Triple boot with two copies of XP Pro and one with Win 7 - boot issue

tedkan · 12 Jul 2012

Hi -

Had a dual boot set up with Win 7 and XP pro each on its own hdd, Installed new hdd and put XP pro on it. Now when I boot the WBM only shows two OSs, the original XP and Win 7, can I get the second copy of XP pro to show so I can select it?

Thanks -

Oh, I know that if I purchase or download a third party boot manger software I can make it happen, just want to know if I can get this to work in Win 7 without buying/installing anything. Yhea, I am cheap.

Arc · 12 Jul 2012

So you have three HDDs now ? Each having a sing copy of OS installed ?

If so, it is the best practice to use the the BIOS Boot Menu (F8 for Asus motherboards). After power on, when the motherboard splash screen appears, tap and hold F8, it will list up all the possible drives to boot from. Select which one you want by the scroll arrow keys, and enter to boot from it. Let the MBR not to be messed up.

But if you want to use a third party boot manager, you may opt for the free version of EasyBCD. Get it from EasyBCD - Take control of your boot loader | NeoSmart Technologies .

To add all the three boot entries to MBR , run Startup Repair with all the three HDDs plugged in.

gregrocker · 12 Jul 2012

Do you want to remove XP on the old HD and use the one on the new HD instead?

If so post back a screenshot of your maximized Disk Mgmt drive map and listings, using the Snipping Tool in Start Menu.

Test the BIOS boot method Archie explains above to see if it works well to boot the new XP HD. If not we'll help you add XP using EasyBCD while removing the old XP if you want.