?'s re:dual boot,XP 1st-W7pro x64 sep HDD

HarveyK · 06 May 2011

Greets All! First I'd like to tip my hat and raise a glass to all the fine people behind this "fabulous" forum! Great job! I've been searching, printing and studying the tutorials and threads regarding dual boot W7 and clean install W7. I'm going to put W7 on a separate HDD which would bring the total to four internal SATA HDD (no raid setup) and have easybcd in place too. I ran the Advisor and all hardware passed with flying colors. My plan is to install new HDD and boot to W7 disc (cd/dvd drive is 1st boot device) then follow the tut on clean install with partition. With so many HDD's I hope I don't get confused and pick the wrong one. Would it be wise to disconnect any or could that mess things up more? Any other tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

theog · 07 May 2011

Which HD is Win XP & Windows 7?

Can you post a screen shot of Disk management?
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HarveyK · 07 May 2011

I'm adding another HDD just for W7. Hope I did the screen cap correctly! On start up: detecting Sata 2,4 and 6 are shown

Bare Foot Kid · 07 May 2011

Hello HarveyK, welcome to Seven Forums!

The best way would be to use the BIOS one-time boot menu to select which OS/HDD to boot instead of using a Windows managed dual boot.

Disconnect all Hard Disk Drives except the one you want to install Windows 7 to, connect that to the #1 SATA port of the motherboard and set it as second boot device after the CD/DVD drive, then boot the installation media to do a clean install to that HDD.

After the install is finished and Windows 7 is booting good, power-down and reconnect the other HDDs to the mobo and use the BIOS one-time boot menu to select which OS/HDD to boot when the PC is started/booted; in the case of ASUS mobos it's the F8 hot-key.

Be sure to post back with any further questions you may have and to keep us informed.

HarveyK · 07 May 2011

Thanks Bare Foot Kid! Sounds easy enough. The motherboard shows total of 7 sata connectors: Top row (4 orange) Sata_E1, Sata2,Sata5. Bottom row- Sata_E2(white), Sata1 and Sata3(orange). Sata_E1 is where the XP drive is connected so that's where I'll connect the W7 drive. The other 2 are in the same row. When I reconnect the others should I just keep them on the same row? User guide says _E1 & _E2 are for Sata drives only and asus utility Drive Xpert.

Bare Foot Kid · 07 May 2011

If this is the mobo connect the target HDD to the SATA 1 port for the install and when finished it won't matter where you connect the other HDDs, though I'd connect the XP HDD to SATA #2; Windows will auto-detect their location on the first reboot after they're reconnected.

The E1 & E2 are for a storage config if I'm correct, just disregard those from this plan.

ASUS P5Q PRO TURBO - User Guide Manual

HarveyK · 07 May 2011

Thanks again! I will keep you informed and post back with results or issues they appear!
Yes that's my board!

Bare Foot Kid · 07 May 2011

You're welcome, we'll be here!

HarveyK · 02 Jul 2011

Sorry it took so long to get to this. I finally installed W7pro v64 on a sep. drive. I must have inadvertently rebooted to cd and installed or atleast created 2 partitions with sys files. I haven't reconnected the other internal drives. Here's a screen shot of computer management. What is the best way to remove the second partition? Or is this a "recovery" partition created by W7? W7 is booting/running well, and I haven't loaded any programs yet.

Bare Foot Kid · 02 Jul 2011

Hello again.

The 'other' partition is the new Windows 7 System Reserved partition and can be quite useful, it is auto-created by the Windows installation process in certain situations; there's really no need to remove it but if you want to just follow this tutorial starting at Step One, at the link below to recover that 100MB into the Windows 7 C: partition.

Partition : Recover Space Used by an Older OS

?'s re:dual boot,XP 1st-W7pro x64 sep HDD

?'s re:dual boot,XP 1st-W7pro x64 sep HDD

7 not installed yet