Unstable Win7/Pro x64 - First Post in Wrong Forum Perhaps?

Thank you everyone for your input.

I'm not 'out of the woods yet' but I received a reply from YaMoonSun to the thread where jumanji helped me to create a copy of my Data Disk (showed as RAW in Disk Management) that is readable.

YaMoonSun suggested I look at my Startup file. I am pretty sure that it was VMonitor (came with an Adafruit USB microscope) that was the culprit. For the record I removed these files from Startup and the startup speed was great.

Adobe Photo Downloader 4.0
Acrotray Adove distiller helper application
Catalyst Control Center (from Advanced Micro Devices)
VMonitor

When I have more bandwidth I will look into the Win 10 Fast Startup suggestion. For the moment it seems to not be affecting my startup speed noticeably.

For the record, my BIOS is:

BIOS: Award Software International, Inc. F6 06/18/2009 System Specs - Updated on 8/30/16

thanks
baumgrenze

PBcopter, I can't understand why a hibernation process on Win 10 can affect a Win 7 boot on another disk as OP said he has always only one SSD connected. So if the Win 10 SSD with the hiberfil.sys is disconnected from the MB, how can it affect Win 7 boot?
The explanation can be that the boot loader is on a Data disk.

Baumgrenze, please boot Win 10 (with Win 7 SSD attached) launch Disk Manager, expand the columns so we can read them and with the sniping tool take a snapshot of all disks and post here as an attachment.

A Win 7 on a SSD would take no more than 30 sec to boot.
Lets see what are on the disks.

I am here to learn. The older I get, the more I am aware of what I don't know.

Fact: I have a working copy of Win7/Pro x64 on one of my SSDs. I have a working copy of Win10/Pro x64 on the other one.

I have not installed any program files on the Win 10 disk.

I thought it was an invitation to disaster to attach both of these drives to my MOBO at the same time. Am I wrong?

Just for the record, once I disabled VMonitor my machine began booting Win 7 as rapidly as it always did. See Post #12 above for the other programs I disabled at the same time.

I've not had the time to boot to Win 10 and follow ThrashZone's instructions to turn of fast start.

I've also not gone back through my Win 10 installation notes to read about what I did in my BIOS when I installed it. I have a vague memory that this was a problem as I stumbled my way from XP to Win7.

Yesterday, when I checked, Win 10 booted quickly and seemed to be working OK, so I shut it down and swapped the SSDs again.

I make all these points because I don't want to go chasing something that is not a real problem.

thanks
baumgrenze

I don't think Win 10 has anything to do with win 7 boot problem as they are on separate disks, each one with its boot loader.

Please boot Win 10 (with Win 7 SSD attached) launch Disk Manager, expand the columns so we can read them and with the sniping tool take a snapshot of all disks and post here as an attachment.

A Win 7 on a SSD would take no more than 30 sec to boot.
Lets see what are on the disks.

Please forgive my persistent questioning.

Is it really 'safe' to start a PC which has 2 bootable disk drives both connected to the MOBO?

How does the processor know which disk to boot?

I want to stay out of black&blue screen hell if I can.

thanks
baumgrenze

You should always disconnect ALL other drives when installing win to make sure it doesn't install a MBR on a disk that direct to another disk. Once installation is over, connect the other drives.
There is no problem to have 2 boot able drives.
On BIOS you have a disk boot order priority, that is, if you don't do nothing it will boot from the fist on the list.
If you want to boot from another disk, when you hear the POST beep just after the computer starts, you press a F key to launch the boot menu. On Gigabyte MBs the F key is normally F12.
On the boot menu you will have all boot able drives. Choose one with the mouse or keyboard. Simple as that.

Megahertz07 said:

PBcopter, I can't understand why a hibernation process on Win 10 can affect a Win 7 boot on another disk as OP said he has always only one SSD connected. So if the Win 10 SSD with the hiberfil.sys is disconnected from the MB, how can it affect Win 7 boot?
The explanation can be that the boot loader is on a Data disk.

Baumgrenze, please boot Win 10 (with Win 7 SSD attached) launch Disk Manager, expand the columns so we can read them and with the sniping tool take a snapshot of all disks and post here as an attachment.

A Win 7 on a SSD would take no more than 30 sec to boot.
Lets see what are on the disks.

It is because Windows 10 fast start up marks the other disks that are connected and Windows 7 sees that as the disks being dirty. If there were only the Windows 7 or the Windows 10 disks connected at a time, there would be no problem.

Thanks for the reminder about boot order in the BIOS. I've only entered the menu when installing an OS which is infrequent, for which I am thankful. Since the drives are identical (I'd intended a RAID array) I would need to be able to tell one from the other. Would assigned names show up in the BIOS setup?

Just to be cautiously clear, I would have a 1 GB spinning data disk and 2 Crucial 128 Gb SSD (CT128M550SSD1), one for Win7 and one for Win10. Sometime I would also have my external backup mounted as well (2TB Seagate 2TB (PN/ 9JB1N3-576 - ST2000DM001-1ER)

I will try to work these suggestions into my schedule. My top priority is sorting out my 1 TB data disk situation (a related post on the General Discussion where jumanji is walking me through the problem at one post per day as we are just about 12 hours apart in time.

thanks
baumgrenze