Running Windows 7 PRO retail as dual boot on secondary hard drive (primary drive is XP Media Center) on Dell E310.
Can I move secondary Windows 7 hard drive from Dell E310 to a Dell E510 as secondary hard drive (primary drive is XP Media Center) and then use Startup Repair to extablish dual boot on E510?
I would dual boot via the BIOS so that the drive can come and go as you please and not be intertwined with XP HD. Using this method, you set the preferred HD to boot first in BIOS setup, then if you want to boot the other HD/OS you trigger it instead using the one-time Boot Menu F-key given on first boot screen.
To set up your Dual Boot this way, unplug the XP HD on target machine, plug in Win7 HD, make sure it is set as first HD to boot in BIOS setup (after DVD drive).
Now boot the Win7 DVD/Repair CD, press Shift F10 to open a Command Line, type:
DISKPART
LIST DISK
SELECT DISK 0 (confirm from list this is Win7 HD #)
LIST PARTITION
SELECT PARTITION # (replace # with Win7 partition # from list)
ACTIVE
EXIT
Now boot back into DVD Repair console/Repair CD, click through to Recovery Tools list to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times with reboots to write the MBR to Win7.
When Win7 starts, shut down and plug in XP HD. Change boot order if you want, or trigger XP HD using one-time F-key given on first bootup screen for Boot Menu.
If you return Win7 to other machine it will boot the same way via BIOS now.
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