Windows 7: Windows 7 + Vista Advice needed please

Just post one from Vista, that's what you're in right, that'll tell us what we need to know.

Well if i go to computer from start tab it only lists the slave and the drive with vista so i had better check that the Windows 7 drive is connected (dislodged wire?) i will have to turn the pc off before i go messing.

Please have a look at post #29 in this same thread again to see how to get to disk management.

Right ...i have not had much of a chance to play because of our visitors but after a lot of searching it looks like classic view was complicating things for me (i am a newb with all this stuff). Theres a whole world of stuff that can be done which had no idea about because i have never needed to know. Give me a broken car and i know what to do. Got into disk management but i cant get my print screen button to work I will look for an app to take screenshot in a bit

Why not just the snipping tool as I do; start menu, accessories, snipping tool.

Well ...im learning albeit slowly and life will be easier when i get a printer.
Anyway i discovered that my Vista Basic has no snipper so i got one from elsewhere after a bit of googling, I hope this attachment is what you wanted to see, im having trouble with the size restriction so the snap is in three parts,... no doubt there is an easier way of doing it. I cant thank you enough for your patience and all the advice you are giving me.

OK, from what I can piece together



If that snip was taken from within Vista, it's C: and it's the "System" partition but it's not marked as active; if that is correct, un-plug the other HDD (with Win_7 on it) and mark Vista as acitve and run a startup repair so it will be "System, Active" so it can boot independently; then un-plug the Vista drive and plug the other HDD back in and run a startup repair on that one also so it will boot independently; then you can use the F8 key at PC startup to toggle between the 2 OSs.


Partition - Mark as Active

Startup Repair




Also this is supposed to be an excellent alternative snip tool; I think you can get it free.


FastStone Capture

Helo..i gotta make dinner soon so i will get involved later as long as nobody turns up. After i took those snips i swapped two sata connections over on the motherboard (the Windows 7 drive and i didnt notice which drive the other sata lead was from because they are both 500gb. Windows 7 is on 1tb) just to see if it would see the Windows 7 drive but there was no difference other than it booted straight to vista
without having to tap f8 which it has not since instaling Windows 7. Still doesnt see the Windows 7 drive. I would go into bios to tell it to boot from Windows 7 drive but if the drive is not being seen there is no point i think. The tool i used was Snapashot (free)

So leave the 1TB HDD plugged in and un-plug the others to find which HDD Vista is on, then you can do as posted above, once you know the Vista HDD only leave that one hooked up and do the startup repair then un-hook the Vista drive and ONLY plug in the W_7 HDD and do the startup repair on it.

Neither of the drives shown in the Screenshot is a 1tb.

The C: drive which appears to be Vista is already System Active and is booting fine so it doesn't require a Repair.

Plug in only the 1tb Windows 7 HD which will not independently boot, set it as first HD to boot in BIOS Setup (after DVD drive) then follow the tutorials in post #37 to mark Windows 7 partition Active from the Windows 7 DVD Repair console or Repair CD Command Line, then run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times with reboots until it starts.

Now power down to plug back in the Vista, upon restart tap F8 repeatedly and select the Vista hD to boot to make sure it will still boot as it should. Then restart to make sure Windows 7 will start on its own since it is set as first HD to boot.