Quad-Boot Windows 7 Ultimate and Windows 8.1 question

Thanks guys for the reply.

@Indianatone,

Thanks I will check it out :)

@gregrocker

I plan to install the Windows 8.1 on the last partition with 3 existing Windows 7 partitions. The 3 existing Windows 7 partitions has EasyBCD installed already. Is it correct to say that I have to install EasyBCD after the Windows 8.1 installation?

Always unplug all other hard drives during install so that they are booted via the BIOS by setting to boot first, or using the BIOS Boot menu. If this isn't to your liking you can later add any OS to the Windows Boot Menu using EasyBCD and the hard drive will still remain independently bootable because you didn't let the boot manager be placed on another hard drive

-- Yes thank you for the advise. I do plan to use EasyBCD as booting via the BIOS boot is not to my liking and takes longer on my experience.

Keep in mind that everything changes the end of this month when the worthy successor OS to Win7 is released for free Upgrade of 7 and 8. I would not touch 8 or 8.1 with a stick, but maybe Windows 10 would work in place of those by doing the free Upgrade.

--- I will wait for the office to upgrade to Windows 10. This is a part of the office(extension) and the licenses belong to them really and assigned to me for usage. So I will stick to Windows 8.1 in the meantime I have it up and running.

Now what exactly would you like to do simplifying things as much as possible?

--- Well I think just the booting issue for this time. I am just weary that when I install Windows 8.1 I won't be able to boot to the "other" partitions that I use especially the work partition with AutoCAD 2013 and the Statistical software I use with the efficiency that I have had with EasyBCD. I was in fact afraid of Windows 8.1 taking over the boot menu and bork my system that I may have to revert back to Windows 7 in order to make/do engineering work at home and give up using Windows 8.1(disband attempting to use it again). I really would like to use Windows 8.1 and make it work for me especially on the work partition with AutoCAD / Minitab and JMP 7 statistical software. At the office only a handfull of my mates have in fact upgraded to Windows 8.1 for use in work (home work). The reason is that they do not have the time to tweak stuff etc and the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" thing is king :)

Boot the 8.1 Installation media as a non-UEFI Device (if choices) select the partition where you want it, Delete the partition, format a new one there, click Next.

You must have missed my explanation that during installation 8.1 should configure a multi-boot with the other OS's. If not you can add them using EasyBCD from 8.1. If any other OS's show up on the EasyBCD boot menu but they will not boot or do not offer a Boot Menu, then delete them first before adding again. This is how you reset listings on EasyBCD, simply delete ones not working and add them again.

Back here to report some issues I have encountered. I started to format Windows 8.1 on the last partition the other day but encountered an issue where I accidentally corrupted the main partition where the System Reserved boot files are located. I tried to recover via Acronis but sadly ATI Home 2012 gave an error. "Recovery failed". Actually all my system images when I used it for recovery gave the same error. I do not know what exactly happened but it was taking so long that I was forced to do a clean install of Windows 7 x64 to have the System Reserved partition back.

So I did a clean install and then recovered the remaining 2 of the 3 partitions that I use with Windows 7 (--one where I do the officework etc and the partition for gaming etc). See the image of the Computer Management below.

I reformatted the WD_V partition with Windows 8.1. The location is not where I was supposed to format it. This is a new location where it is the only partition with OS on that particular hdd. See image below. The Windows 8.1 partition is marked and in yellow.



My question for now is will I leave it at that or do something else with it like merge it with the main partition which is now WD_A...? What should be the best way for this? Leave it at that or what?

I have not yet tried to backup just that particular partition(System Reserved) yet but I believe that Acronis can do that. If I do that --back it up, can it be restored like that of a system image..? Have not tried that yet.

Kindly see image of Minitool Partition Wizard where the D: System Reserved is marked Primary / Active Boot
while the supposed new main partition WD_A is marked as Logical / System.



I have not yet checked what is indicated when I use the boot cd of Minitool Partition Wizard...but I guess that it'll be the same.

Can you guys assist me on this please.

On the Windows 8.1 partition. I seem to have noticed that the boot time is loooooong at 4 minutes! Well it seem to may not sit well in a multiboot setup because I read somewhere that Fast Boot is achieved because Windows 8 actually hibernates itself for the next boot.

Is there a way I can make the boot time be faster please..? As of the moment there is only iReboot and Classic Shell that is indicated at the logon tab of Sysinternals Autoruns. Currently there aren't any much programs installed yet....Can you help with this please..?

Thanks for your patience :)

You do t follow any advice so I don't know why I bother.

Why are all your OS partitions Logical.

