Can't Dual Boot After Installing W7 Retail With W7 RC
Dec 28, 2009
I was running Vista on one partition, and Windows 7 RC on a second partition. Was able to dual boot with no problems. I just installed Windows 7 Retail Upgrade on the partition where Vista was located, after reformatting that partition. I can run the new installation fine, but I can't boot into the RC version. I can access the partition using explorer, just can't find a way to boot it.
I'd like to get in there to pull some configuration information from programs, to enter when I reinstall the programs on the new system. I'm not sure what I messed up here, but is there a way to find a fix to the problem?
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Dec 20, 2009
I have gotten myself into a very sticky situation. Here's what happened:
I had built a computer back in July and installed Windows 7 RC onto it, hoping to upgrade to the retail version when it came out. When I installed the RC, I made a 20GB partition to use for the retail version and installed the RC onto the remaining 400GB partition. Now, I recently installed the Windows 7 retail onto the 20GB partition. So, right now, when I boot up I have the choice between the RC and the Retail version.
All I want to do, is get a fresh install of Windows 7 retail. I have already backed up all needed files and documents and I'm completely fine with restarting everything and just reinstalling the retail version of Windows 7. So, I have 2 partitions: 20GB/400GB and I'm (now) fine with putting the Windows 7 retail version on either. I really messed up on this one, so, I really could use some help .
I can respond ASAP on any other info you might need. Pretty much, I just want to delete everything on the HD and start all over.
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Apr 6, 2012
I installed opensuse 12.1 on dual boot along with my other windows 7 installation. Installation of opensuse is successful and i can use it. But when I tried to use windows 7 on grub, it says bootmgr is missing. I've already encountered this problem a long time ago so i tried to use bootrec /fixmbr, bootrec /rebuildbcd and bootrec /fixboot in the recovery console in the windows 7 DVD. Rebuildbcd and fixboot did not work and it said something like it cannot find my windows installation. I also tried bootrec /scanos, it returned a windows installation on D:\Windows but my windows is in drive C. I think this has something to do with me messing up the active partition in disk management a month ago but i already fixed it by setting the active partition to the system reserved partition. Only fixmbr is successful, but now i can't boot on any OS because it says: Missing operating system.I also tried bcdboot C:\Windows but it failed with a message that goes like: Failure when attempting to copy boot information..
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Dec 3, 2010
I can't get Win 7 to boot after setting up dual boot (Ubuntu 10.10) on my GF's laptop. I'll describe the problem and everything that has been tried so far. REALLY hoping somebody has an idea, I'm getting desperate.I installed Ubuntu last night via the Live CD. Used the Live version to install alongside Windows and partition the drive, install Grub, etc. At reboot, after POST it would just go to a black screen with a flashing cursor. I could only run off the live CD. A forum member determined the Grub was trying to load from the wrong partition. We changed that and voila! Grub now loads properly. I can boot into Ubunto via Grub with zero problems. HOWEVER: when I try to boot into Win 7 from Grub, it just locks at the same flashing cursor of death screen. The 7 partition is till intact, I can see and access all the files on the 7 partition from within Ubuntu, however 7 will not boot. I have tried downloading and burning the Win 7 repair disk and doing all of the following,Running the automatic Start Up Repair - several times. All it does is remove Grub, but booting still goes to the flashing cursor and I have to reinstall Grub again to be able to do anything after POST.I have used the command prompt to run "bootsect /nt60 SYS /mbr". Has the same effect as above.I have used all the bootsec.exe /fixmbr, /fixboot, and /rebuildBCD commands. Again, all have the same effect and I have to reinstall Grub to get anywhere.I don't have an installation disk to try and just do a repair install because Asus apparently doesn't feel that I would need one of these. All I have is the recovery disks from the Asus AIRecovery application that want to just re-format the entire drive and start over. This isn't an option. It's my GF's laptop (mine gave up the ghost last week) and we both have WAY too much highly important data on here. Not to mention she would castrate me . Now from all my research the only other thing I've come across that sounds possible is that the boot flag needs to be set to a different partition. Somebody had a somewhat similar problem and it turned out the way Dell set up the system the boot flag had to be moved to a recovery partition and it worked fine. I'm wondering if Asus has something similar going on, but I can't figure out how to move the boot flag. I'm going on 12 straight hours of working on this now
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Jun 2, 2009
I did a partition, i ran the XP setup, chose the partition, started install, then it copied the files, then it had to restart, it restarted.. but its not moving for the next setup screen, it just jams on the load, "Press any key to boot from CD ... "
It is been there like over 30 minutes now, maybe someone can help me with this problem, thank you in advance.
