Can I dual boot with Win7 on an AHCI SSD and WinXP on an IDE SATA2?


  1. NameChange
    Posts : 5
    Windows 7 Home Premium x64
       New #1

    Can I dual boot with Win7 on an AHCI SSD and WinXP on an IDE SATA2?


    Hey all,


    I have a SSD with Win7 Home Premium x64. To boot off it my bios needs to be in AHCI mode.


    I also have Windows XP Prof SP2 x84 on a Sata2 drive and too boot off of that I need to be in IDE mode.


    Is it possible to get a dual boot happening in this scenario?


    Also when I boot into the XP drive it rewrites the boot BCD (*?*) and I need to load up the Win7 install disk and do a repair to get back into Win7. While EasyBCD will allow me to fix that issue I can't imagine it will allow me to do the whole AHCI/IDE combo will it?


    Thanks all.
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  3. gregrocker
    Posts : 50,642
       New #2

    With separate HD's its best to boot via the BIOS, settting preferred to boot first then triggering the other using the one-time BIOS Boot Menu (or BBS) key. Then the HD"s should not be able to interfere with one another, although you can access your files on either.

    You'd need to convert the XP HD to AHCI. Back up a system image using free Macrium - Image your system first.

    Enable AHCI in Windows XP After Installation - Bootbeta
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  4. whs
    Posts : 26,210
    Vista, Windows7, Mint Mate, Zorin, Windows 8
       New #3

    +1, Greg is absolutely right. Disconnect your SSD and install XP on the spinner. Then switch with the BIOS boot setting. That way you get no BCD issues and the systems are neatly seperated.
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  6. Dwarf
    Posts : 9,582
    Windows 8.1 Pro RTM x64
       New #4

    In addition to what Greg has said, if your motherboard has the option to have some SATA ports set as IDE whilst keeping the others as AHCI, then connect the drives appropriately.
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