Windows 7: Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and XP

The drives become intentionally relative to whichever OS is booting at the moment as C, as will their links.

I would not worry about it but see how it proceeds and report back any problems.

You cannot change an OS drive letter without ruining the OS.

You really didn't need to create a Windows-managed Dual Boot with separate HD's as it interlocks the HD's requiring surgery to later remove one. If you'd left them booted via either the BIOS Boot Order or One-Time BIOS Boot menu key they would have remained independent to come and go as you please.

Hi Greg

Yeah. you are right. But I think with the only dual boot menu being in Windows 7, it does not affect the WinXP boot process. If it does, I've got ntdlr and the other system files backed up. That's usually what happens when the MS dual boot arrangement gos haywire

What I was doing was disconnect power to one of the drives before the dual boot, but it became a hassle

I think I'll just load up osloader OSL2000 Boot Manager - An Advanced Multi Boot Manager to the Windows 7 drive, because it can do a hide on the XP partition and then get the drive letters back in order. its not a true hide but nothing is. Eventually, the XP will be gone anyway



Thanks for your advice. If anyone else can weigh in on this, please do.

Hello Bare Foot Kid,

I am sorry you did not mention of which drive the system files you want to see. Is it C (Windows 7 partition) or D (Winows XP partion) ?

Hi Bare Foot Kid and Greg,

Thanks both of u very much. I managed to fix my problem. After C became system drive, I used EasyBCD2.1 and first deleted the windows xp entry and re-entered it again. It was so simple...lol! Everything fine now. I can use both my OS and without reinstalling or reparing them...Thank u very much for your tips and helps...

Hello again.


Good to see you got it sorted and thanks for the update.

You can use the BIOS Boot menu F key opsion.

From Jgregory:

I have a different bios/cmos. but usually a Boot Menu saved in cmos is just a hard disk priority sequence. Not a boot loader on the hard drive, so not really the same thing as ability to hide the other Active partition

My main issue was the other OS partition showing up and screwing up my drive letters and paths. I could not change paths in 250 softwares away from D:\

Anyways, as GregRocker pointed out, once you go with a Windows Dual boot, you are locked in. So I used my saved Images( acronis truimage 2011) to restore each OS back to point where I save before dual boot installed from EasyBCD.

After installing the simple DOS OsLoader program, I'd have to say that is a better solution than using Windows boot loaders even with EasyBCD.

OsLoader used was a newest version fully supporting Windows 7

1. Osloader hides all other active partitions by default. Solved my problem with the D: Data path requirement for both OSes. I know about the Hide/True Hide issues, but after 3 days I see nothing changed with the critical boot files on either XP or Win 7

2. The OsLoader is free for private use. An occasional nag screen.

3. In operation, Osloader is slick and troublefree. Simple DOS dialog, set timer as you wish, Hit Enter to select any OS and it boots troublefree to either OS.

4. It would easy to add another OS in any partition.

5. Possible to add up to 100 different OS. The DOS program can set any logical partition containing an OS to Active when selected, right after selection it auto-hiding all other OS partitions. It can recognize any OS automatically while scanning all drives

NOTE: if you have External HDD storage Drives, then it will hide any partition that is Primary/Active. I had one with a single Primary partion which made it disappear from Windows( osloader sets it to hidden on boot), so I simply used Acronis Disk Director to change the partition type to Logical and it appears once again in Windows 7 and XP

Note also , that I have 2 HD, but osloader would work with partitions on a single hard as well.

NOTE: I tested uninstalling the OsLoader dos program and it was troublefree, there are two SAV files created on installed that are used to map the restoration of the HD back to original condition. The entire DOS software is very small and is written to very first track on the HD. Easy On, easy Off

Previous Thread

[QUOTE=theog;1503078] You can use the BIOS Boot menu F key opsion.

Did you try booting via the BIOS? Set the preferred OS as first HD to boot in BIOS setup. Then trigger the other one when needed using one-time BIOS Boot Menu key. This normally provides no problems. If you want to hide the other HD, remove it's drive letter in Disk Mgmt.

Hi guys....I am having duel boot with Windows 7(64bit) & xp(32bit) long since I installed Windows 7 after installing xp.
As I did not faced any problem earlier I never searched for such solution.
But unfortunately tonight my xp crashed having blue screen problem...but my Windows 7 was alright. Then I installed xp in the partition in which it formerly was(after formatting in NTFS). Now XP starts automatically....I have followed "method two" step 9 & 10 again and again but failed...Always the xp starts automatically.
My Windows 7 seems in drive E as shown bellow!!


In EasyBCD my Windows 7 shown as Windows 7 Ultimate(recovered)....why its recovered?

Plzzz help me guys...I am not an advanced user like u guys...I don't want to reinstall Windows 7 again as there are many games I did setup there....I am stuck !!

Please post back a screenshot of your full Disk Management drive map with listings showing all columns. Screenshot with Paint

Generally if Steps 7-12 of Method Two fail to add Windows 7 back to Menu, you'll need to mark Windows 7 or it's 100mb System Reserved partition (preferred) Active, boot the Windows 7 DVD Repair console or Repair CD to Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times
Partition - Mark as Active (Method Two)

Once Windows 7 starts, install EasyBCD 2.1 to add XP to Dual Boot Menu on Add OS tab, accept XP boot files, let it autocomplete, Save, Restart.