Expert: Mike Dacre - 11/5/2009

Question
Hi mike, sorry this is kind of long but all this information is important.

Well i recently was running Vista and decided that i didnt like it so i tried to down grade to XP, after installing it, during the second boot process to continue installation it said something like "disk read error to restart press Ctrl+alt+del" well i read around and i have come to believe it was a raid issue so instead of going into that mess i just bought windows 7 ha. I have to 500 gig satas into a raid 1 config to make 1 tarabite, and just a 250 gig to use as a back up drive.

everything went well but i have a couple issues, one is it seems to wanna dual boot me a believe. During start up it gives me the choice of "previous version of windows"(something like that) or "Windows 7" even when the same drive and partition i put XP on i totally wiped and formatted for Windows 7. Now i came from vista originally and both my 1 tarabite (local disk drive C) which i have put all 3 Operation systems on and 250 gig (local Drive D) was working fine. Now Windows 7 doesn't even seem to find my other drive with 250 gigs. (which would be drive D next to my C) I installed all the latest drivers and nothing still has changed HELP!

Thanks again,
Kevin

Answer
Hello Kevin,

First of all you are going to want to repair the boot config so that it doesn't prompt you for which system to boot to.

To do this click on the windows key (or start menu) and type in the search window MSCONFIG now right click on the result and choose RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR

From the system configuration window, click on BOOT tab and remove the second windows path (there should only be one that displays 'windows 7 (c:\windows): Current OS;Default OS

That will fix the first boot problem.

Now to deal with the drive issues, you should be using a partition manager program such as paragon hard drive manager, which has the ability to handle repartition and creation of image files.  You can download/purchase this software from the following link:

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/hdm-personal/

I would also suggest visiting my website at http://tpsconsulting.com and read the TIPS page on OPTIMIZING your computer. Then go to the SOFTWARE/SUPPORT page and install all the programs from the PINK section as they will help with the ongoing maintenance and removal of malware/spyware issues.  There are many programs out there but most of them are malware in themselves, these are not and I have found them to do the best job for upkeep and maintenance. As well, tools such as CCLEANER have the ability to disable certain start up options safely.

hope this helps,

Sincerely


Mike Dacre
http://tpsconsulting.com
follow me on twitter @tpsconsulting