Windows 7 + multiple drives

Hi

I have 3 Hdds in my PC. On 2 i have installed WinXP, and they are installed separately, so i can boot without the other drive present. My motherboard has a boot manager so i can choose the boot drive.

Now i installed Win7 on the third drive, when the other 2 were disconnected.
It works fine by itself, but when i connect the other 2 drives, and choose the drive to boot from, the Win7 one says it has no OS installed. Other XPs boot correctly.

Any idea how to fix this?

Tnx

BladeRy said:

Hi

I have 3 Hdds in my PC. On 2 i have installed WinXP, and they are installed separately, so i can boot without the other drive present. My motherboard has a boot manager so i can choose the boot drive.

Now i installed Win7 on the third drive, when the other 2 were disconnected.
It works fine by itself, but when i connect the other 2 drives, and choose the drive to boot from, the Win7 one says it has no OS installed. Other XPs boot correctly.

Any idea how to fix this?

Tnx

BR

Yep the problem was that the xp drives weren't attached when you installed win 7. there is something you can do. You need to use a boot editor like BCDEdit which is built into win 7. before you attempt to I suggest you read the tutorial on bcdedit in the tutorial section its here BCDEDIT - How to Use

If you have questions after you read it let us know

Ken

[QUOTE=wallyinnc;269973]Darn, never faster than Ken... [/QUOTE

He has a saddle on those cats of his.

BR

Yep the problem was that the xp drives weren't attached when you installed win 7. there is something you can do. You need to use a boot editor like BCDEdit which is built into win 7. before you attempt to I suggest you read the tutorial on bcdedit in the tutorial section its here BCDEDIT - How to Use

If you have questions after you read it let us know

Ken

Tnx for the info.

Before I go and possibly ruin something, i was wondering if there was any way that W7 drive could boot with/without other drives present. With only the built in boot selector from the motherboard.
If i make a boot loader for 1 drive, and then remove it, there goes the independent boot drives option. I would be the happiest if Win7 didnt write anything in boot sequence of other 2 drives.

In the "Windows 7 install problem (Vista and XP dual boot)" thread, the solution is mostly for win Xp/7/Vista on different partitions, not different physical drives.

You could always run a repair on the drives that won't boot, with their respective OS disc, and no other drives present.

I was going to suggest doing away with dual-booting, as it's an out-dated, and unneccessary method, but I don't think you'd be happy running any type of VM software on the computer listed in your specs.

If you disconnect the other drives before you do the Windows 7 install, it couldn't possibly write to them. This is how some people used to handle multi-boot setups. Then, when you power on your PC, you have to go into the quick-boot menu and pick which drive to boot from.

DeaconFrost said:

If you disconnect the other drives before you do the Windows 7 install, it couldn't possibly write to them. This is how some people used to handle multi-boot setups. Then, when you power on your PC, you have to go into the quick-boot menu and pick which drive to boot from.

That is how i installed Win7. Now i can only boot Win7 when no other drives are connected.
When i connect them, and try to boot the drive with Win7, it says there is no OS installed. That is the problem. XP drives still boot correctly.