How to dual boot Win 7 64-bit and Win 7 32-bit

[gregrocker]

The drivers are not boot-critical. Only the SATA driver is boot-critical as far as I know and it can be inserted at the drive-selection screen. SATA Driver - Load in Windows 7 or Vista Setup

 

[Duzzy]

boot-critical drivers are reflected for use by Windows PE and other drivers are staged to the Windows PE driver store. Then, during the offlineServicing configuration pass, the drivers in the Windows PE driver store are staged to the driver store on the Windows image.

As I said I don't know when they get installed but I use the $WinPEDriver$ folder to install my chipset drivers. I originally did this because the drivers would not install by running the setup file. Even the readme said to open device manager and install x, y, z manually. Don't know if it's been fixed with later drivers but even the latest drivers the readme still says that. It also gives instructions for installing prior to OS installation.

I believe any driver can be placed in this folder or by using the other methods as long as they are inf files not exe.

 

[Duzzy]

Due to a server crash it looks like we lost a few posts.

My last post asked if you could upload the setupact.log and setuperr.log from the Windows directory and upload a zip of \Windows\Panther directory and if the zip was larger than 8mb to just upload any setupact.log,setuperr.log from that directory and any in the subfolders.

And for Gregrockers assistant it might help if you repost the info about the EFI.

 

[gregrocker]

Thanks, Duzzy.

I'd bookmark this everyone since we're going to need it a lot going forward: UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) - Install Windows 7 with - Windows 7 Forums

 

[Maguscreed]

I think the only real problem with the uefi is that people are not used to their hardware and software actually communicating properly, and therefore are afraid of it.

Having it on my new machine it's the best thing ever though.

....strangely many, many years ago actually owned a machine with a bios that wasn't quite as interactive but had many of the features you see in uefi like mouse support and what not. Wonder whatever happened with that bios... we're talking like late 90's here.

 

[Duzzy]

Just read the EFI tutorial and want to confirm that if he sets the hard drive as the first boot device and EFI as the last and he's still able to boot the original OS then would that mean he's not using EFI for his current install and this would make anything to do with EFI irrelevent?

Because if he is using EFI then the tutorial says 32bit will not work.

 

[Marylin]

(See previous history above) Since there does not seem to be a solution to install a second-, 32-bit instance of windows 7 on my machine because it is not possible to feed the right chipset drivers into the right places in the windows directory when windows does not already run, I have now decided to install a second instance of 64-bit windows 7 instead. Then I shall attempt to copy all the drivers from one windows-tree to the other, until the second windows boots... Would that work ?
One minor problem I encounter is: I want first of all to clean the second-windows partition from the unsuccessful 32-bit windows to make room for the 64-bit one but I can't erase it all because there are some "access denied" directories, such as "Documents and Settings". I am tempted to try the "ultimate windows tweaker" to unlock these "junction points". Is this kind of tool safe to use ? Any alternative to get a clean partition ? (formatting ?). Thanks.
Re EFI : I don't know if I have an actual EFI in my machine. All I know about it is that it is mentioned as nr. 1 in the boot priorities in the bios. To make things simple for my dual-boot setup, I just swapped it with Harddisk, making it Nr. 2 (of 5), with no noticeable change to the (very short) time needed to boot. Maybe it ignores the hard disk and still boots to EFI ?

 

[Duzzy]

What is your motherboard manufacturer and model? If you don't know this tool should tell you Speccy.

because it is not possible to feed the right chipset drivers into the right places in the windows directory

Then I shall attempt to copy all the drivers from one windows-tree to the other, until the second windows boots... Would that work ?

I really don't think the drivers are your problem. Windows should include enough default drivers to boot. But I have given info & links to help include the drivers.
I also asked if you could upload the setup logs.

Any alternative to get a clean partition ? (formatting ?)

Formatting should be sufficent.

 

[gregrocker]

Please enter BIOS setup to see if there are any settings which pertain to EFI and how they are set.

The WIn7 installer is driver-complete. Drivers would not be an issue except for the oldest IDE chipsets for old IDE devices.

Do not tweak your OS to allow you to somehow "clean" your target partition. Tweaking is not tolerated well by Win7 which is already as lean as an OS can be. The correct way to prepare the partition is to delete it and create New using the Custom Drive Options during install: Clean Install Windows 7

Please focus on providing us the answers we keep requesting.

 

[Marylin]

Let me recap: I have bought a machine with a 64-bit win 7 preinstalled and I want to set up a second OS in dual-boot, preferably a 32-bit win 7. So far, I have not been successful. The machine, designed as a "gamer", has some complications. The disc (2TB SATA, "RAID") has first a primary 19 GB restore partition, followed by a primary 100 MB "system reserved" partition, followed by C:, last primary, which I have shrunk to 125 GB, then an extended partition of abt. 1.8 TB with 13 logical partitions. I have reserved C: for the first (64 bit) Windows and E: (logical) for the other windows to install. D: is used for all the apps progs of both Windows. To make things at first more standard and simpler, I have changed the keyboard and mouse for standard ones, and in the BIOS, I have swapped boot device nr 1 (EFI) and 2 (harddisk). At this stage, the primary windows (x64) boots fast and runs perfectly. When I tried to install the second windows, it went all very well until the stage where it says, on the screen: "Windows will now start the services". There I got a warning window that said (I translate from French) "The Windows Installer program has failed to setup Windows to be run on the hardware of this computer". In the file manager, it looks all pretty well installed. The boot manager comes up with a menu, at first two times "windows 7" which I have tweaked to something better using EasyBCD. So, it boots well but cannot "run".
Later, I followed a tutorial of this forum to access the Device manager of my second windows during boot, which showed that all the devices were functioning perfectly except three (yellow exclam marks): the Ethernet controller (Intel), the "SM-bus" controller (Intel chipset ??) and the "simplified communications PCI controller", all of which appeared to have no driver at all installed. At this stage, I believe that if I could somehow smuggle these drivers into the right directory locations of E:, I could get the damn thing running, but I am not even sure there exist such drivers in a 32-bit version. As requested, I have run "Speccy" on the motherboard. It says: manufacturer : Acer, Model : Predator G5910 (CPU1), chipset vendor : Intel, chipset model : Sandy Bridge, chipset revision 09, Southbridge vendor : Intel, S. model : P67, S. revision B3, BIOS brand : American Megatrends Inc version P01-A2, 3/11/2011.
I shall let this problem rest for a while and if no solution shows up (e.g. a service pack by MS ?), I shall try to install a 64-bit win 7 where I could copy the drivers from location to location, which should work. But I will then have to sacrify all my loved 32-bit and even 16-bit apps, most of which get rejected by my 64-bit win 7.

 

[gregrocker]

You'll need to determine if you have an EFI BIOS as it doesn't support 32 bit as explained in this tutorial I'll post again: UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) - Install Windows 7 with - Windows 7 Forums

Cursory checks on Google don't bring up detailed enough specs to determine this, and Acer for some reason doesn't have Downloads available for Predators where we can look at or download the Manual for your model. But the information is available by continuiing the search so that you can confirm this is the block to install. If not we can continue troubleshooting.

 

[Duzzy]

I found this AcerSupport, it's not for your Model but it may help.