Windows 7/XP conflict

Bradwb · 22 Apr 2010

I recently rebuilt my computer and decided to install a new hard drive with Windows 7. My old hard drive was fine and had XP but I had video driver issues when playing high end graphics games. However, when I tried to start Win 7 with the XP HDD as the slave it wouldn't load. I could start the XP HDD by itself or the Win 7 HDD by itself, but not both together without an .dll error. I moved everything off of the XP HDD and tried formatting it which went fine, but I still have the same problem. There is a partition drive with drivers on it that I can't get rid of. I've tried starting Win 7 with the XP HDD as part of a RAID, but again Win 7 stops responding and won't load as long as the XP HDD is plugged in and operating. How do I get Win 7 to load with the XP HDD so that I can properly and fully format it and use it for other things?

not so gray matter · 22 Apr 2010

If you want to format it there a few options...

You can do it through the Windows Installation CD and/or the DOS function of that CD. If you can't/don't want to do that you can also create a boot disk of partition software.

Through DOS:
Boot from Windows 7 DVD
Choose Command Prompt at System Recovery Options
How to Use the Fdisk Tool

Through Partition Wizard:
Download Partition Wizard (Download)
Create a Boot Disk using the software
Boot Using that Disk and Format the Hard Drive

CommonTater · 22 Apr 2010

Bradwb said:

I recently rebuilt my computer and decided to install a new hard drive with Windows 7. My old hard drive was fine and had XP but I had video driver issues when playing high end graphics games. However, when I tried to start Win 7 with the XP HDD as the slave it wouldn't load. I could start the XP HDD by itself or the Win 7 HDD by itself, but not both together without an .dll error. I moved everything off of the XP HDD and tried formatting it which went fine, but I still have the same problem. There is a partition drive with drivers on it that I can't get rid of. I've tried starting Win 7 with the XP HDD as part of a RAID, but again Win 7 stops responding and won't load as long as the XP HDD is plugged in and operating. How do I get Win 7 to load with the XP HDD so that I can properly and fully format it and use it for other things?

Are these by chance IDE drives?
If they are, one has to be jumpered for Master the other for Slave... or they have to be on two different cables as Masters.

If they're sata drives, well... it could be that Win7 is seeing the boot loader and MBR on the other drive and deciding it's a foreign operating system and not indexing it.