Windows 7: Windows 7 dual boot using BIOS vs software vs switch ?

I blanked them out because I have no idea what information they contain.

What do all those numbers refer to?

I temporarily connected both drives & went into BIOS to verify the boot order was HDD before SSD.

Booted up to the default HDD & here's a screen shot of the Disk Management screen.

In that case, the commands should be

bcdboot C:\windows /s E: ( adds boot entry for OS on C: to bcd store of E: )

bcdboot F:\windows ( adds boot entry for OS on F: to current live bcd store)

OK, but I was pressing the ESC key on startup in order to bring up the boot menu. How come that did not work & why did that mess up the SSD?

We are not mind readers. You probably didn't do it right.

Using the method described in message #4 it looks like a boot menu will automatically appear at startup. I prefer not to do that since I can just see another family member not knowing what to do & selecting the wrong drive.

I chose to try the method described in message #6 where a key press is required in order to bring up a boot menu. That would/should protect the SSD & the program(s) on it. In my case pressing the ESC key brings up the boot menu. From reading about this method it is my understanding that the only thing that needs to be done is to put the boot drives in order in the BIOS, placing the default boot drive (HDD) ahead of the other boot drive (SSD). And that’s what I did.

Pressing ESC at start up did bring up a boot menu.
HDD drive at the top
DVD drive in the middle
SSD drive at the bottom

That appeared OK, however selecting the SSD still caused the HDD to boot, and the SSD became corrupted & had to be repaired.

When using the method described in message #6 and setting the boot drive priorities, what other steps are required? What did I miss?

You probably have the SSD boot loader on the HDD. Did you detached the HDD when installing Win 7 on the SSD?

Yes the HDD was detached when Win7 was installed on the SSD. Each drive boots up correctly by itself.

Referring to message #14 -
When trying a 2nd time with both drives attached I got a black screen with a message to repair (recommended) or restart normally. I did not repair at that time.

Later when I connected only the SSD a message came up that Windows failed to start...,required device is inaccessible. That’s when I inserted the Windows disc & chose repair.

Question - would that repair option return the SSD boot partition to its fresh Windows 7 install condition? Or would it have also made some changes that I would not be aware of?

I have done exactly what you want to do for few years now on 2 of my laptop, since every other method sucks big time one way or another and there are 2 issues you need to resolve: Install Win 7 on 1 partition only (no EFI partition etc, I think it's called legacy boot or something similar). You need to do install Win7 with 1 disk present (take out the other disk for a moment). Once you install both Windows, put both disks back. You choose either permanent boot order in BIOS, or hit escape and get boot order for this boot only. No stupid menus, no delay in boot-up time unless disk order change, no 2 pages of some ridiculous instructions to follow to the letter, no extra programs to buy, install and later break with no way to boot your system (had that happen to me). I set 2 of my laptops like that, but it was few years ago and I don't remember exactly, but I think it was pretty straight forward, except for making sure all is on 1 partition only. I have another laptop setup as dual boot win7/Win10 and Win 10 have all those stupid little partitions for EFI etc, but Win7 is all in one partition only and here all I do is choose between legacy and UEFI boot to get either one. I think your problem is, you somehow installed 2 EFI partitions and that won't work. If you want some details, I try to dig some more info. Good luck and trust me this is the best simplest way to do it and it works perfect.

Each drive has two partitions, one of them being the 100MB NTFS System Reserved partition. The other partition in the C: partition. Windows 7 was installed on each drive when it was the only drive connected. There is no EFI or UEFI on the drives.

I connect both drives & set the boot order in BIOS making the HHD priority. My Disk Management is shown in message #22. And then I did exactly what you said, “hit escape and get boot order for this boot only”. However when I chose the SSD it still booted to the HHD which had the permanent boot priority.

Every tutorial I’ve seen says it’s best to have each OS on its own drive. But then they instruct to connect the second drive & then to install the OS on it. They never say what to do if the OS is already on both drives.

You mention having only one partition on a drive. Does that mean I should delete the System Reserved partition?

What happens when I return the PC back to using just a single drive? IOW how do I get the System Reserved partition back?