Dual Boot Two Separate Harddrives, 2 Separate Operating Systems?
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?
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?
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
I have Win7 on NTFS, Ubuntu 10.04 on EXT4 and a third partition for general data with both operating systems can access.The third, shared partition is in FAT32.I have had this set up for years with no problems. Recently, I have found that files that I use, move, etc on my Ubuntu sometimes become corrupted. It is very occasional but is occurring more regularly. I use many files (obviously) but only a fraction of those appear to suffer with the problems. The files are generally left irrecoverably corrupted. It is only files that are stored on the shared FAT partition that become corrupted.All partitions are on the same drive.
To solve the problem, I reboot into Windows and sometimes CHKDSK does it's thing and sorts it all out. However, when CHKDSK does not run, the files are irrecoverably gone. CHKDSK says there are orphaned files, removes and recovers them. Sometimes, a file which has been deleted on on Ubuntu may then cause CHKDSK to scan, find and remove the file (or more particularly, sets all affected sectors to null). I can't quite place the error. Possibly in a ageing and failing Hard Drive? The Laptop is circa 3 years old-ish. I would say that combining file systems is an invitation for trouble - but genuinely I have never had any problems with it before. Sometimes I access Ubuntu when Windows is suspended which I feel may cause Read/Write collisions at OS level but if that is the case, surely it should prevent me accessing the file, rather than permit it and then treat the sectors as bad?
have a 1TB drive partitioned into two 500GB partitions. One has everything on it, the other is a backup of the other partition (I know, a horrible idea, but I had no alternative). I now have a 60GB SSD that I want to use only as a boot drive, and store everything else that I possibly can on the 1TB hard drive.Here's my question: What is the best way to go about setting this up? Do I need to set up RAID? Also, will I be able to selectively restore the OS and anything else necessary onto the SSD from my backup partition?
I have two harddrives, the primary one 584 GB, the secondary one 1.36 TB. When booting, my computer takes about a minute or two to fully load, but if I start to actually use it, virtually all programs will move slowly, consume lots of memory, explorer windows will take forever to load, and even cause my video card to stutter a bit.
A while ago, I unplugged the secondary drive, and found that my computer booted up much faster, and was infinitely more stable soon after loading.
But with two harddrives, in order to maintain stability, I often wait up to 5 - 10 minutes after booting to the desktop, just to be safe.
Is this a normal symptom of having two huge harddrives, both of which are filled with about 500 GB each, and programs like Norton security suite and messenger programs all needing to boot up? Or is this a problem with the second harddrive?
I downloaded EasyBCD 2.1.2, used it to recognize EVERY boot record, deleted the MBR on the old HDD, and rebooted.Now, the system boots straight to the new HDD without prompt from bootloader (which is good) but still requires the presence of the old HDD (I disconnected it, alas...)In the end: I called and told the customer that "I'd be happy to GHOST all her data and slap a fresh Windows 7 install on the new HDD (with a fresh/whole MBR) and then drop all her data back onto it. However, this would require more time; the other option being that she accepts the machine for what it is, perfectly functional minus the dependency on the old HDD."have considered this option, but I found ZERO indication of the old HDD failing, other than "BAD" written on the drive with Sharpie. The customer was happy yesterday and accepted the current state (she didn't want to invest more time/money into it) but today when she picks it up she isn't happy because she was told four months ago that the drive was bad and now I'm saying I don't see an indication of it. Other than pulling the data, installing fresh OS, then dropping data back on; or not installing OS with two drives present in the first place?
Currently running Win7(64-bit) in RAID-0 on 2 WD Caviar Black's.I just purchased a SSD drive.What I want to do is load Win7 on the SSD and use that as my main drive, while also keeping my RAID drives boot-able and in tact as they are now. (Thus, a dual-boot Win7 setup)Will the BIOS allow me to select which drive to boot from upon start-up? My mobo is an ASUS Rampage II Extreme.
I have both Windows 7 Home premium 64 and 32 bit installed on a split partition on my hard drive, but when I try go to boot, both editions just say: Windows 7. How do I change of the operating systems to boot to for the BCD File in Windows 7 so that perhaps one of them says Windows 7 32-bit while the other says Windows 7 64-bit. I know that in XP it is just a text file you have to edit, but in 7 it seems a bit more difficult.
I have 2 hard drives, my PC is booting from Windows 7 (main HDD_1 80GB only). Other HDD_2 having Window Server 2003 (additional 500GB). Following are the list of queries.
1) Can I access Winserver2003 drive from, Window 7?
2) Is it possible to shift some of data from Window7 to Winserver2003 HDD because my main HDD (which is having Window 7) is running short of space.
Have two HDD, one with Windows 7 professional 1TB SATA and other older win XP sp3 160gb SATA. To keep working environment separate, I use one HDD at a time, disconnecting other HDD. It used to work fine except 2 days back, when I had shut down winXP 160GB HDD with hibernation and after detaching that sata cord and reconnecting 1 TB sata cord, there was a major startup failure. With Windows 7 DVD RE, after opening system recovery dialogue box, no options were working including startup repair, system image recovery and system restore. In command prompt, c drive could not be detected. However, after bootrec.exe/fixmbr win 7 started but is a bit slower.How to avoid this problem? Does hibernation of one HDD interferes with startup of other HDD even though no RAM changes take place?. Does frequent change of HDD like this cause hardware/software damage?Specs - Core 2 duo 1.83ghz, 946gzis mb, 2gb RAM, ATI radeon 4850 512mb, VIP 600w smps.
I have Windows 7 Home Premium on my desktop and want to install Windows XP on a WD External Hard Drive. When I insert the CD for installation will I have the option of determining which HD it loads to?
I set up my computer running windows 7 with two users. I am one user and my wife is the other user. I have Windows Live Mail" on mine and I don't seem to be able to get Windows Live Mail on her account. What's the deal here? If I can't put Windows live Mail on both accounts, is there another mail program that I can put on hers?
I have included a screen shot of my laptop drive. The C drive is nearly full but I have plenty of space on D . However when I shrink D the available space is after D. How can I extend C given this?
I searched and found many posts about multi-monitor taskbars, but none that address what I am trying to do.
Left Monitor: Quicklaunch bar Middle Monitor: Start button and application taskbar Right Monitor: Systray
Is there any 3rd party app that will do that?
I know I can easily extend the whole taskbar across all monitors, but that doesn't do what I want. Ultimately 3 separate completely modular taskbars (where you drag different components to them) would be nice.