PS. I restarted it also and then booted it again, and it seems it did not copy those files.. the partition was still empty.
PPS. And as it seems.. it does not run not at all now, i took out the XP cd and it does not load Windows 7 Also.
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Mar 4, 2010
When I go to create the new partition in Windows 7 that I want to install XP on it creates it as a logical drive. How do I create a primary partition instead?
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Aug 9, 2009
i used win 7 and wanted to install xp as a multi-boot on my laptop for trying an xp based encyclopedia but when i installed xp i got error "ERROR LOADING OPERATING SYSTEM" so i reinstalled xp and realized that i cant see my 2 25 gb partitions full of data,so kindly guide me to get my partitions back i have currently reinstall win 7.
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May 12, 2009
I just installed Windows 7 as a dual boot with my XPsp3. Now my Logitech Revolution VX mouse has lost all its special functions, and the Setpoint software in unable to work properly.
Any thoughts? The same thing happened when I set up Ubuntu as a dual boot - finally removed the linux.
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Jan 14, 2012
I want to upgrade Vista to Windows 7, but without disturbing my Ubuntu installation, which is dual boot with Vista. I would prefer to do a clean install of Windows 7 over Vista, which has had niggling little issues (I resolve them and new ones appear) ever since I bought the pc. I don't have the recovery discs for Vista (the ones you make when you buy a new system) as they went missing during a major move.
What is the best way to accomplish all the above? Also, from what I understand, a clean installation can be done with an upgrade version of Windows 7 as long as a previous version of Vista or XP is already on the machine?
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Nov 20, 2009
i was wondering if i could get any tips or advice, i keep getting bsod error message when trying to install xp, it looks like i have to install the sata drivers, i think i have to slipstream the driver with xp as from my post here, but i cant find the sata driver for my toshiba hard drive anywhere. My sony vgn-aw120j does not have drivers for xp on the sony website and toshiba does not have drivers on theirs. my hard drive is a mk-3252gsx from toshiba,
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Aug 26, 2012
I had a new system made up for me a few months back and as I was so insistent on excellent cooling - fans - RAM etc, I didn't pay enough attention to the HDD's.Subsequently the system was installed on an SSD 60GB. For a normal user this would be adequate, but I work with a lot of digital programs that write to the app data folders and I can't safely move those onto the D:Drive where I have programs and Docs - all libraries. I have hard linked everything I could, but the more Windows updates and other updates I do, the Winsxs folder is already 7.2GB.I only have 30GB's left after a very short time and would like to be able to install another Windows 7 x64 on a 1TB drive I can free up easily. Ideally, I want to keep the SSD drive as an OS to use for general use and get all my graphics programs onto a different system for work purposes.I have not ever dual booted before and have no idea how to go about it - or I do but it could be wrong.Is it even possible to have one OS on an SSD and the other on a normal HDD? I do have an extra unused OEM version of Win 7 x64 ultimate and hope that is legal to use two identical OS's on same machine - with different keys..If I cannot dual boot I am willing to erase the SSD, probably use the space for something else, and use a normal spinner. It's that important for me to be able to work without disabling everything and have space left over.
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Apr 18, 2011
I have a Win 7 Laptop and I wanted to put XP in as a dual boot. All is ok but XP will not connect to the Internet / Are all the drivers I need on my xp cd? When I start I press F12 to select , win & goes online but XP will not and even the wizard says it is unable to connect?
