Solved Dual Booting

[Richardc269]

Hi guys, I'm sorry for not posting before about the problems, or if I fixed them. And I've discovered WHY the dual-booting was screwing up: It was because I had my stupid flash drive plugged in while trying to install the second OS! Major "DOH!" moment. Anyway, for roughly the last 2 weeks, my dual-OS has been working fine. I can switch between both OS's without a problem.

I also have a question, and a little explanation with the question: Roughly 7 years ago, I had a roomate in my house named Mike. Now, Mike was a better computer user than I was 6 years ago, and roughly about this time, XP had been released for 3 years or so. Mike hated XP versus Windows 98 at the time, and he had a dual-boot of XP and 98. He also really hated the "choose an OS screen" when you started up the machine, so he created 2 little icons in his Quick Launch area. Both icons were created with the 98 and XP inside the icon, what the buttons did however, was if you clicked on one of them, it would restart the machine, skip the "choose an OS" screen, and go straight to the other OS, and if he shut down the machine, whichever button he had clicked on last, it would have started up into that OS without having to choose from the menu.

Now, does anyone else here know how to do that? I would like to do that, too. Except that it's of course, between XP and Windows 7 instead.

Probably quite easy to do. What they probably do is execute a batch file which sets the appropriate OS as the default, and set the delay to 0 which means that the default OS will be loaded upon restart. It could also be possible to choose whether to shutdown, restart, or continue in the current OS after executing the file, in which case the next boot will launch into the desired OS. I'm not sure on the implications of UAC though, since the required command BCDEDIT (from W7's perspective) needs to be invoked with administrative credentials and privileges.

This should work with both dual-boot and multi-boot systems. In both cases, if the desired OS isn't already the default (i.e. first in the boot order), the 2 entries involved (the current and desired) will be swapped over.

Well I'm the only person who uses this machine, so I only have 1 Admin account, that's not going to be a problem.

Edit: Just need a way to do it, but I'm no programmer, so I don't have a clue how.

 

[Richardc269]

So does anyone else know how I could make what I said above? It'd be a lot easier for me.

 

[gregrocker]

PM SIW2, who would know if anyone would.

 

[theog]

You can edit boot order & time in
Download EasyBCD 2.0.2 - NeoSmart Technologies

 

[Richardc269]

Alright, I'll give that thing a try. Thanks!

 

[Richardc269]

Okay, I tried using that program, but it isn't taking away the Selection List like it was supposed to do. I don't know why it isn't.

 

[theog]

Can you post a screen shot?
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9733-how-post-screenshot-seven-forums.html

Screenshot tools.
http://www.sevenforums.com/general-...ed-method-uploading-posting-screen-shots.html
How to Use the Snipping Tool in Vista - Vista Forums
Snipping Tool - Windows 7 features - Microsoft Windows
Use Snipping Tool to capture screen shots
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9717-screenshot-paint.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/51160-screenshot-upload-using-mwsnap.html
fscapture free download

Use Snipping Tool to capture screen shots

 

[gregrocker]

Okay, I tried using that program, but it isn't taking away the Selection List like it was supposed to do. I don't know why it isn't.

EasyBCD is used to add a Dual Boot. If you delete a boot listing on the Edit OS Menu tab, then that OS will not be available to boot.

 

[SIW2]

Download iReboot 1.1.1 - NeoSmart Technologies

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Download iReboot 1.1.1 - NeoSmart Technologies

Thanks SIW, that's the one I couldn't think of!

 

[Richardc269]

I didn't delete it from the list, I told it to take away the 30 second decision window. I think it worked after it was shutdown though, instead of restarted. Haven't tried it since this morning.

Edit: Thanks, SiW.

 

[Richardc269]

Well...this really effing stinks! I turned off my machine before going to bed last night, went to bed, woke up this morning; and found out my hard drive with both of my OS installations on it died last night! So I lost all of my super important information on my F drive last night! *sighs* This really sucks. I'm reinstalling Windows 7 right now. I can't even get the dead hard drive working. Oh well. I hopefully still have all of my info on my D drive. At least I had 1 working drive. I just put in another 500GB drive with the other 500GB I have. Thankfully my father had a second drive sittin' around. I can copy crap I need from my D drive to another one and format the old C & D drives. This just really stinks.

Maybe someday in the future I hopefully can get the old info off of my dead drive. Just thought I'd let you guys know what was going on.

 

[gregrocker]

What test confirmed your HD has died? HD Diagnostic

Hook it up as a slave to your new Win7 install to see if it sees anything.

Reinstalling Windows 7

 

[Richardc269]

What test confirmed your HD has died? HD Diagnostic

Hook it up as a slave to your new Win7 install to see if it sees anything.

Reinstalling Windows 7

I tried changing the SATA wires to another port, and wouldn't do anything. I already pulled the drive out and put in another one.