Windows 7 & XP MBR Issue - HELP!

[Sparky]

I installed Windows 7 on a new spare, bare SATA drive (64bit once & 32bit twice) to play around with it. Staying with the 32bit for now due to hardware compatibility issues.

Now the problem. I installed Windows 7 on the new drive with my other two HD's installed but now I get a screen on boot asking me which version of Windows I want to boot to. I had intended to just choose which drive to boot from via BIOS so this was not what I intended to have happen as I share this PC with my family and I don't want them to become frustrated when presented with black screen, white text boot options. Trying to keep it simple!

Now the question: Can I boot off my XP CD and choose repair and type in FIXMBR as I've read on various websites on fixing this? Is it that easy or am I likely to corrupt anything else? Should I unplug the other two drives and just leave my XP drive installed or what?

Thanks in advance for any help you guys can throw my way!.

[DMB2000uk]

You can load the XP bootloader back on, but I don't know if that will also disable your option to boot into windows 7.

There should be an option in windows 7 to set the default OS to boot and how long to wait before booting it. So you could set the default as XP and the timeout as a second or two, which would be enough time for others not to worry, and enough time for you to select when you know you want to go to windows 7.

Vista uses BCDEDIT to change boot order so windows 7 will probably too (look up how to use that).

Dan

[Sparky]

Thanks for the reply Dan. I did recall Vista having the same option back when I was dual booting XP / Vista, but it confused and irritated the family when they wanted to log in to check their mail etc....

I'm planning on changing the boot sequence like you advised so it will default to XP after a shorter period of wait time but when the license expires on the Windows 7 beta I want to be able to boot XP normally so that's why I'm asking for some help. I was thinking (and I may be wrong) that when I wanted to "play" in Windows 7 I could just F2 in to BIOS and change the boot sequence to choose my drive that had Windows 7 loaded on it and then move my XP drive back up in the drive order when I'm done "playing"

[DL126]

There is a boot tab in the "msconfig" applet of Vista where you can set several different options for booting.
Maybe 7 has the same tab?
Might be easier than trying to figure out how to use BCDEDIT.

[Sparky]

I went in to Vista and changed the boot order and set it for 3 second delay. When the license expires on the Windows 7 beta I hope I can reformat that drive and fix my MBR like I inquired about in my first post and keep my XP drive in working order without reinstalling my OS. Does this sound feasible?

[DMB2000uk]

Yes, it does.

Dan

[Sparky]

Once again, Thanks to Dan!