Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and 7 on 2 separate HDD

[dcordova]

1. I have Windows 7 (64 bit) ALREADY installed on a SINGLE hard drive.
2. I have a clean blank other SINGLE hard drive upon which I will install Windows 7 (32-bit).
3. Please understand this is TWO individual hard drives, I want an Operating System installed on each individually. (win7 on ONE, win7 on the other)
4. I'd like a boot menu to come up giving me a choice to boot to either the Win7 drive OR the Win 7 (32bit) Prof. drive.

Thank you kindly for a direct, precise response.

dcordova

 

[theog]

As you dualing booting 32 bit & 64 bit, You can folow this tutorial:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/5166-dual-boot-installation-windows-7-vista.html
But you will need two license keys.

 

[Hujorgen]

I want to dual boot W7 and W7 on separate hard drives and will follow the 7/Vista tutorial. My question is what drive letter will be set for the OS drive when booting into each OS? Will both use C:? (Preferred).

The first install be with one drive installed. After install I will add another drive and install then. I would prefer that each install use the C: drive when choosing that OS. I won't be sharing files between each installed instance of W7.

Since the last post/reply was in 2011 should I create a new post?

 

[Pete4]

i had in past years at least 3 different dual boots set up, actually one was triple boot and always boot drive was a c drive.
Once you brought up old thread, might as well continue posting here, me think.

 

[gregrocker]

If you leave the present win7 drive plugged then during install of the new Win7 a Dual Boot menu should be configured. However the boot files will be placed on the present Win7 drive so the new OS will remain dependent upon it.

If you'd prefer to keep them independent to allow either HD to come and go as you please while the other one remains bootable, then unplug the present Win7 drive during install of the new Win7. Afterwards plug back in the other HD, set preferred HD to boot first in BIOS setup, boot the other one using the one-time BIOS Boot menu key.

If you don't like this manual method of booting via the BIOS, then install EasyBCD (click Download - no Name or Email required) to the default booting Win7 to add the other one, configuring a Windows Dual Boot menu while keeping the HD's independently bootable to come and go as you please.

 

[Pete4]

The only problem with first method is that if the original drive breaks, you can't boot up into second drive either without Win repair CD, so choosing bootup sequence using BIOS is safer in the sense that you'll have booting computer regardless of which HDD failed, if it does.

 

[Hujorgen]

Thanks for the info. The installs work as I wanted but will try EZBCD to allow me to give each of the installs a unique nickname instead of Windows 7 and Windows 7. Am familiar with the boot.ini from the olden days of XP.