Using two hard drives with two different operating syatems

[BruceMyers48]

I am running windows 7 pro 64 bit on a WD 500 gig Sata Hard Drive, The other day I pulled the sata cable from the 500 gig sata and installed a samsung 250 gig SSD and loaded win 8 pro. The install went great. The problem is when I connect the sata cable back to the 500 gig HD to boot to win 7 I have to hook to a different slot on the motherboard to get it to boot. If I want to boot to the win 8 hard drive I have to do the same. If there a easier way to use two hard drives with two different OS in one computer so I can boot to either one. I dont want to dual boot on same drive. Thanks for your time

 

[theog]

Are you using Windows 8 Upgrade?

 

[BruceMyers48]

No. win 8 is loaded on seperate HD

 

[Kaktussoft]

Can you set in BIOS from which drive to BOOT? Something like "boot priority"
If both drives are attached... which one boots (win7 or win8)?

 

[theog]

What Windows 8 are you using?

 

[BruceMyers48]

I have tried to ste Bios to the boot priority but does stay after saving and rebooting.

 

[bassfisher6522]

Can you set in BIOS from which drive to BOOT? Something like "boot priority"
If both drives are attached... which one boots (win7 or win8)?

That was going to be my suggestion....

The system now has two separate OS in two different locations and is creating a conflict on which one to boot from. Once you set the boot order you should have no problems.

http://www.ehow.com/how_7160783_make-two-different-drives-pc.html

 

[BruceMyers48]

I have tried to set boot order and it still does not like it. Is there a third party program that will set boot order to over ride bios

 

[Kaktussoft]

Once again...which one boots if both (win7 and win8) attached?

 

[BruceMyers48]

Sorry for delay, neither one boots, I get a screen telling to select boot device but no selection is there

 

[Zepher]

Press F8 during post to choose what drive to boot from.

 

[BruceMyers48]

Worked the first time, I hit F8 and had my choice of which drive. I shut down and tried it again it bypassed me while pressing the F8 key and went right into Win 8. I tried it again and the same thing. I unplugged the win 8 drive and rebooted back into win 7.

 

[smarteyeball]

Is there a third party program that will set boot order to over ride bios

EasyBcd

Simply add the missing OS into the boot menu.

The OSes can stay where they are and no more cable fiddling.

 

[BruceMyers48]

I just downloaded and will install on my win 7 drive and see what happens thanks

 

[BruceMyers48]

I dont believe BCD will work because of the os on two different hard drives. I installed and natually it will only see one entry in the bootloader because the program is not made to see the other drive.

 

[gregrocker]

EasyBCD does indeed work but you need a stable booting OS to install it upon to add the other HD's OS.

However your BIOS should save and boot the choice of HD's, so I would reset BIOS to defaults in case a bad setting is interfering: Clear CMOS - 3 Ways to Clear the CMOS - Reset BIOS

Then boot into BIOS setup to set preferred OS HD to boot first, followed by secondary HD. Make sure you Save the changes using the key given and Exit Saving Changes. Confirm you've done this.

 

[BruceMyers48]

after refreshing drive scan I found my win 8 as G:. I added and rebooted and got the bcd boot memu and pick win 8. I got a message that confirm digatial signature and would let me boot into win 8.

 

[gregrocker]

Do you get the Windows 8 Dual Boot graphical GUI? This should have been configured if Win8 was installed last. You can try to add it now by running an Automatic Repair from Win8 System Recovery Options - Boot to in Windows 8.

Set Win8 HD first to boot before doing this.
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorial...ws-8-a.html?filter[1]=Performance Maintenance

 

[BruceMyers48]

Sorry for the delay. After messing with BCD and rebooting, as soon as I see my Asus splash screen the win 8 sansung drive option pops up, now if I continue to press F8 I do get the boot menu and I am able to switch between win 8 and win 7. Thanks for the help and the learning trip. As always this forum is top quality and professional,
Bruce

 

[gregrocker]

You're most welcome, Bruce. But the selection of first HD to boot should not generate any BIOS menu on its own unless there is a BIOS setting causing this. Normally it should boot into the preferred OS which either has a WIndows-managed Dual Boot menu or boots only via the BIOS.

With Win8 as suggested the preferred method is to let Win8 configure a Dual Boot during install to get the nice Metro-style Dual Boot menu GUI. Auto Repair at boot should configure this if you can get it stably booting to the WIn8 HD every time.