dual boot VISTA/Win 7 does not work

[richdave]

My PC has VISTA home premium x64 installed. After purchasing Win 7 Pro I decided not to upgrade VISTA, rather dual boot for now.

Installing W7 onto a clean HDD I can boot directly to it and can select which drive to boot from via the F12 key at boot up

I installed easyBCD onto the VISTA OS with the expectation that VISTA would be the default OS to boot and Win 7 would be a selectable option.

I get the selection menu when I boot with a 10sec pause and VISTA then boots OK

If I select the W7 option in the menu I get

FILE windows\system32\winload.exe

STATUS 0xc0000428

Windows cannot verify the digital signature of this file.

Any ideas?

 

[Saltgrass]

Can you attach a copy of your disk management window using the snipping tool in Win 7?

It all depends which drive was primary when you installed the other operating system. If you installed Win 7 on a separate drive without changing the drive order in the bios, the boot files for Win 7 may be on the Vista drive. The picture will help clarify that.

EasyBCD should be able to set it up for you, but if not you might join their forum and download EasyBCD 2.0 beta, which seems to work better in Win 7.

I do not know exactly what F12 does.

 

[myzr7]

Richdave, welcome to SevenForums
Have you tried running startup repair from the win7 dvd? Run at least 3 times to fix some problems. Good luck to you.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/681-startup-repair.html

 

[gregrocker]

You had the dual boot configured in the best possible way, via the BIOS where the HD's remain independent and can come and go as you please.

Configuring a Windows-managed dual boot instead makes the HD's interdependent and harder to extricate.

Please post back a screenshot of your full Disk Management map, using the Snipping Tool in Start Menu and attaching file using paper clip in reply box.

As Saltgrass noted, you'll need the automated beta of EasyBCD to correct the failed dual boot, so please do the quick registration to use beta and post back also a screenshot of its listings so we can advise you: http://neosmart.net/forums/showthread.php?t=642

 

[richdave]

Can you attach a copy of your disk management window using the snipping tool in Win 7?

It all depends which drive was primary when you installed the other operating system. If you installed Win 7 on a separate drive without changing the drive order in the bios, the boot files for Win 7 may be on the Vista drive. The picture will help clarify that.

EasyBCD should be able to set it up for you, but if not you might join their forum and download EasyBCD 2.0 beta, which seems to work better in Win 7.

I do not know exactly what F12 does.

here are the disk management snips...

I had VISTA installed on mt 1TB drive, removed 1TB drive and installed clean 160G drive and format/install W7. Boots/runs OK.

reinstall 1TB drive and set at first boot drive.

F12 opens the boot order util that allows selection of which HDD to boot from.

I can select/boot from either my 1TB (VISTA) or the 16oG (W7) drive this way.

Wanting to make it easy I installed BCD onto the VISTA drive and I cannot get the W7 drive to boot when selected in the boot menu created by BCD.

I have posted over there at NeoSmart forums but no answer there so thought I'd see if someone here had ideas...

I dont have to use BCD but as I will have a MAC OS (Snow leopard) HDD shortly and possibly a Ubuntu HDD in the future I thought it might be a clean way to multi boot my system.

 

[gregrocker]

In Disk Management, assign a drive letter to the 100mb System Reserved boot partition for Win7.

Install EasyBCD 2.0 beta, remove any listing given for Win7, then Add Win7 on the Add/Remove tab by Name, Type and drive letter, which it should autocomplete.

Then highlight the new Win7 listing above and Save.

It may be necessary to restart Win7 to run EasyBCD from there. This is done by booting the Win7 DVD Repair console, clicking through to Startup Repair and running up to 3 separate times with reboots.

If there are any further problems, post back here the listings screen from EasyBCD.

 

[richdave]

thanks gregrocker for the super fast reply.

I have BCD 2.0 Beta installed so will do as suggested and post back... will be a couple hours though as I am at work for a little while yet...

 

[SIW2]

Boot into 7, open an elevated command and type:

bcdboot c:\windows /s e:

press enter.Close comand prompt.

That's it.

 

[gregrocker]

Si, just curious: Is the only way Easy would configure this correctly is to give 100mb a drive letter?

Would it then auto-complete Adding 7 using 2.0 from Vista?

 

[SIW2]

The fix is in my post . Nothing else required. 100 mb partition isn't relevant to the original question - giving it a letter would make no difference.

 

[gregrocker]

I am not questioning the fix in your post, which I am confidant as always will work.

I am asking you if the correct way when using EasyBCD 2.0 to configure a dual boot where 100mb is present, is to give 100mb a letter and then let it autocomplete, or assign Win7 that letter?

Some of us don't know all the commands and need the automation.

 

[SIW2]

If you are using it on 7, then Easy 1.7.2. will need the 100mb to be lettered.Easy 2.0 should be able to edit bcd even when there is no letter on the sys partition.

Occasionally, it doesn't - not clear why that should be. If that is the case, then lettering the partition will usually do it.

The 100mb partition is not involved in this particular case as he installed Easy on Vista - it will be editing Vista bcd by default.

 

[gregrocker]

Thanks Si. Was aware he might have to start Win7 to run Easy, if Vista wouldn't get it correct on second attempt.

But all good when you show up with the commands!

 

[SIW2]

Yes, you could have done it the other way round - installing Easy on 7 instead.

Much quicker and easier to do the command. Should take no more than 5 seconds.

 

[gregrocker]

So is that a standard dual boot command from the booted OS c: to the added OS e:?

Seems like a much easier way to help with dual boots.

 

[Saltgrass]

He has two independent installs. Easy BCD needs to access the 100mb partition. It can put necessary files on it, but still needs a drive letter to boot to it.

SIW2, doesn't your solution makes the independent installs-dependent.

I would have made the Win 7 drive primary and run EasyBCD from there, adding the drive letter. The reason being I assume at some point Win 7 will be the surviving OS.

 

[SIW2]

Saltgrass - no, they can still be used independently.

Greg - there is no "standard" answer - it wouldn't be appropriate for most situations.

For most situations you come across - the use of Easy and startup repair etc. - the way you normally do - works well and is not hard for the OP to do.

 

[Saltgrass]

Well, I just set it up. Windows 7 drive, with 100mb partition, primary.

No letter is required for the 100 mb partition when using Vista to dual boot. I believe XP does need it.

When adding the Vista entry with EasyBCD, use the drive letter of the Vista partition from within Win 7, which will probably be D: or E:

 

[SIW2]

It says that in the tutorials for dual boot 7 with Vista, and the tut for dual boot 7 with XP. Tho, as I mentioned earlier, if you use Easy 2.0 ( still beta) there shouldn't be a need to add a drive letter.

 

[richdave]

Boot into 7, open an elevated command and type:

bcdboot c:\windows /s e:

press enter.Close comand prompt.

That's it.

nope!

this did not work... refer attached

FWIW giving the 100mb reserved partition a drive letter did not help either