Dual Boot question W7 and Vista

Did you try to boot into Windows 7 by selecting it to boot first in BIOS?

When you plugged Vista back in, it booted up so there should be at least two HDD's there for you to choose from.

Try the F10 or other BIOS boot order shortcut key, or just boot into BIOS F1,2 or delete, then select the Win7 drive to boot to see if it will.

You need to boot into Windows 7 in order to run a repair install But the only reason to do this is to have it reconfigure the boot correctly, and there is no way to know it will do this with RAID. So better to settle for booting into either OS by using BIOS boot order method.

If you cannot boot into Win7, then your next step is to boot into the Win7 installer and run Startup Repair at least 3 times to recover your ability to boot Win7. Again, expect RAID complications. But at any point you can again pull the Vista drive and repair Win7 startup to get into it.

ok So have a work around...if I set the sata drive that windows 7 is on as the 1st disk drive in bios, it boots up to 7. If I select the SaS Raid array as 1st drive in bios, I get Vista. And now in Windows 7 for some reason I can see the sas raid array drive with the vista file stuff on it even tho the Control panel still has the raid controller hosed.... So if I need to copy files I can. Not the best selective option but works for now.

Jeffnwm said:

ok So have a work around...if I set the sata drive that windows 7 is on as the 1st disk drive in bios, it boots up to 7. If I select the SaS Raid array as 1st drive in bios, I get Vista. And now in Windows 7 for some reason I can see the sas raid array drive with the vista file stuff on it even tho the Control panel still has the raid controller hosed.... So if I need to copy files I can. Not the best selective option but works for now.

This is what I was trying to suggest the past few hours. It IS the best possible option since it is now as easy to back out of XP as just unplugging the drive.

Every day here we help a dozen guys try to get out of dual boots, each one a puzzle that gets easily botched. You have the best possible situation.

After you get your Win7 running on its own to your satisfaction, be sure to make a backup image (Win7 backup is fine) saved externally so you never need to reinstall again, just reimage the HDD (or a replacement) using your Win7 Installer Repair console>Recover using an image.

FYI, in my Asus bios boot options, the option for booting from the Raid Array drives is only possible in the 1st drive option . IOW, I can select hard drive orders 1st - 4th etc. but the Raid array can only be seen in the 1st drive option...can't be set to be booted from in 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc...but other non raid drives can be set in any order. Maybe this will be a better way in the long run like you said earlier for clearing a dual boot option once Vista's gone

Sooner the better Enjoy Win7!

thx Greg
never made a backup image, just burn to dvd?

is vista nd 7's file stuff pretty much the same? can just save the favorites folder from vista and copy it to IE in 7, etc?

Jeffnwm said:

thx Greg
never made a backup image, just burn to dvd?

best to do to internal or external drive since it takes multiple DVD's.

type backup into start box, study Create an Image> DVD choice to see size.

You can create a primary formatted "recovery" partition on your Win7 AND storage drives to store it (in case of Win7 HDD failure).

It will autodetect a primary partition on any internal or external drive, to save the image to "Drive" choice.

Then later, booting from Win7 installer>Repair console>Recover an Image it will autodetect image to reimage to HDD or a replacement easily.

Ha! I just realized/remembered that a while back I moved my system folders in Vista from the system drive ( C: ) to another larger data drive. The SAS drives are small and the total array was only 140gb or so and I installed most of my vista apps on the other dual 750gb data drives in my system along with moving all the system folders there too (can't remember the process for doing that now...). So I have pretty much everything I'd want to save out of the Vista setup already on the data drives ...

Jeffnwm said:

is vista nd 7's file stuff pretty much the same? can just save the favorites folder from vista and copy it to IE in 7, etc?

Yes, open your vista folder>Select all from first drop down tab then drag group over to same folder in Win7 explorer at left. Repeat.

Downloads is a biggy for me. Put all your installers in there, even disk ISO's so you have a master file of all your dl's and installers.