Dual booting windows 7 and 10

spotify95 · 28 Nov 2015

Hello,

Apologies if this is in the wrong area, I don't post here that often so please move this if appropriate.

I have recently just upgraded to a new laptop, due to my old laptop (4 years old, running windows 7) has been giving me overheating issues for what seems like an eternity. This new laptop, a HP with intel i7, has Windows 10.

The laptop runs a lot cooler than my old Windows 7 laptop however some of the older games that I have, which work fine on windows 7, do not on windows 10.

Since my laptop has a 2TB hard drive, I am thinking about dual booting Windows 10 and 7 on the same laptop. I know this is possible, but I have never performed a dual boot setup on a laptop before and am worried I might mess things up.

Can someone on here please give me some detailed help on performing a dual boot? This would assume partitioning the hard drive into (C) Windows 10 (approx. 1TB), (D) Recovery partition for 10 (already installed) and (F) 1TB for Windows 7. (The E drive is my DVD writer.)

Thanks in advance for your help!

spotify95 · 29 Nov 2015

Hello,

Following the advice that I was given from the Windows 10 Forums, I have come across an error when Windows tries to download the update files:

0x6: Windows could not update the installation files. To Install Windows, close Setup and restart the installation.

I have tried from an ISO and from a bootable DVD. Neither method works. Any suggestions?

Taplice · 29 Nov 2015

There is tutorial on tenforum Windows 10 - Dual Boot with Windows 7 or Windows 8 - Windows 10 Forums

AddRAM · 29 Nov 2015

Please tell us where you got the windows 7 Iso file from, Please describe exactly how you burned the iso file to dvd.

Layback Bear · 29 Nov 2015

Don't give up on your old laptop. Your over heating problem had nothing to do with the operating system (Windows 7).
It probable just need a good cleaning and some new thermal compound applied.
It would make a good backup laptop.

spotify95 · 11 Dec 2015

Layback Bear said:

Don't give up on your old laptop. Your over heating problem had nothing to do with the operating system (Windows 7).
It probable just need a good cleaning and some new thermal compound applied.
It would make a good backup laptop.

Hi,

Yeah, you're right, the overheating is nothing to do with the O\S - it's probably to do with the actual laptop.

If you look all over the web, you'll find various reports on the Aspire 5742 and its overheating issues.

I'm certainly keeping my Acer as a secondary laptop - though I'm reluctant to take it apart and put new thermal compound in. I repaired a Packard Bell Easynote MV46 laptop before (installed a new fan and thermal compound) and that was relatively easy to access; however if you look on how to replace the fan on this Aspire 5742, you'll see that you have to take the whole thing apart and remove the motherboard.

How to disassemble Acer Aspire 5742 | Inside my laptop

In order to access the fan you’ll have to go through all disassembly steps shown in the guide. There is no short cut.
The heat sink located under the motherboard. If you want to replace thermal grease on the CPU, you’ll have to remove the motherboard.

I've been updating my progress on the Ten Forums - however, I have had nothing but problems and I am very tempted (after Christmas) to pay DSU Tech (my university computer shop) the princely sum of £60 to get them to do it properly!

That way, at least I'll know that I'll be able to boot into Windows 7 or Windows 10, and I won't stand the chance of messing up the laptop again...

Edit 6.22.16: Laptop dual booted and runs fine. Windows 7 will be the main partition. Windows 10 will be secondary. Acer Aspire (old laptop) still overheating and genuinely considering selling online. Transferring files across to new HP and all will be good.