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Oct 17, 2012
My computer has windows 7. I created a separate partition on my hard drive to install windows xp, but now when I try to install it I get an chkdsk /f error.
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Feb 26, 2010
I am currently planning on upgrading one of my PC's that has a genuine retail version of 64-bit Win7 Home Premium installed.
I am planning on replacing my ageing (E5200/P35/DDR2/HDD) hardware with fresh stuff (Core i3 530/H55/DDR3/SSD).
The way I understand it is that if I were to just replace my MOBO and CPU I could just plug my old hard drive into the new mobo and use the windows disc to repair any problems it may have. However, I am planning on upgrading to an SSD as well.
My question is this, if I make a bare metal backup of Win7 off my current hard drive onto the SSD using something like Clonezilla, and then boot off the SSD once my new system is built, will there be any issues that the Win7 disc won't solve? I don't want to get all this new kit just to find I need a new OS as well.
Anyway, I hope that makes sense.
EDIT: I should add that I currently have 3 hard drives but I only have my OS on my primary hard drive so backing up my music etc isn't an issue. The SSD I'm getting is 64GB so should be fine for Win7 Install.
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Jul 11, 2009
can i somehow use my vista disc at some point to allow the Windows 7 retail install to upgrade the Windows 7 RC AND NOT HAVE TO REINSTALL MY PROGRAMS?
i currently have vista 32 bit home premium. i have the install discs for it too.
i want to create another partition and put Windows 7 RC 64 bit on it (dual boot).
i have Windows 7 home premium pre ordered.
i want to upgrade Windows 7 RC to the retail when it comes out, WITHOUT REINSTALLING MY PROGRAMS.
i read the Windows 7 retail discs will allow you to upgrade the Windows 7 RC, but you will have to reinstall programs.
i am wondering if using the vista disc will allow me to upgrade and keep my programs.
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Feb 12, 2010
I was looking at getting windows 7 and hoping to do clean installs on a couple of machines and don't know which version to choose. I was looking at the w7 professional upgrade because I read that you can do a clean install with the upgrade disc and it's cheaper but I was not sure because I have an xp pro upgrade disc which says in the manual you can do a clean install but I could not (tried to put it on my laptop and do a clean install over vista but wouldn't let me.)
If you can do that, what is the difference between an upgrade clean install and the regular install disc? My other question is, if I buy the full retail version how many machines can I install it on and will they go into non genuine mode after the product key is used once?
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Sep 12, 2011
i have a new work laptop with xp sp3 on it. I want to install w7 64 bit as a dual boot, but only have 1 physical drive. i cannot remove my current installation as it is pre-build from work, but can partition the drive etc. However on trying to install w7 64 bit I get a message saying cannot install windows 7 on efi drive with mbr, not gpt. Can I do what I want without screwing up my xp installation?
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Feb 4, 2011
dual booting windows 7 home premium x64 with linux fedora 14 on dual independantly dedicated drives. i am a college student with moderate computer (windows) knowledge but am doing software development and would like to play around with some linux for a class. i have no prior experience with linux and have minimal knowledge of operation. i am currently running windows 7 and would like to keep it as my primary os. i do not wish to share media files across drives or os's, windows does that just fine as is and i dont want to get into a third drive. my current drive is a 1tb wd black caviar hdd. it is also currently 2/3rds full and the desktop is about 6 months old so i would rather not partition the drive for a dual boot. i would think that there are some other advantages for the os's operating independantly off their own drives other than if one hdd dies i should still have the other with its os still ok. i have read some topics about RAID configs with dual boot setups with dual drives like this but am not very familiar with RAID. is there a RAID config that would be beneficial in this situation? i currently do not have a RAID card. my tower internals are not very accessible and i dont like the idea of disconnecting drives depending on which os i want to operate.
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Nov 12, 2009
As currently configured, XP is on drive C:, Win 7 was added to drive E:, and the system is currently run as a dual boot. Attempting to boot without the XP drive present will yield a "NTLDR is missing" error very early in the boot process.
