Triple Boot XP, Vista, And Win7
May 10, 2009
I have four SATA II drives, four gig memory, etc, in my machine that have Windows XP and Vista dual-booting. Both OS's are installed on the same physical drives; about 150 gig each partition.
I've freed up one of the drives, changed the BIOS to boot from the DVD, and installed Windows 7, 64-bit. The installation completed without a hitch and the setup detected everything, sans the Viewsonic monitor. Windows did have a driver for the monitor, but I used the one for Vista 64-bit from Viewsonic and we are good.
After rebooting Windows 7, I expected to have couple of boot option but there's none. No XP and/or Vista, just Windows 7. I've tried to locate the bootmanager in Windows 7, but I couldn't find it and that worried me. There was no backup made since it should've picked up the other OS's.
I didn't touch any of the bootsectors, nor did Windows 7; the latter one did make the drive a primary disk and installed the boot record there. After modifying the BIOS, making the the XP/Vista drive the first drive to be booted, XP and Vista came back, but Windows 7 disappeared. I can boot either OS's by changing the order the drives are booted by the BIOS, but I rather have the choice for XP/Vista/7 in the boot menu.
I am not sure why Windows 7 didn't pick up on the other OS's; the reason could be the SATA drives, if I'd have to guess. Since "disk 1" was set as the first drive to boot by the BIOS, Windows 7 did not check other drives and declared itself the only OS.
The question is, how do I add Windows 7 to the Vista's boot menu, or alternatively, how do I add XP/Vista to 7's boot menu?
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Oct 25, 2009
I installed Win 7 on a triple boot with Vista and Linux and meant to keep Linux and Win 7, expecting Vista to be overwritten. Unforeseen Vista remained installed.
Using a special boot cdrom, I get entries for all 3 OS, but Vista boots into my Lenovo laptop's rescue software and proposes to "rescue" the Vista and I can't get passed that. I expect it means deleting the other OS?
I imagine I could uninstall Vista in some way placed in the folder Windows_Old or maybe being able to boot it, as I would be able to get some registration keys off software as well as using some software that doesn't work on Windows 7. How can I now uninstall Vista safely?
I expect a partition manager like in Linux could recover the partitions for new data.
Does anyone have some comments on this?
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Jul 11, 2010
i'm try to make my laptop triple boot.i've installed windows 7 and xp, now i created a partition for vista but it became LOGICAL instead of PRIMARY so when i enter the vista setup i try to install it to the LOGICAL drive but of course it won't install.so i go to windows 7 and try to install it from the OS but it says that i don't have enough storage in my temp folder, i mean common..?!it probably goes by default to the first volume wich is SYSTEM PRESERVED and has only 100MB.
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Aug 17, 2009
I've been going at this all day searching, trial and error, and it's all very frustrating at this point.
I use a custom bootloader for my vista 64 to trick it to be activated (not sure your policy on discussing this). But now I wanted to try Windows 7 since it has been released in the RC status (because I had aquaintances try 7000 beta, and no one liked it). So I want to have it on my machine to tinker with and test it out.
I ended up taking my 300GB drive, and removing about 60GB from it, creating a logical partition, formatting it, then booted into the Windows 7 dvd I have. (win 7 - 7600)
Firstly, it takes about a couple minutes just to load the files. Then once it finally gets to the splash* screen and the cursor appears.....it takes about 5-10minutes for the "install" window to appear which seems VERY odd since my machine is VERY fast.
It takes quite a bit of time to accomplish installing from loading to finished (30minutes maybe), and by then it overwrites my bootloader for my VISTA installation (so its not activated anymore), and it shows WIN 7, and below that Vista 64. Read more at the forum...
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Jul 29, 2009
I started out with Vista 32 Ultimate installed on my machine. I created a second partition on that system drive , and left my data drive alone and installed Win 7 64 Ultimate RC on the new partition. The system boots to win7 with no boot menu to pick vista from, any ideas?
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Jun 20, 2009
I have a HP desktop that came with Vista, I partitioned my C drive (which already had a small partition from HP for the recovery stuff labeled D and made a "S" drive for the Windows 7 install.
