Boot .dat file

[Bill Cunningham]

I foud a file in my root directory called "boot???.dat". The three "???"
was three letters I can't remember. I installed on another partition
windows 10. I erased windows 10 and windows 7 didn't want to boot. I ran my
win 7 installation and there was a CLSID key in the registry that looked
like it might be deciding default windwos OSes. I also have linux in
another partition.

So does anyone know the file I am talking about? Is that something
windows 10 would put into windows 7 root ? Windows 7 learning it is a pain
and an adventure.

Bill

[Paul]

Post by Bill Cunningham
I foud a file in my root directory called "boot???.dat". The three "???"
was three letters I can't remember. I installed on another partition
windows 10. I erased windows 10 and windows 7 didn't want to boot. I ran my
win 7 installation and there was a CLSID key in the registry that looked
like it might be deciding default windwos OSes. I also have linux in
another partition.
So does anyone know the file I am talking about? Is that something
windows 10 would put into windows 7 root ? Windows 7 learning it is a pain
and an adventure.
Bill

Did you install Win7, then Win10, then Linux, then delete Win10 ?

That's the only part of this story, that would take zero work
to get into such a situation.

And you couldn't have entirely used the automation in each case,
unless you

Installed Win7 in automatic ("I don't care") mode
Enter Disk Management and "shrink" Win7 C: to half size.
Install Win10 in automatic ("I don't care") mode
Enter Disk Management and "shrink" Win10 C: to half size.
Install Linux slash as the next partition (could be Extended/Logical).

That's about the least amount of work.

Can you post a picture of Disk Management from when it was working ?

An alternative, is to boot Linux and install the "disktype" package,
a very small package. Then,

sudo disktype /dev/sda

and copy/paste the information into a new posting. That tool
will tell us what partitions are present. When you also tell us
the total disk size (available from sudo fdisk /dev/sda and
the "print" option), I can then figure out the size of the
"hole" where the Win10 used to be. Maybe.

In theory, you could put the Win10 partition back, using
TestDisk (from your still-bootable Linux). But that's more
trouble than it's likely worth. TestDisk is a royal pain to use.

In any case, a "multi-booter" person keeps backups, right ?

You're never more than one step from a disaster when you
do stuff like this. That's why we have backups, and we keep
multi-boot partitions small so the backups won't take
quite as long. Don't store your 1TB movie collection
in your Win7 Downloads folder etc. Store it on a
separate disk that can't get damaged by the "experiments".

Paul

[Bill Cunningham]

Paul <***@needed.invalid> wrote in news:pgos1h$d7b$***@dont-email.me:

[...]

Yeah I have backups of my data. Online and on a USB if I am going to
delete a partition. I installed win 7. Then shrank and created two
partitions. I installed linux and then on the 3rd partition decided to
try and install 10. Ten didn't take long to install. I was suprised. I
seem to like windows 7 better though. I believe I deleted 10 while in
linux. I don't know you could do it from windows 7. Windows 10 wanted to
repair itself. Interesting setup there. So I rebooted by the wind 7
install disk. repair disk wouldn't do it. And used "fix disk" and the
registry entries were changed.

So I learned some interesting stuff there in this proces. I was given
the options as to booting into 7 or 10. I didn't reinstall grub over
this and put in an option for windows. IDK how that would've worked. I
have learned many thigns from this. And sometimes it has involved losing
data. But what's important I have online backed up. I have found a
reinstall is sometimes only the real way to get rid of some things. You
know these days it's hard to tell what they put on our machines.

Windows 10's booting system intrigues me. It must involve the registry.

Bill

[Bill Cunningham]

Post by Paul
Can you post a picture of Disk Management from when it was working ?

I don't know how to do that.

Post by Paul
You're never more than one step from a disaster when you
do stuff like this. That's why we have backups, and we keep
multi-boot partitions small so the backups won't take
quite as long. Don't store your 1TB movie collection

1 TB. lol I have nothing so big. I have a "one movie" movie collection.

Post by Paul
in your Win7 Downloads folder etc. Store it on a
separate disk that can't get damaged by the "experiments".
Paul