I have already tried the following:
(1) I moved the hidden Windows Boot Manager files (bootmgr as well as the associated Boot folder) from the XP drive root to the Win 7 drive root.
(2) After physically removing the XP drive, I rebooted to the Win 7 installation DVD, and used the "Repair Your Computer" option to pull up the "Recovery Tools". Then, using the command prompt utility, ...
(3) I attempted to write a new boot sector to the Windows 7 disk using the command: Bootrec /fixboot, - that yields an error though. The Bootrec /fixmbr claimed success, but ultimately did not make Win 7 drive bootable.
I had to reconnect drive C: just to boot into Win 7 again to write this. I do have files backed up, but to format and reinstall files would take many hours beyond just the time to transfer 400 GB of data, since I have dozens of purchased applications that need to be freshly reinstalled and validated as well. Basically I want my E: drive now to be my boot drive while the C: drive is reformatted and used for general storage.
Any idea how to make my Win 7 drive bootable? Do I need a partition program that is more adept at creating a viable boot sector, or is that even the problem?
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Jan 2, 2010
I have Win XP 32 bit on my old drive. I buy Win 7 full retail and a new HD. I set bios to boot from cd etc. Win 7 starts up. It shows the 2 drives, so I select new drive...no problems. It starts install. I leave it to do its stuff.When I come back its up and all ok.I dint get any option to boot from XP. The drive was listed as "SYSTEM" but not old Windows or anything.
Also ASUS chipset drivers dont work and they were listed as 7 drivers.I tried Vista drivers but it normally shuts down and restarts. Nothing.
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Jan 27, 2011
I want to fully format my hard disk and make new partitions out of it, then, install windows 7 on one partition and windows XP on the other. Since i will have zero access to internet whilst doing so, can you link me to a page which can fully explain to me what i have to do?I already have Win 7 on C, but i cant format, shrink or extend C or D.
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Oct 14, 2009
I installed Windows 7 on a partitioned harddrive with vista on the other half. After the installation i have my boot menu with:Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows vista still works but when i try and load windows 7 i get a boot error message
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Oct 30, 2009
I have XP (x86) installed on one partition.
Last night I installed Windows 7 (x64) on a separate partition.
Anytime I had tried this in the past, using Vista, it always detected the Windows XP partition, and gave me a boot menu with "Earlier Version of Windows" option to boot to.
This is not so with Windows 7.
How can I get the boot menu to show both options, to boot to XP or to Windows 7?
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Aug 8, 2012
I have dual boot with Xp and windows 7.when i log into my Xp all the restore points being deleted from windows 7.when i check the disk management information in 7 it shows windows 7 create a logical drive with my Xp primary drive.even i am hide the drive from both windows means Xp drive from windows 7 and vice verse.So i like to unmount or remove the drive partition of windows 7 from Xp and Xp primary from windows 7.So that they dont affect each others system files with being deleted the partitions.
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Sep 24, 2009
I was having win 7 RTM and i tried to installl OSx86 in second hard disk
after few failure i successfully installed OSx86 in my secondary had disk now the problem is that i cant boot win 7
i changed boot order i tried windows 7 disk repair
but both failed
im getting some Boot mldr missing...
Actually even OSx86 is not booting i get OSx86 boot screen with two hard disk to select if i select windows disk it still says the same Boot mldr missing.
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Aug 27, 2009
I setup an XP/Windows 7 dual boot on two drives. Currently C: Windows 7, D:XP
Love Windows 7 and now I'm ready to convert to single boot Windows 7.
I'm not real savy re. bcdedit so will need very detailed instructions
I did find the command line in Windows 7 by going through accessories but I'm scared to go further without help.
Eventually I want to clean up the D:xp and use it for storage etc.
I'm guessing this procedure may have already be written up but I can't seem to find it.
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Mar 11, 2009
How to Change the OS Name in Windows Boot Manager ?
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Feb 23, 2012
I recently added a hard drive to my computer (SSD), and installed Windows 7 x64 onto it. The result being a dual boot system, which by default boots to the SSD, and optionally (by Windows Boot Menu), can be booted to the original drive (standard mechanical drive).
