Windows 7: Dual boot Windows 7 X64 with Windows 8 on two seperate internal HDD's

Suggest you install Windows 7 first, then disconnect the Windows 7 disk, then install Windows 8 on the other SSD. Reconnect the Windows 7 SSD and change the boot sequencece with the BIOS.

You can also do it the other way around - Win8 first. What is important is that the one SSD is disconnected when the other OS is being installed.

The best move is to unplug the 7 drive to see 8 as a stand alone on the second and press the F key assigned(F4, F8, F11, or F12 usually sometime the DEL key is used on portables however) to bring up the boot device menu in order to select the 8. Someone here refers to that as bios managed dual booting.

Thatt seems to be far less problematic then replacing 7 mbr entries with those for 8 being the newer version and problems seen when booting into 7 from the 8 boot options. Lately I have been hear about a few other bugs in the retail besides drive errors ending being seen however.

For those running Gigabyte boards the AppleCharger.sys file mainly for seeing hand helds like Fruti Company IThis or IThat recharged is put back by MS with Win 8 after Gigabyte had already removed that particular driver from their updates! The person discovering that one ran the Autoruns utility found at the TechNet Sysinternals downloads to isolate the problem it was causing with shutting 8 down and see a hanging black screen instead.

Thank you for the quick replies! I thought installing them separately like that would work, but I was hoping to find a way to do it with the Windows dual-boot menu so I could select the OS I wanted without using the BIOS boot menu to select the drive.

Oh well, I don't plan to change between 7 and 8 much so installing them separately won't be a problem. I mainly got 8 just to test it out. It is strange that it doesn't work better than that though.. I suppose installing both on the same drive would be better but I don't want to do that.

When dual booting the Customer Preview with 7 I added the boot entry in after the 7 was replugged back in. Then I had to boot up with the 8 dvd burned at the time to run the Automatic repair(Startup repair in 7) to see the 8 mbr entries overwrite those for 7 and then could watch 8 start up when selected.

Likewise if you dual Vista with 7 and add the 7 boot entry into the Vista BCD you would then need to boot up from the 7 media used to run the mbr repair by Startup repair tool or manual at the command prompt option with the Fix boot and Fixmbr commands due to 7 then being the newer of the two versions.

The 8 boot option being there makes it easy while the few things needed as well as possible errors on each version's own volume is where the problem came up here following the test on the PC Refresh option in 8. With the 7 host still plugged in I booted into 7 when having the 8 RP drive set as default and both versions suddenly started freezing up solid upon arriving at the desktop and as soon as each loaded fully the first item you clicked saw total freeze up!

That's when the Disk Check tool came in handy. Later when switching from Native ide mode to AHCI 7 suddessfully mounted the pair of OS drives's volumes a SCSI devices adding one more post screen to the mix and 8 failed miserably! Both at the time following the just seen clean install of 7 after the freeze up mishap and error checking had all board drivers installed fully unlike when first getting the board in AHCI mode and the then fresh 7 install not running normally as it should until the initial switch over to the Native ide.

Besides the need for a 3rd party addon like Classic Shell, incompatibility issues with some older still wanted programs, DX 9 elements needed for some old titles, and then seeing 8's apparant lack of adoption when changing drive modes 8 spelled a disaster in waiting here! If I later go for 8 with SP1 I will not see the two version linked together due to the apparent problems that can surface but will likely skip over 8 entirely as a result.

The other thing that seems to be but may not be just related to a select number of Gigabyte model boards brought to my attention lately was the driver file for charging IPhones and IPads in case you find that in the System32 folder by chance. Apparently MS still kept it in their 8 driver base even after Gigabyte found it to be a concern of some type and removed it.

Hi,

What happens if I use WHS method from post #5 and later want to remove the HD Windows 8 is installed on ? Do I simply remove the HD (with the Windows 8 installation) and then I am back to my same set-up before Windows was installed on the 2nd HD or do I have to make other changes ?

Thanks,

Dan

With my method, these 2 systems are completely independent. If you remove the Win8 HDD, you will be back to Windows 7 (or whatever your previous system was) as before. You don't even have to change the BIOS - it will just skip the removed disk.

Thanks for your prompt reply WHS, appreciate the help.

Dan

No problem. Any time.

One thing to know ahead of time about Win 8 is if you do have to use the PC Refresh option that will automatically see 7 added into the 8 boot options unless you remember to unplug the 7 drive first before proceeding with the new form of OS repair which amounts to another clean install of 8.

If you happen to be mixing Sata II drives with Sata III having a pair of S3 ports in use simply removing the 8 drive(if Sata II or SSD) might leave a 3rd drive not second OS drive set as the first in hard drive list. Being familiar with the Integrated Peripherals section of the bios and how to use the NumKeypad arrow keys to move the hard drives up and down in the list of drives will allow you to verfiy which drive(when multiple drives are installed) is set as the default hard drive when seen at the top of the list.

The rest of the time you can simply press the F key assigned to the boot device menu to select the drive not set as default to boot from the other. No need to go in and change boot orders constantly.