First, here is the definition for system volume and boot volume under windows.
Second, here is step to change system volume from HDD3 to HDD1.
- The boot files consist of a folder called "Boot" and an application called "bootmgr". They are system files, and so are normally hidden. You must make them visible.
- Copy them both from HDD3 to HDD1. It will complain that two files cannot be copied: "BCD" and "BCD.log", both of which are in the "Boot" folder. The latter is unimportant (its just a log file) and can be ignored; the former will be copied in the next step.
- Open a command prompt with Administrator privileges. Type the following command "bcdedit /export HDD1:\Boot\BCD", where HDD1 is the driver letter of your destination drive. In my case, HDD1 was C, so the command was "bcdedit /export C:\Boot\BCD".
- Now, you have to edit the BCD file so that the entries are all correct. I used the bcdedit program which comes with Windows 7, but there are others. I've heard EasyBCD is pretty good (and free), but the latest version doesn't fully support Windows 7. I believe a new version that does support Windows 7 will be out shortly. First, I navigate to HDD1\Boot on the command prompt (with Admin privileges) and type "bcdedit /store BCD /enum ALL". I use the /store switch to specify the BCD file in the current directory - omitting this switch will use the default one I think, which is on HDD3. This command lists all the entries in the BCD file.
- I scanned the entries, and it turns out that the entries for {bootmgr} and {memdiag} both point to HDD3. Of course, I want them to point to HDD1. So I issue commands in the following form: "bcdedit /store BCD /set [entry name] device partition=HDD1:". Since HDD1 is C on my machine, I would type the following to set the {bootmgr} entry: "bcdedit /store BCD /set {bootmgr} device partition=C:".
That's about it. One last step is to make HDD1 Active via Disk Management (accessed from Computer Management) - it was already Active on my system, so I didn't have to do anything.
