Windows 7 ghost boot option

[blewey]

Hi guys

I initially had, and still have, windows 10 on a solid state drive, but then installed windows 7 onto a hard drive as a desperate attempt to get GTA 4 and some other games working (long story). It's now got enough stuff on it to make formatting my hard drive a last resort.
I've since uninstalled it, or so i thought, as the option keeps popping up in my boot menu, and i have had to manually choose windows 10 for a little while.
Windows has since tweaked their bootup allowing me to automatically choose windows 10, in as little as 5 seconds, but it's still quite annoying. Anyone know how to remove that nonexistant boot option?
Thanks
Nick

 

[gardenman]

Hi blewey.

Click on the start menu and type msconfig. It should automatically find the System Configuration (msconfig.exe) tool. Run it.

Click on the Boot tab. You should be able to select the OS (Windows 7 I guess) and choose Delete here. This simply removes it from the boot menu. Be sure your good OS (Windows 10 I assume) is set as your default OS. It should say Default OS on the end of the line. If not, select it and choose the Set as default button.

Don't mess with other options in this program. I see people thinking they can make their system faster by changing memory and CPU options in this program all the time and end up with a system that won't boot.

 

[blewey]

hi gardenman, thanks for this answer, it seemed like a winner - but the windows 7 option is not on the list, there's only windows 10 to choose from! :/

 

[gardenman]

I'm sorry to hear that. Let's try another method. First run an elevated command prompt and type in the following command:

bcdedit /export c:\bcdbackup

This will create a backup of your current Boot Configuration Data (bcd).

Then try Option 2 listed here: https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2288-windows-boot-manager-delete-listed-operating-system.html
Don't worry that it says Windows 7, as the same commands are available and work on Windows 10. Be sure to read it all before starting. Also if the bcdedit command doesn't show the identifier, try using bcdedit /v which should show "verbose" information.

If things go wrong (unable to boot), use a boot up recovery (flash drive or disc) and go to repair then go to command prompt and type the following to restore your bcd back to how it was:

bcdedit /import c:\bcdbackup

Note that drive letters may change while in a boot up disc, for example your main hard drive which is normally drive C may be drive D. You can look at each drive by typing dir C:\ to see whats on drive C. Or dir D:\ to see whats on drive D. You are looking for the drive which has the file bcdbackup on it. If it's drive D then you would type bcdedit /import d:\bcdbackup then remove the boot (flash drive or disc) and boot back up as normal.

 

[blewey]

this didn't work: i've just spotted that the "windows boot manager" is on a different (D) drive. could that be part of the problem?

 

[gardenman]

this didn't work

... and what happened? Any error messages?

How did you determine which drive it's on? I wouldn't think the location would matter, as the bcdedit commands should automatically locate it.

Open an elevated (Run as Admin) command prompt and type: bcdedit > %userprofile%\desktop\bcd.txt
This will create a bcd.txt file on your desktop. Open it in notepad. Copy all of the text and paste it on this website: https://pastebin.com/ The site will give you a link, provide that link here. You can then delete the bcd.txt file from your desktop.

Also provide a screen shot of your Disk Management. Click on the start menu and type in disk management and you should see the program listed. Click on it to run it and maximize the Window. Take a screen shot. You can upload the screen shot to any image hosting site like https://postimages.org/ and provide a link to it from here.

I won't recommend you do this (yet), but it might interest you: https://windowsforum.com/threads/windows-boot-manager-on-wrong-drive.222903/

 

[Colif]

Was win 7 32bit or 64bit?

have you tried running start up repair in win 10?
go to settings/update & security/recovery
click restart now button under Advanced Startup heading

this loads windows recovery environment at startup
choose troubleshoot
choose advanced
choose start up repair - this will scan PC and maybe fix this - will ask for logon info

this might not help, in theory it just does same thing as BCDEDIT.
might help to remove the other hdd and see if you can fix it without its presence in PC.