Bootloader fixer for previous OS

I installed Windows 7 on a separate hard drive to test it for 30 days to see if I wanted it on a new PC. OK, It's good, but I made the mistake of having 2 different OSs on the same PC, XP and Win7, and consequently the boot files were automatically changed on both of these drives to the Win7 format.

Here lies the problem,  The dual boot-up of "Earlier OS" (WinXP) and "Windows 7" remained even after re-formating and removing the 2nd hard drive. It totally replaced the XP boot files on the hard drive Win7 was NOT loaded on, and could not be reversed nor restored via system restore. So I had to wait  during boot-up to select the "Earlier OS" or else it would go into error mode. What a pain.

I tried msconfig etc,  and nearly all the very iffy and painful hints and tricks on the www without success. I then tried a very small free program called "EasyBCD.". It's mostly self explanatory, very fast and tiny and it really worked a treat. Dual boot is now gone and my old XP boots perfectly now  without any intervention.

It also works on Vista and maybe on other OS, but I have not been there yet.

Moderators Comment: This user submitted item has been fact checked and is accurate.

This is actually a pretty impressive freebie whose main application is as a bootloader for multi-boot systems with Vista. Here's the description from the developer's site:

"EasyBCD is NeoSmart Technologies' multiple award-winning answer to tweaking the new Windows Vista bootloader. With EasyBCD, almost anything is possible. Setting up and configuring Windows boot entries is simple, and there is no easier way to quickly boot right into Linux, Mac OS X, or BSD straight from the Windows Vista bootloader - on the fly, no expert knowledge needed!"