I installed the copy of Windows 7 i made from the official ISO from MS and it works ok as long as the DVD is still in the drive...it asks to press any key to boot from cd or DVD, I leave it alone then my option screen comes up and I can pick from either vista or Windows 7 just fine. If the DVD is NOT in the drive then the options I have are either vista or "Windows Setup" and in that case I get
File: $WINDOWS..~BTWindowsSystem32winload.exe
Status: 0xc000000f
selected entry couuld not be loaded cuz missing or corrupt
I tried to do the automatic reapair in the Windows 7 installer and sometimes it would come up as finding an error and says it fixed but most of the time it says there is nothing wrong.
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Oct 3, 2009
I had to return to xp mce till I get my W7 ultimate signature edition in a few days and am wondering what is that program for changing your boot screen ?
I knwo it was a freeware and it was compatible with vista xp and w7 so I am gonna use it on my xp systems and once i return to w7 on my main system ..
Sorry havent made any posts in a while I got burried in school and starting my own lan center / custyom build computer shop so I havent had time to do my normal posting and catching up..
IU am however back I got my collage scedual and work scedual to allow me 2 horus of messing around in between plus time for pro gamming WOOT MLGPRO FTW!!!!!
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Jun 3, 2009
I just installed windows 7 ultimate on my pc.
i already had xp32 and vista 64 business on a dual boot on the same HDD before installing windows 7.
during windows 7 install, I selected the xp32 partition, formatted it and installed windows 7 over the top as I no longer wanted xp32.
When the windows 7 install was complete I expected to see a dual boot screen with
option 1. windows 7
and option 2. vista64
unfortunatelty i have no dual boot options, the pc now just goes straight into windows 7. It doesnt sem to know that vista is there.
i would appreciate assistance in getting a dual boot set up with vista64 and windows 7
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Aug 7, 2009
I have my current system with Vista x64 on the C drive dual-booting with Windows 7 RC installed on the F drive.
Is there a way to install the Windows 7 RTM to my C drive without destroying my Win 7 RC version? I want to leave it there until I have everything installed and working. Then I can format the F drive and start clean.
Or would it be better to just add the new Dual-boot to C drive and then remove the old Vista?
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Aug 19, 2009
I have 3 hdd's.
1 x 160GB (SATA)
- Partition: ~149GB - Win Vista64
1 x 300GB (SATA)
- Partition: ~220GB - MISC
- Partition: ~58.5GB - Windows 7 64
1x 1TB (SATA)
- Partition: ~931GB - Games
I ended up taking my 300GB drive, created a logical partition, then booted into the Windows 7 dvd I have. (win 7 - 7100?, straight off ms)
Firstly, it takes about a couple minutes just to load the files. Then once it finally gets to the splash* screen and the cursor appears.....it takes about 5-10minutes for the "install" window to appear which seems VERY odd since my machine is VERY fast. It takes quite a bit of time to accomplish installing from loading to finished (40minutes maybe)...
After everything installs when I go to choose the Windows 7 option on the boot menu, I get this black SOD
Windowssystem32winloader.exe error 0xc000000D
Something about the file being missing or corrupt.
I took my Windows 7 disk, and entered command prompt through recovery tools (which takes at least 5 minutes due to loading time to get to each time).
I ran DISKPART, then did LIST VOL, so it would tell me the partitions and letters.
Then I took another window, and entered bcdedit. The letters matched up with the partition letters and the file DOES exist.
I've tried 3 different sources on 3 different DVD's to see if perhaps I had a bad image (1 x microsoft/2 x torrent), but that's not the case.
I've tried setting the path's again through bcdedit to make sure there was no data corruption in the settings, and that was not successful either...
So when I need to figure is out why it tells me the file "winloader.exe" is missing or corrupt, when in fact it is pointing to the right harddrive, on the right partition, on the right location.
Yes, they all show up on the BIOS post, yes it recognizes the 300GB drive in the setup without extra drivers. The only hdd it needs extra drivers for to see is my 1TB, but I'm not using that for the Windows 7 installation.
