Vista / 7 Dual Boot Separate HDDs
Nov 3, 2009
I've done some searching for this and found some similar issues but nothing fits exactly what I'm trying to do. I have been running Vista Ult. 64 bit for a little over a year and have loved it. It solved all the problems I had with XP Pro 32 bit on my hardware. I bought 7 Pro 64 bit through www.theultimatesteal.com since I'm taking some night classes. I forgot I couldn't upgrade from Ult.
to Pro so I had to do a clean install, which I did, on a separate drive. I have five drives in my system, C, D, and E are all 1TB while F and G are 1.5TB. C is where Vista is installed and G is where 7 is located. I'll be going back and forth between the OS's until I get everything the way I want it.
At that point I want to remove Vista and have 7 be the only OS. But I do not want to migrate the install onto the 1TB C: drive, I want to keep it on the 1.5TB drive but have it recognized as the C: drive. The install was done from within Vista from the download since my physical media has not yet arrived. So even when I boot into 7, it is seen as being installed on the G: drive; it did not make itself the C: drive.
So I'll need to get rid of Vista, get 7 to see itself as being the C: drive, get rid of the boot menu, and swap the drives and cables around to put my 7 install at the head of the HDD pack. I've already done a full system backup of my Vista install with Acronis TIH 2010. How do I need to go about this? On another note; why did MS only offer home and pro through ultimate steal? They offered Vista Ultimate. I mean, it is called ULTIMATE steal, not Pro steal afterall, and it would have made the upgrade process that much easier.
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Mar 12, 2012
I would like to remove Vista from my dual boot setup. Here is how I got to where I am now.
I had Vista installed on my PC hard drive (was C. Later, I decided to install Windows 7 HP on a new and seperate HDD. I unplugged the Vista HDD and added the new HDD and installed Windows 7 as if from scratch (I was worried that the install would mess up all my files on Vista). After the Windows 7 was up and running, I then reconnected Vista redesignated it as drive E: and after some searching on how to, I created the dual boot using my Windows 7 disk so I'm assuming the boot file in on drive C: along with Windows 7.
I now want delete the dual boot and Vista so I can use the drive as a backup drive or possibly Win8. I have found several methods to do this but none that really have my specific situation.
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Aug 4, 2012
I want to combine my 2 desktops into one, since I never use both together and the older one is very dated by now (think Time/tiny computers old). My current machine is an Asus P5Q-E with a C2D and has one HDD on a SATA connection running windows 7 64bit. The old computer is a single core Athlon 2700+ thing with a pair of hard drives on a single IDE ribbon.What I want to do is put the hard drives from the old machine into the newer and be able to choose between Windows XP already installed on the old master IDE hard drive and Windows 7 on the newer SATA drive (I've only kept the old computer to run XP for compatibility), all the while keeping the old slave IDE drive as a slave.
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Aug 28, 2012
I have got two separate hard drives one running Windows 7 one running xp. I need to be able to chose which os to run but currently I can only do so by pressing F12. I have tried EasyBCD but it wont work - does anyone know how I can do this?
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Dec 28, 2012
I'm new around here so, if you've seen this before, please bear with me.I have a computer with 3 hard disks in it as follows.Patriot Pyro 120 GB on Windows 7 Ultimate x64 (installed first).WD Velociraptor 450 GB on Windows 8 Pro x64 (installed second).Samsung something 2 TB storage (forget about this one).The 2 operating systems are completely independent and functioning properly; obviously, the SSD (Pyro) is set to boot first in the bios and, at start-up, there's no boot manager asking me which OS I intend to use. Basically, every time I want to logon on my Velociraptor with Windows 8 I have to press F8 at start-up and choose from the given list of bootable HDDs.Now, I've tried EasyBCD without luck and I've read somewhere that, apparently, the Windows 7 boot manager can't boot a Windows 8 partition so, my question is, is there a way to add my Windows 8 Velociraptor to the boot manager of the first booting HDD, i.e the SSD with Windows 7?
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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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Dec 6, 2009
Is there an easy way to dual boot on separate drives, i have installed windows 7 on 1 drive & vista on another. This was done independenly on the same machine as to say put vista on last year the got another hard drive took the vista drive out put new hard drive in & installed windows 7.I connected both. they see each other.I have read lots about reinstall one OS but nothing on if its already installed. IS THERE AWAY?
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Mar 4, 2012
I currently have Windows 7 installed on two separate drives in my box. I can only set (select) boot sequence in the BIOS. If I recall correctly, way back when a boot selection menu would appear when I think I was running Windows 7 (when it first came out) alongside XP but that screen no longer appears with my current setup. Is there a way to get that screen back, or an alternate way to select the OS of choice without the hassle?