Initial setup went fine, however I decided to customize the Windows Boot Menu, so that logical names could be associated with each operating system instance. To do this I used EasyBCD and I altered the names in the Windows Boot Menu from: Quote:
Windows 7
Windows 7
to... Quote:
Windows 7 - SSD
Windows 7 - Standard Drive
Shortly after the modification I noticed that I was no longer able to boot into the original OS. Instead I was being presented with a "Repair Windows" option. Figuring that my EasyBCD "tampering" may have had something to do with the issue I decided to change the names back to "Windows 7" in the Windows Boot Menu. However doing so had no positive impact on boot up of the original OS.
After booting again into the original OS I accepted the "Repair Windows" option, and then left the computer over night to do it's "thing". After completion of the "Repair" the situation has deteriorated -
* Windows doesn't load (the same as before)
* Windows doesn't present a "Repair Windows" option (it did before)
* The computer reboots a short period after the "Starting Windows" screen is presented
As a side note the drive is in good health, and all data on it can be read from within Windows 7 when I boot to the SSD OS.
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Aug 6, 2012
I have installed a year before UBUNTU on my pc with dual boot (i.e. use either window 7 or ubuntu).the NTFS partition that contains the UBUNTU was corrupted and i wanted to take the dual boot from my PC. I used the instructions from the web site: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-...t-environment/but the disk management tool would not let me delete the NTFS partition.Could any one help me delete the NTFS partition and use just windows 7 as the only boot. step by step help would be great.
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Feb 17, 2009
I got windows 7 running fine for a while now and ever since my XP did not boot anymore.I was not worried to much about it since i did not need it at the time.But now i really REALY need it,See i got all my Cubase projects in there and my cubase plug-ins al setup in XP and i need to get to the projects?At first it did not do anything and using easyBCD did not help either.I cpoied ntldr and detect to the root of C: wich contains my XP and now it shows the bootscreen but hangs on a black screen.The thing is right before the bootscreen shows i see the text" invalid boot.ini" flashing by very quick.I am able to enter that winXP install in safe mode and i tried safe/vga mode as well wich works but thats all.
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Nov 9, 2012
I have a laptop I bought a year ago on which a created a dual boot Win 7 (32bit)/Win XP SP3 install, each on a separate partition. It was my first Win 7/XP dual boot install, and my first personal system that I allowed to have a Win 7 install on it at all, so although I have plenty of experience working on pretty much every previous version of Windows, I have very little experience with Win 7 and dual boot configs.
Today about 2 hours ago my audio spontaneously stopped worked for no good reason, so after shutting down each program to see if that cured it (which it didn't), I restarted the system. Out of the blue, for the first time I've ever experienced it, I received the msg "MBR Error 1" - Press any key to boot from floppy. I don't have a floppy of course on my laptop, and if I press any key I simply get the same msg. I turned the system off for a few minutes to make sure it was a good cold boot, but every time I still get the same msg. I tried switching the BIOS setting from IDE to AHCI (IDE is required for XP to boot, AHCI required for Win 7), but I still get the same error msg before I'm even prompted with the OS boot selection, so it made no difference of course.
I looked up this issue and found various suggestions, but none of the ones I found took into consideration a dual boot config., they were all Win 7 specific solutions. I don't what to try and repair the MBR only to have it screw up my dual boot config and be unable to access XP, which is what I use almost exclusively, nor do i want to lose access to Win 7 if at all possible.
I had a backup HD of my complete system that I saved several months ago when I upgraded my HD, and I periodically refresh the most important files on it, so I'm currently running on the laptop in question using my old HD, and it's working just fine. Worst case I can just clone my old HD to my newer HD that's screwed up, but I'll still lose a lot of changes I've made to the OS since I upgraded the HD and have to reinstall and config a number of programs, so that's my last option. I'll also have to back up about 200GB of data from the newer HD which is much larger than my old HD, and then restore it back after the clone, something that will take a lot of time and unncessary effort if I can just fix the MBR.
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