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Nov 3, 2009
I have just discovered that I cannot do an Upgrade from Vista HP to Win 7 Pro and that I will have to do a Custom or clean install. That will be OK and doesn't cause any problems.
I have XP on one HDD and Vista on another with dual boot. However I want to replace Vista HP with Win 7 Pro 32 bit, ( I intend to go 64 bit later on).
What I would like to know is, will Win 7 replace Vista on the boot sequence (MBR?), so that on booting the PC I have the option of selecting either XP or Win 7, or will I be presented with a boot menu of XP, Vista and Windows 7, albeit that Vista is no longer installed? If the latter, will this cause any problems in selecting the OS that I want to launch i.e the MBR looking for a now non existing Vista and would there be a way to remove reference to Vista?
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Jun 29, 2009
FIX (with SavePart, tried other partition utilities and editing MountedDevices to no avail)
Hope this helps someone else with Wrong Drive Letter Problems
Installed Windows 7 RC and all was well with XP Dual Boot.
After some experimenting(BSD,LINUX,etc), Windows 7 would not boot, so popped in the DVD and let Windows 7 repair the boot.
Windows 7 now booted, but when booting XP on E: , it was now assigned the wrong Drive letter D: and would boot to just before the Logon Prompt and hang(same in safe mode.)
After much research and trial (including editing the HKLM/SYSTEM/MountedDevices hive of the XP install from within Windows 7 to change the drive letter) this was the fix.
This particular XP boots from Partition/Drive E: in Windows.0 directory (yeah, i know, been this way for years)
FIX: (FREE!)
downloaded SavePart "AKA Partition Saving " Partition Saving
Boot from a FreeDOS Floppy or USB stick and run SavePart.exe
within SavePart (navigate with TAB key, Selected items turn BLACK)
Choose:
Update Windows 2000/XP/Vista Registry
then
Choose element where boot configuration are stored (Disk number 0, in this case)
then
Choose element where boot configuration DATA are stored (Partition) where the XP(2000 or Vista) is located
then
Select the Directory where the XP (2000 or Vista) is located (Windows.0 on D Drive, in this case)
You then have access/ability to the change Drive Letters for that particular Windows Installation:
In this case:
Drive D (which needed to be E) and Drive E(which needed to be D)
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Oct 20, 2009
I have C Drive 250gb - Vista HP SP2 and, PARTIONED, also a W Drive 250gb - Windows 7 RC7100
Boot Manager list Windows 7 first, which is what I wanted and set via msconfig.
I think I am going to trash my Vista and install a clean Windows 7 on C drive.
I am thinking to do this:
1. From within Windows 7, go to msconfig and reset boot sequence to C Drive
2. Reboot. From within Vista, go to Disk Management and delete the W partition (and therefore Windows 7) and then to resize my C drive to full amount of C/W size (500GB)
3. From within Vista, load in Windows 7 DVD, go to My computer and set off setup.exe & do a clean install...or do I have to change boot sequence thru bios first and reboot to the DVD drive to do this?
I have all discs/drivers for my other applications and they are all working fine on my present Windows 7 drive
Or would I simply do an in-place upgrade?
I know I have to either purchase a new copy or an upgrade copy of Windows 7.
Is my thought process above correct?
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Nov 4, 2009
Can i make a triple boot XP/Vista/7 on a Virtual Machine ?
(Split up into 30GB partitions each)
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Jun 26, 2012
Let me get right to the point (details to follow). I want to be able to triple boot Windows 7, Mac OS X and Ubuntu and I don't know how or if it is even possible. For the past few weeks I have been looking for a guide on how to triple boot using Windows 7, OS X and Ubuntu. However, I have not been able to find a guide that pertains to my situation; my situation is that I have Windows 7 already installed which I am currently using and now I want to install and use OS X and Ubuntu in a triple boot configuration. The guides that I have seen so far have OS X as the starting operating system and go on to show how to install Windows 7 then Ubuntu, or the guides force me to repartition the drive with my Windows 7 installation and start all over, or the guides only show me how to install all three operating systems on a single drive with three partitions. Ideally here is what I would like...1. Keep my original Windows 7 installation intact. I have quite a few programs installed and would very much enjoy not having to set up everything again.2. Have each operating system (Windows 7, Mac OS X, and Ubuntu) on their own hard drive. Or at the very least have OS X and Ubuntu on a single drive, each with their own partition3. Be able to triple boot and select the operating system I wish to use.