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Sep 22, 2012
I have read that using a computer specifically for financial transactions with known and trusted entities (such as a bank) is a good way to reduce (though not eliminate) the risk of your accounts being hacked by reducing the likelihood of inadvertently installing a malware, spyware, or virus by reducing internet sites visited. Assuming this is correct, I was wondering about dual booting one computer with two physical hard drives (each with its own OS) versus one hard drive with two partitions. I figure the former would be "more secure" since one drive would be isolated from any unwanted programs. However, since they shared a few things (motherboard and such), is this set up as "secure" as having two computers? If so, how does one go about setting up a dual boot with two separate hard drives of the same operating system using one computer?
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Oct 16, 2009
I have Windows 7 RC1, and am trying to install XP on a separate drive but am getting the following error:
"Setup could not load the keyboard layout file KBDUS.DLL.
Setup cannot continue. Power down or reboot your computer now."
I restart and am able to go back to Windows 7...Any ideas on how to get around this??
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Mar 3, 2011
I have separate ide drives one is installed with XP Pro and the other with windows 7. I want to have the choice of either os when the pc boots i.e. choose the drive to boot the pc.
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Dec 13, 2010
I have Window XP installed on Drive C:. My son installed Windows 7 on Drive E:. However, when the computer is booted up, it boots up in Windows 7, without allowing a choice. I suspect this can be corrected in BIOS, but don't want to screw it up.
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Nov 26, 2009
I want to install 7 on a separate hard drive to see how it works & work indepenantly on it's own system. How can I if at all make it so when I am booting up I can toggle in between 7 & xp startups.
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Dec 1, 2009
i have xp home 32 bit as my OS now and i have another hard drive installed and ready to install win 7 64 bit on to. can i do this with xp running or should i disconnect the HD with xp on it, then when i start the computer it won't see any OS and then i could boot from the win7 dvd and do a clean installl and then re=connect the HD with xp on it.
then when i start computer i should get the choice of which one to boot from or is this not the way to do it?? i want the OS's on separate HD's for now as i am sure that not everything that i want to run will work on the 64 bit win7 until i can afford to get all the programs i use to work on win7.
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Jan 6, 2010
I currently have windows 7 ultimate in a Dell Gx270 P4 2.6ghz I know its old. And i want to Install Windows XP in another hard drive i have, but how do i make both hard drives boot, so i can select which one i want to boot.
I'm doing this because XP mode doesn't work in this computer. And i don't want to partition.
Most information i find in google requires partitioning and i don't want that.
If you know how please post it, or post the Links where i can find it.
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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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May 22, 2012
install on my PC desktop a Dual Boot two separate HDD's Windows 7 32Bit on IDE drive & Snow Leopard OSX on SATA drive
My Pc ASUS P5PL2-E
Core 2 Duo E4600 2.4GHz
2MB DDR2 NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS
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Aug 15, 2012
My system dual boots to either Windows 7 or Vista Ultimate, or, at least it is supposed to. Something happened and now the system just boots to Winodows 7 without giving me the choice to boot to either. When I use F6 I find that only Windows 7 is listed in the Operating Systems box.
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Sep 13, 2010
New laptop has Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit. I have two business programs that won't run on a 64bit system. Partitioned the hard drive to install Vista Home Premium 32bit to create a dual boot system solely to run these two programs.Can't get Vista to load. Followed tutorial meticulously. All goes fine until the "Vista will boot for the first time" step. After this first boot, the screen returns to the "completing installation" page. However, the process dies here and the progress bar across the bottom of the screen never moves, even after an hour. Reformatted the partition and started over with same results. Multiple attempts always die after the first boot.
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Sep 13, 2012
I have two drives (C and D) with Vista on one and Win 7 on the other (not sure if they're actual drives or partitions of a single drive, how do I tell?). I am dual booting and never use Vista. Starting to need the disk space and want to delete Vista. Is this difficult in this scenario?
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Apr 5, 2011
I had recently installed windows 7 on my laptop running windows vista. I did not remove the existing windows vista installation, and thus win 7 was installed in a dual boot combination. Now, i want to remove vista from my laptop and use windows 7 only.The problem is that during installation, win 7 was installed on logical drive and windows vista was on the primary drive. Thus, i cannot delete/format the windows vista partition. Also I cannot transfer the boot drive to the partition containing win 7 because the vista partition is the active one.
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Oct 11, 2009
I have dualboot XP SP3 and Vista Ultimate on my system,,and now i want to install Windows 7 over the XP OS. I wish to keep Vista with Windows 7 without reinstalling Vista.
Can I just install Windows 7 over XP , or should i be careful for MBR,or boot....
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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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Sep 13, 2011
1. I have Windows 7 (64 bit) ALREADY installed on a SINGLE hard drive.
2. I have a clean blank other SINGLE hard drive upon which I will install Windows 7 (32-bit).
3. this is TWO individual hard drives, I want an Operating System installed on each individually. (Windows 7 on ONE, Windows 7 on the other)
4. I'd like a boot menu to come up giving me a choice to boot to either the Windows 7 drive OR the Win 7 (32bit) Prof. drive.
