Windows 7: Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and Vista

Many thanks SIW2, I'll let you know how I get on once I've completed the procedure.
Happy New Year
Pedro38

Hi Shawn,
I read somewhere in the Vista tutorials about dual HD boot. But for the live of me can't remember who or where. (WHS I think) I't said to disconnect primary, install 7 on second drive then reattach-reboot. I did this, and it seems ok. Other than the fact that I have no boot options on startup unless I use F12... But after reading your tutorials, I'm wondering if I should'nt uninstall 7 and install through the Vista drive ONTO secondary.(If you notice,theres no boot or page file on disk 0) I would like to actually use half(or so) of the second drive for backups. That, and if I remember correctly, 7 will activate itself in this manner without workaround.(RTM) The location of the drives arent accurate. In manager it shows Vista (disk 0 on MOBO), to be on disk 1, and Windows 7(disk2 on MOBO) to be on 0. ! is my Optical drive. I dont really care about drive letters and all, as long as everything runs smoothly. Whats your opinion?

hehe...I'm a noob here..

7 should activate fine as it is. Did you try?

No need to reinstall - just set 7 HD as first in Bios boot order ( or swap the SATA leads at the mobo end.)

Then add Vista to the 7 boot menu.

Easily done with Easybcd. EasyBCD 2.0 - The NeoSmart Forums

You won't see Boot or pagefile on the 7 partition - unless you are booted into it.

No, haven't tried actually. ROFL! That make too much sense! **You won't see Boot or pagefile on the 7 partition - unless you are booted into it.** Cool, thanks. Off to find EasyBCD.

Well, I don't think I did that correctly. I still boot to Vista first. I ran BCD from 7, is that correct? Theres not really a help file on BCD either, and I'm unfamiliar with it. Looks like I could rearrange til I screw something up good.

If you set the 7 HD first in Bios boot order, you should be booting thru. the 100mb partition - you will need to mark it Active , first.

Yeah I think i have it. I did set 7 as first in bios, but it stll tried to boot from Vista. When I rebooted and F12, I changed drives and got the OS menu finally. I suppose I will swap sata lines and see if that helps.
Thanks for the help SIW

Ok,we'll just chalked this one up as CRS. LOL I just went to swap lines.....I put them in the wrong port last night! sheesh... Ever have those moments?
Thanks again...

Hello,

Today I bought a new harddisk and installed Windows 7 on it. I left the old Vista drive in the computer. But after finishing the installation, now I have NO boot menu on system restart. What went wrong and what can I do?

Overview of my drives:

• SATA 0: old harddisk with only data
• SATA 1: my new SpinPoint F3 harddisk with Windows 7
• IDE cable 0: my old Vista harddisk
• IDE cable 1: DVD drive
• USB: 2 more harddisks with just data

Some facts:

• I installed Windows 7 on a new partition that I created during installation.
• I got rid of the 100MB system reserved partition created by Windows 7 install, by extending the 100MB partition and installing Windows 7 on it.
• In my BIOS, I have set up the drive order: first the new Windows 7 drive, then my old Vista drive, then the other drives.
• In my BIOS, in the boot order menu, I can't select my old Vista drive. I can only select the new Windows 7 drive, the DVD and the floppy.
• I have tried EasyBCD, adding an entry pointing to the new drive letter (E) of my old Vista drive. When I now choose 'view settings', there are 2 entries: Windows 7 on drive C and Vista on drive U, and not E, which would be correct!
• On a restart, I still see no boot menu. Pressing F8 on restart does not bring up a boot menu either, only the safe windows etc.

Is it something that I can setup in my bios? Or is it something that Windows 7 did not do correctly? Is it somthing I can fix?

Thank you very much for your help in advance!

Kind greetings,
Jeroen

Did you check the Vista HD is plugged in correctly ?

Easy to dislodge the leads. Try unplugging a and replugging the drive cables at both ends.