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Mar 22, 2012
Recently I had a drive failure and I need to have an extra Windows 7 x32. The remaining drive a WD 320gb drive has a dual-boot Windows 7 and XP. How can I triple boot in just one hard drive?
On that particular system I am using Neosmart's iReboot/EasyBCD so when I want to boot to either of the former arrangment I can do that easily and not be bothered by the boot selection.
Now I am using ATI Home 2011 and I was planning to make recover an image from the drive that failed to a 3rd partition on the WD320gb drive. I really need to get this one going in the meantime I do not have the money to buy a new one.
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Aug 7, 2009
I ordered the 50$ Windows 7 upgrade disk.
I realize that Windows 7 will need vista or XP already installed for the upgrade version of Windows 7.
But if I want to upgrade my Vista 32-bit to Windows 7 64-bit,
Will I be able to do it with this upgrade disk?
after all I will need a fresh install (because 32 to 64) and this is the upgrade version.
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Oct 6, 2009
I have an unused Vista upgrade that came with my purchase of a Dell XPS laptop running XP MCE 2005. Rather than having to backup files and then reinstall apps for a clean install of 7, would it make sense to run the Vista upgrade, deal with the Vista driver issues then, and be able to do an upgrade to 7?
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Mar 16, 2009
I plan to upgrade from Windows Vista Home Premium x86 to Windows Seven Home Premium x64 when it is released. However, I only want to pay for an upgrade license, NOT a full price version.
My current version of Vista Home Premium is itself an upgrade from the original OEM copy of XP that came on my PC.
There are two ways as far as I can see:
i) Vista Home Premium x86 > Vista Home Premium x64 > Windows 7 Home Premium x64 (first stage done using an alternate media which I have just paid GBP 7 to be delivered shortly.
ii) Vista Home Premium x86 > Windows 7 Home Premium x86 > Windows 7 Home Premium x64 (first stage using an x86 retail upgrade, second stage using alternate media obtained after buying the retail x86 package).
However, looking at the following article:
Installation choices for 64-bit consumer versions of Windows Vista
it reveals that the steps are likely to be even more complex. For example, my option i) becomes:Uninstall Vista altogether Reinstall my original Dell x86 copy of XP Home Edition. Use the Vista alternative media to do an upgrade installation of Vista Home Premium x64. Then do an upgrade installation of Windows x64 on top of that. Extremely messy, and almost certain to end in tears!
It would be nice if MS took the opportunity to provide a straightforward upgrade path from x86 to x64 this time around; until we know the upgrade options no one knows for sure I guess. However, does anyone know or suspect an easier method?
For example, with my x86 copy of Vista Home Premium in situ, could I install a clean copy of Vista Home Premium x64 on another partition by booting from the DVD, and then just do an upgrade install of Windows 7 x64 when it become available?
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Nov 2, 2009
I just got Windows 7 Ultimate for my desktop, and I need to set up a network via Ethernet cable & ASUS 8 port Ethernet Hub with 2 other Vista laptops.
OK, all of the computers are connected to the Hub.Now I have to run a network wizard or something, and I want to do it from Windows 7(desktop).
What are the steps that I need to follow ? Help anyone ?
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Feb 10, 2010
how do you upgrade from vista to windows 7? I have a 32 bit operating system.
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Feb 11, 2010
I've been told that it is possible to maintain all ones applications and settings when upgrading from XP to windows 7, if you first upgrade XP to Vista and then the Vista to Windows 7. Can anyone verify that? It would be more time consuming but given the amount of apps I have installed and need, it is the best choice in my view. I have an old Vista disc somewhere so there is no extra expense.
