows-7-boot-loader-with-the-boot-configuration-data-editor-tool/

 

[dzsizan]

Actually if you had read my post properly it was a condemnation of the ORIGINAL WINDOWS 7...The fake Chinese one was amazing. In three yeari had it installed never once did I receive an error, not once did my system crash, and my media player incorporated every album exactly as it was in my music folder....try reading the post next time instead of commenting on it
without reading, I can only assume you are an American.

Nope - I read it and I saw which version you figured you were having problems with. The thing is you still have multiple versions of Windows on your machine, which is the crux of your issue. Legit copies of Windows act very screwy when they detect pirated software elsewhere on the system. Also, pirated software has a bad habit of containing all sorts of nasty things that hide on your system and cause problems later. I'm not saying that this is 100% of the problem, but it can't be eliminated. With this many problems on the system and and no clear-cut sign of where it's from, it's best to start from scratch and with a legitimate copy of Windows. If you want to be technical about reading stuff, the TOS of this site says that we shouldn't even be helping you at all when you're admitting to using pirated software anyway.

But, if you want to be cranky and racist against Americans instead of fixing the problem, you can do that, too.

 

[USAFRet]

But in China a Chinese tech guy in a show installed a fake windows 7 for 100RMB.[ about ten quid]..and it worked perfectly every single time, never crashed once none of those stupid 'errors' so common to windows 7

All your passwords now belong to someone else.

Back up your personal docs
Obtain a legal, valid OS
Remove all other drives except your target one
Install on that drive, wiping everything else off it.

You can rail against Windows 7 (and Americans), but properly installed, it is very, very stable.

 

[dzsizan]

Did you check which one was updated last?

Yeh Austin just did...and it seems that there are two working side by side from different drives...So not so tech Savvy, I had a look at the net and found that if I could learn how to Boot from CD..I think that is the correct term...The problem would be resolved....incredibly I ended up for some reason getting rid of the Boot manager and kept getting use CTL-Alt-Del to restart..But doing this did nothing..eventually it took me several attempts and about an hour when out of the blue the damn cd [legitinate one i may add] started to run.......So purely by luck and nothing more...I seem to have resolved the problem....But I learned an even greater one...Never use programs
that deal with hidden drives such as magic partition....Unless of course you know what you are doing......Finally got the Chinese tech guy who controlled laptop by QQ...And did all the stuff i'm not good at..he even included a really nice little codec for windows 12 which now loads Albums beautifully...........Why the heck cant MS make a codec for it, after all it is their software......me complaiing about Microsoft again!

 

[dzsizan]

But in China a Chinese tech guy in a show installed a fake windows 7 for 100RMB.[ about ten quid]..and it worked perfectly every single time, never crashed once none of those stupid 'errors' so common to windows 7

All your passwords now belong to someone else.

Back up your personal docs
Obtain a legal, valid OS
Remove all other drives except your target one
Install on that drive, wiping everything else off it.

You can rail against Windows 7 (and Americans), but properly installed, it is very, very stable.

 

[dzsizan]

Once again you clearly never read what I wrote....'I HAVE BEEN USING MY LEGIT WINDOWS & PREMIUM".....As for it being stable nonsense...how can you call a legit piece of O/S stable...because when it first came out their were dozens of errors showing the most common if I remember was error 355 which meant Windows 7 would not connect to the internet via broadband, MS solutions were useless, as for it being stable i suggest you check the web about complaint on 7...they are numerous...And for your information windows 7 was '''RUSHED OUT TO CUSTOMERS"...because Vista was a such a disaster.......And that is a belief held by many top techs in the industry..I may not be a tech geek...But I do read voraciously about anything I buy with my cash....

I still have my Sony stereo bought in 1975 for 275 quid...And it has worked perfectly never once needing repair....The same goes for my original PS1 and PS2.....I do not spend money lightly on something..when I buy it i expect it to work from day one...And even you cannot deny this is not true of windows 7...The fact is MS has been cheating customers for years and getting away with it

 

[USAFRet]

You have a system with multiple Windows installs, including a bootleg Chinese version.
You are seemingly having major issues.

I, on the other hand, have 3 PC within arms reach with Windows 7, one install each, and have zero issues on any of them.

I wonder what the difference could be?

And you are wrong about 7 being rushed out because Vista was so terrible. Vista was terrible because it was rushed out. And also because the hardware manufacturers dropped the ball mightily.

What are you looking for with this thread? How to fix your PC with its many issues?
A clean install of the OS would be the best, fastest solution.

