Windows 7: unable to dual boot 2 installation of windows 7 ultimate 64

Until a week ago I used to have an asus p5q se with two installation of the same os on two different physical drives, giving me a dual win 7 ultimate 64 boot. One for gaming, the other for my daws. But I killed it after it ate my fourth video card in two years. And in case anyone asks, yes I am 110% sure that I had two installation of the same os on my computer, one was on my seagate barracuda, the other on one of my two WD Caviar black 500 GB.

Since I changed my computer to an asus p8p67 evo rev 3, I am unable to install my os's like I had in the past. Each time I install one on it's appropriate drive, the other is unusable, unseen from the other os installation, and there's no boot manager coming up when I start the computer.

Help would be greatly appreciate it before I start axing this new computer

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from the device manager?

No.

Click Start>Control Panel>System & Security>Administrative Tools>Create & Format Hard Disk Partitions.



I'll be away from my computer for the rest of the day, but someone else should be along shortly to help out.

Alright, here it is



Also including a screeny of what my Pro tools HDD has on it, showing the installation of the os.



The only thing I haven't tried is to install the os from my Normal HDD session while being logged in it. Ie to format the Pro tools HDD from within windows, and then using the installation disk while being in my windows session on my normal drive, to try and install it on my Pro tools drive.

Would that make any difference?

You have a mess. Only the partition holding the System boot files should be marked Active.

Probably because data drives had been marked Active and you didn't unplug the other HD's when installing, the System boot files were derailed to Disk 3 which doesn't even hold an OS.

When you have separate HD's the best way to Multi Boot is to unplug all other HD's during install, then afterwards plug them back in and boot the other Windows 7 OS by using the one-time BIOS Boot Menu key. This keeps them independent to come and go as you please.

To sort this out, first mark C and E Active: Partition - Mark as Active (Method Two)

Next mark all partitions except E and C Inactive. Partition - Mark as Active, power down to unplug all other HD's except C, reboot into BIOS setup to set C first HD to boot (after DVD drive), boot it's installer's System Recovery Options to run Startup Repair 3 Separate Times until Windows 7 starts and holds the System Active flags.

Now power down (always) to unplug C, plug in E and repeat the same process with it's installer until it starts and holds System Active flags.

Now you can plug in the other HD's. E will boot by default, so when you want to boot into C tap the one-time BIOS Boot Menu key (F8 on most Asus's) to trigger it to boot. If you find you don't like this arrangement, install EasyBCD to default HD OS to add the other to a WIndows Dual Boot.

Thanks for the info, before I start I have one question though. Is there any danger to the Data I have on the Audio drive and the Sample drive if I mark them inactive?

Absolutely not. Marking Active only tells Windows which is supposed to be the System partition holding the OS boot files.

During install or repairs, it will look for the first Active partition to place the System boot files upon, or lacking a preceding Active partition it will mark the partition chosen for install.

Feel free to ask back if you get stuck or have any other questions. I will be around all day. We need to see if getting it configured correctly then solves the issue reported as additional steps may be required including possible reinstall of problem OS.

Cheers mate.

Is there a way to tell the disk part? Since I have 2 WD Caviar black 500GB, how do I tell which one is the C: drive?