Anyone done this before? or heard of it working?
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May 8, 2009
I'm thinking of switching from Vista to Windows 7, is windows 7 running stable enough that I won't be running into many problems(like driver problems?). What drivers can I use for W7?the same ones as for vista? What's the best way to prerpare for a clean windows 7 installation?
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Oct 30, 2009
i currently have windows vista with windows mail and im looking to do a clean install to windows 7,
im planning to use windows live mail, how should i backup my emails in windows mail to restore them onto windows live mail?
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Jul 2, 2009
Lenovo 3000 N100 laptop with Vista on it had all sorts of issues. I cleaned them all up, but couldn't stop it from hanging. Seemingly random. Complete and permanent freeze requiring 10 seconds on the power button to restart.
Eventually decided to move to Win 7 RC. Formatted hard disk completely (with BootIt NG) before installing. Still having the same problem.
Memtest86 reports no issues (after 47 hours).
Chkdsk no errors.
sfc.exe no errors.
Hitachi dtf no errors (although it's a Toshiba drive).
All the regular spyware, adware, malware programs - no issues.
Interestingly, the problem doesn't seem to occur in Safe mode or when performing chkdsk, installing Windows, or anything else outside the main windows environment. This leads me to believe it's not hardware, but some system/software element common to both Vista and Windows 7?
I'm using a Lenovo 3000 N100. 1.73GHz, 1gig ram, 32 bit Win 7, version 6.1, build 7100.
Also, I'm currently trying to run a Windows Update from within Safe Mode With Networking, but it's not working. Should it be?
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Aug 7, 2009
I tried to upgrade from Vista to windows 7 rtm,
everything was OK but when it start to open desktop for a first time, taskbar start to crash and reapear, it is like constantly refreshing, and it is impossible to open any program cause it shuts down immedieatly,
and taskbar and desktop continue to "refresh".
that is happening also in safe mode, only much slower.
windows doesnt repport any error, and also repair option said it does not detect any problem... ?
does anybody have similar experience, and how to solve it?
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Nov 4, 2009
And tips on how to do that, and is it even possible? I wanna get Windows 7 on my girlfriends computer, and they are not yet selling family licenses in my country (!!), so I was hoping I could upgrade her Win Vista to Windows 7 without having to do a clean format.
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Dec 4, 2009
i have a Sony Vaio VGN-CS325J that comes with Windows Vista Home Premium x64,now i am going to install windows seven x64 on my laptop but i don't want to lose my vista as a matter of fact i want to have dual boot win vista & seven.
is it possible?
(my Vista is installed at Drive C and i have an empty Drive that is F with NTFS file system and 50GB space).
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Apr 25, 2009
Is there a program or a way that I can backup my Windows Vista 32bit Mail msgs and account settings and my and my FireFox bookmarks , tabs and all embedded site passwords and restore them to a clean install of Windows 7 64bit ?
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Oct 5, 2009
The problem I have is that none of my computers can access either of the Windows 7 computers. The Windows 7 computers can access the Vista and WinXP computers, but not the 2nd Windows 7 computer (asks for a user and password).
When trying to access the Windows 7 computers all ask for a user and password, I had set the Windows 7 computer to be open access for networking, but this does not seem to of happened (I've done something wrong).
I had installed Link Layer Topology Discovery (LLTD) Responder on my XP machine as advised but I got an error message saying I had a newer update so this was not installed.
I am now at a total loss as to where to go now, I have done heaps of google searches and these tried to help but still did not slove my problem. (I'm not computer dumb, so do understand 90% of what is required).
I have the following setup.
2x Windows 7 RC systems, hardwired.
2x WinXP-Pro systems, hardwired
1x WinXP-Pro Laptop, wireless
1x Vista Laptop, wireless.
No home server installed.
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Dec 10, 2009
I did a clean install of Vista but I don't have my product keycode. I want to go ahead and upgrade to Windows 7. Is it possible to upgrade to Windows 7 without that Vista keycode and just use the new Win 7 keycode?
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