No one is forcing you to use Windows. There's always Apple or Linux.

 

[Austin R]

Glad you fixed it, as USAFRet stated Vista was the OS that was rushed, however it was a start of the new era for Windows. Of course any OS that comes out will have some issues, not everything is perfect. Things happen but atleast you got it fixed.

 

[dzsizan]

You have a system with multiple Windows installs, including a bootleg Chinese version.
You are seemingly having major issues.

I, on the other hand, have 3 PC within arms reach with Windows 7, one install each, and have zero issues on any of them.

I wonder what the difference could be?

And you are wrong about 7 being rushed out because Vista was so terrible. Vista was terrible because it was rushed out. And also because the hardware manufacturers dropped the ball mightily.

What are you looking for with this thread? How to fix your PC with its many issues?
A clean install of the OS would be the best, fastest solution.

No one is forcing you to use Windows. There's always Apple or Linux.

 

[dzsizan]

My God for a guy with three pc's you sure are quite dumb! or maybe you simply cannot READ!!! an affliction which is rife in America...
So let me spell it out for you because you did not read what I wrote......I WAS USING A LEGITIMATE COPY OF WINDOWS PREMIUM 7
...Now my dear friend you clearly have something in common with the prophet Mohammed for he could neither read or write either.

Now again i have a .and was running..!!!! ''''A LEGITIMATE COPY OF WINDOWS & MR # PC MAN.....Did you actually learn to read at all?....Christ almighty...how dumb can a person be who owns three pcs........

 

[USAFRet]

OK, enough with insults, both personal and national.

I have several copies of windows on my drives.

But in China a Chinese tech guy in a show installed a fake windows 7 for 100RMB.[ about ten quid]

You tell me....What do you think that would lead someone to believe?

Whatever. Your PC is either fixed, or it is still broken.
If it works, what were you looking for in this thread?

If it is still broken, fix it.

If you came in here simply to rant against some perceived (non existent) fault in Windows 7, I'll thank you to take your rants elsewhere.

 

[dzsizan]

You have a system with multiple Windows installs, including a bootleg Chinese version.
You are seemingly having major issues.

I, on the other hand, have 3 PC within arms reach with Windows 7, one install each, and have zero issues on any of them.

I wonder what the difference could be?

And you are wrong about 7 being rushed out because Vista was so terrible. Vista was terrible because it was rushed out. And also because the hardware manufacturers dropped the ball mightily.

What are you looking for with this thread? How to fix your PC with its many issues?
A clean install of the OS would be the best, fastest solution.

No one is forcing you to use Windows. There's always Apple or Linux.

Once again you clearly never read what I wrote....'I HAVE BEEN USING MY LEGIT WINDOWS & PREMIUM".....As for it being stable nonsense...how can you call a legit piece of O/S stable...because when it first came out their were dozens of errors showing the most common if I remember was error 355 which meant Windows 7 would not connect to the internet via broadband, MS solutions were useless, as for it being stable i suggest you check the web about complaint on 7...they are numerous...And for your information windows 7 was '''RUSHED OUT TO CUSTOMERS"...because Vista was a such a disaster.......And that is a belief held by many top techs in the industry..I may not be a tech geek...But I do read voraciously about anything I buy with my cash....

I still have my Sony stereo bought in 1975 for 275 quid...And it has worked perfectly never once needing repair....The same goes for my original PS1 and PS2.....I do not spend money lightly on something..when I buy it i expect it to work from day one...And even you cannot deny this is not true of windows 7...The fact is MS has been cheating customers for years and getting away with it

 

[USAFRet]

Interesting.
Clearly, you have not read what *I* wrote.

Is your PC fixed, or is it still broken?

What is your point with this thread?

 

[dzsizan]

Interesting.
Clearly, you have not read what *I* wrote.

Is your PC fixed, or is it still broken?

What is your point with this thread?

a dig at you and your innane comment which came about because you never even read my thread idiot....and yes my laptop is fixed...nexttime read the thread...if possible

 

[4745454b]

Before I close this thread I wanted to point out that I've used Win7 since it pretty much first came out as I bought the family upgrade pack. My Ex hated it and went back to XP. But I've been using it ever since. No blue screens, no lock ups, no odd behavior at all. I nearly stopped using it when I was setting it up and it wouldn't let me save the GPU drivers to C:\. (protected directory. I always save drivers in the root of C as was common back in the Dos days.) But I stuck with it and I'm not going back. Vista or ME win7 is not. Very stable and nice OS all around.