Why were the other hard drives not unplugged during install as you were told?

You appear to have deliberately put 8 OS behind every data partition on the slowest end of the drive.

Use Partition Wizard to convert 8 partition to Primary then unplug the other drives to run Automatic RepAir from 8 disk until it starts and is independently bootable via the BIOS.

Links are all in previous posts ignored.

OP seems to be confused here...

@gregrocker,

I realize it's a bit complicated and shouldn't assume it's easily absorbed.

-- Thank you. It really is for someone like me.

@m256997683119,
-- Yes I really was confused. Thanks.

So sorry for the very late reply. We have been busy at the office and attended to family issues of my late father. I appreciate the open help that you guys have extended still to me. Kindly see the image below. I just formatted Disk 0 with only Windows 8.1. The boot was not an issue at all and it booted fine and acceptable. The boot that was way low was when I installed Comodo firewall. Came to the desktop after about 5-7 minutes. But that was just that. second to it was a boot that lasted around 3minutes but that was a reboot after installing programs.



Now after installing programs(some) and tweaking the Windows 8.1 partition. I shrink-ed the Windows 8.1 into 80gb and from the unallocated disk (237gb) I recovered an Acronis image of a Windows 7 sp1 partition. I also attached the Disk 1 and Disk 2. Both are data storage disks (all my files are there). See image below.



Please bear with me again for more questions.

(1) Boot files are with the System Reserved partition right? So is there a way where I can make the partitions in Disk 0 (Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 sp1) boot independently? What may be the best way to do it?

(2) I plan to recover the 1 more Windows 7 sp1 partitions onto Disk 0 (the work partition I use which has AutoCAD/Mnitab etc). Will I be able to make it boot independently also?

(3) I did not install EasyBCD and iReboot in the Windows 8.1 partition. When it boots I get the blue screen where I am to select Windows 8.1 or the Windows 7 partition and also of changing options. Is it okay if I leave it at that because the Windows 7 sp1 partition has EasyBCD and iReboot installed already. I added Windows 8.1 in the boot menu of EasyBCD in the Windows 7 sp1 partition and I was able to boot to Windows 8.1 fine(though a bit slower than when I boot from cold start directly to Windows 8.1).

Is it okay if I do not install EasyBCD and iReboot in the Windows 8.1 partition? I seem to like having the blue-bootscreen selection there intact.

Or is there a better way?

(4) Is there a way I can include a Windows Recovery Environment in the boot menu of EasyBCD / iReboot..? I ask this because that blue-bootscreen has that option to have or avail of Refreshing Windows / System Restore etc. That is also the reason why I do not install EasyBCD/iReboot on Win8.1.

(5) Is there way I can get to the blue-bootscreen when I have issues booting to Windows 8.1 other than plugging-in/using the Windows 8.1 installation disk/usb..?

(6) In one instance when was trying to use System Restore from the blue-bootscreen, I could not use it because it told me to "unmount" (or something like that) and there wasn't any option other than to "cancel". That was also the same when I planned to use Refresh PC.

How can I unmount that?

(7) I see also a cmd.exe prompt in the "advanced options". Can I do an sfc /scannow there? I did able to run sfc /scannow but it was in Windows 8.1 (Administrator cmd.exe no issues with file integrities whatsoever).

1- No, you can't boot them independently because they are on the same physical hard disk. If they were different hard disks, you could select the one to boot from during POST (Power On Self Test), with the quick boot menu of your BIOS.

2- Same as (1).

3- If you have boot menu with both Win8.1 and Win7 and can select fine at the moment, you can select which one is the default, I don't have EasyBCD installed though, but you can manage it with msconfig. You can also specify how long it waits for an input until it auto-selects the default. For example, I have Win7 default with another Win10 install, and only waits 5 seconds. It will be slower than a single OS if you are booting to the other OS than the default always as it will have to re-start.

You don't need EasyBCD installed anywhere, you won't need it after you set the boot menu. Can be un-installed later. If you can boot to Win7, you definitely don't need it on Win8.1.

4- I was once told you need to somehow install Recovery Environment while installing the OS, however, you can just use a spare USB flash drive to make the repair disk. You can even get a large USB stick and put both recovery disks on a single one with a multiboot program like Easy2Boot.

5- Hmm, not sure about this one, you shouldn't have issues though. And if you do, repair disk is good enough for fixing. Also, image your hard disks so you can just recall in a matter of minutes instead.

6- No idea what this is. Properly imaging your OS partitions negates the use of System Restore.

7- This is the tutorial for running sfc in command line at boot - SFC /SCANNOW : Run in Command Prompt at Boot