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Jun 5, 2012
I admit to being clueless when it comes to dual booting. I already have 7 X64 on my C: drive and a completely blank internal, formatted D: drive. How do I go about installing Windows 8 on drive D: and setting it up to dual boot?
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Jan 25, 2009
I seem to be having a right trauma with this lol. I originally had Vista installed. Then i installed 7 to another HDD and that worked fine. I could choose between the OS. Now, i want to get rid of vista and use 7 solely. Easy i thought. Remove the boot entry and format the partition. Thats where it went horrilby wrong
Upon reboot i got the dreaded BOOTMGR missing file do'h
Anyway long story short i manged to system restore and fixmbr to boot back into 7 (phew)
Now can anyone tell me of a way that i can ditch vista without the headache of this.
ive attached a screen shot of how things are layed out.
Plus can anyone recommend a good imaging program that i could use just in-case my tinkering leads to something i cant repair.
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Nov 13, 2009
I've something going on in my PC with 3 partitions. I have one called C:/ where I have Windows Vista 32-bit (x86) installed, other called S:/ which is empty and the last one is N:/ where I have all my files like images, music, videos, etc... (wisely done so when I need to re-install OS, don't waste time burning all that files on dvd).
Since I got one partition empty (S:/), I decided to give Windows 7 a try. Being a TechNet Plus subscriber, allowed me to get a free copy of Windows 7, which I downloaded and it was saved on C:/ partition.
I know that's stupid and I've been slapping myself because of that but, I went to the downloaded files and hit twice on setup.exe. This means I didn't burned the .iso to a DVD
Seven was sucessfully installed. After playing around with new features and graphics, I installed some Windows Updates and rebooted for the first time (since I installed it).
DAMN, here starts the problem because when booting up, appeared the message on black screen saying "BOOTMGR IS COMPRESSED. HIT CTRL+ALT+DEL TO REBOOT". I totally forgot that my S:/ partition was compressed! And we all know that an OS partition should never be compressed. And then I slapped myself again.
The weird thing is that I couldn't boot in Windows Vista, I hadn't that option. Since I didn't burned Windows 7 to a DVD (*slapping me again*) and I couldn't start in Vista, I had to insert a modified Vista DVD by Toshiba (that came with PC when I bought it), this means that I don't have the repair option, I'm only able to format and re-install OS (and that sucks!), ..., and now it is fixed, that "bootmgr is compressed" message is gone which allowed me to boot to WinVista but where's dual boot??!
First thing I done when I got Vista back was uncompressing S:/ partition. Then I went to msconfig, but there is only one OS in Boot tab - Windows Vista. Once C:/ partition was formatted, and Windows 7 Setup was saved there, I lost those files, I need to download them again. But it is already installed, so there has to be a way to fix this. The problem is that I can't load Windows 7, I don't have that option while booting...
Anyone knows how to fix this?
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Mar 10, 2009
I installed Seven Beta on a dedicated partition in my laptop so that now my hard disk has the following partitions:
C=VistaOS default OEM Operating System
D=Data for documents, pictures, etc.
E=SevenOS Seven Beta
This is when I read my HD from Vista, but from inside Seven the partitions are like that:
C=SevenOS, D=Data, E=VistaOS
My problem is that I CANNOT boot Seven as there is no dual boot menu showing at all during boot time.
I downloaded BCDEdit and added a menu entry for Seven, but that did not work. Again, no dual boot menu showing at all.
So here's my question: how can I set up a dual boot process using the standard tool of Vista, for BCDEdit didn't work and at this very moment I cannot boot Seven?
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Feb 13, 2010
the vista and win7 both has retail version,n it is 30days trial...for which lots of cracks n activators are available.i just want to know,i am trying dual boot,having win7 on C n vista on D partition,n both are activated by crack...but problem is,as long win7 is only OS,its activated but as long i install vista on D n apply crack,vista gets cracked but win7 on C again reverts to 30day trial.as i felt,this might be cause of installing win7 on C n vista on D,i mean oldest OS must be 1st,i dun know i m saying right or wrong.
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Feb 17, 2011
I was wondering if it's possible to run windows 7 along with Vista (64bit). My current computer has 4 drives setup in a RAID configuration and i am wanting to add a new drive which I could run Windows 7 on.
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Jul 27, 2009
Okay so I set up a new partition on my hard drive to boot Windows 7 from, so that I could have both Vista and Windows 7 on my laptop. However, is there a way that Windows 7 can use all of the programs and files I already have in my Vista partition? I can manually go over and start them, but they aren't on my "Programs" list in Windows 7 or the start menu or anything.
is there any way to automatically integrate all my files/programs with both my operating systems? I don't think I should have to download two instances of google chrome or firefox. you know? Any insight would be appreciated. I am new to dual booting. This is is the first OS i have ever installed myself.
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