Dual Boot Win7 / Win 8 - Drive Letter Dynamically Changing
Apr 16, 2013
I have an SSD drive with 2 partitions on it. 1st partition has Win 7 on it as drive letter C. 2nd Partition has Win 8 on it as Drive letter W. At 1 point in time if I booted to Win 8 the drive letter would dynamically change from drive letter W to Drive letter C and make Win 7 drive letter W. The revers was true if I booted to Win 7. Something has changed somewhere, where this dynamic drive letter changing is no longer working. When I boot to Win 8 the drive letter remains to be drive letter W & Win 7 is still drive C. This is causing problems when I'm booted to Win 8 with regard to installing & using apps while in Win 8 since the C drive is really the Win 7 system drive.
How can I fix this to get back the dynamic flip flopping of drive C? I confess to being somewhat ignorant when dealing with this particular area of things.
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Feb 25, 2013
i have one 750GB hard disk with 8 partition. i installed windows 7 in first partition and windows 8 in second partition. i want to hide windows 8 drive when i boot in windows 7 and hide windows 7 drive when i boot in windows 8. with NeoGrub tools in EasyBCD can do this,
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Jun 27, 2014
1st partition is Win7 SysPrep and the 2nd partition is Windows 8.1 Sysprep. I install Win7 and press Ctrl-Shift-F3 to form SysPrep, same as Windows 8.1 in 2nd partition. I made this becuase I've 25 Dell new Windows 8.1 Computer which are UEFI. I want to clone it to the other 24 Dell computers.
CASE 1 : 2 different partitions with 2 different Windows :
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If I install both Windows like above, when Sysprep Generalize Win7, it works fine. But if I SysPrep Generalize Windows 8.1, it's fine also, but never can boot again back to Win7. The start boot option is like this :
Windows 7
Windows 8.1
If I choose to boot Windows 8.1, it's fine. If I choose to boot Windows 7, it ever boot to Windows 8.1. It means nomatter I choose to boot which Windows, it all goes to Windows 8.1 ?
CASE 2 : 1 partition for Win7 + Win81.VHD :
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I install Win7 (C and press Ctrl-Shift-F3 to form SysPrep.
I create a Win81.VHD in Drive D: , imagex Windows 8.1 install.wim in it. Also press Ctrl-Shift-F3 to form SysPrep.
Sysprep Generalize Win7 is OK , SysPrep Generalize Windows 8.1 is also OK. But after that I can only boot to Windows 7 fine, when choose to boot Windows 8.1 , it always restart and back to the boot menu ?
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Dec 6, 2013
I am trying to get my external hard drives setup from a freshly rebooted installed computer. I recently placed an external hard drive with all my back up files on my computer, but this drive is not going to be my main drive. I have two others I will be using as a main hdd and a backup drive that are brand new.
So, the question is, if I were to use a utility like the Windows 8.1 disk management feature to either delete the drive letter or even change it to another one, will that mess up the external hard drive or even lose data? Because until I transfer my files to my backup disk I am afraid of losing my only copy of my files.
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Jul 23, 2014
When I installed Win8 (at this point, updated to Win8.1 Update) on drive V:, it changed it to C:. Since I'm used to the drive letters as they used to be, I'd like to change it back to V:. I figure I'll have to change all the registry entries for installed programs from C: to V:.
How to confirm that I'll have to manually make those registry changes?
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Nov 11, 2012
I downloaded and directly installed windows 8 on my laptop's E drive, while I already had windows 7 on C drive, on the same HDD.
Now it directly boots to windows 8. How to dual boot windows 7 & windows 8, or any other way to use windows 7 in my laptop without losing my C drive's data.
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Apr 15, 2014
I have installed windows xp pro on a separate partition on my hard drive , i am already running windows 8.1 on my c drive the problem is when i boot up i only get the option to boot into windows 8.1, windows xp does not appear in the boot menu, i installed windows xp on my spare partition to run some older programmes but when my pc boots up it boots straight into windows 8.1 there is no option to boot into windows xp.
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Mar 5, 2013
I'm booting off my SSD which is drive C: and I have games and programs on an extra hard drive which was origanally drive H: but after a restart it switched to I: and when I go into Disk Management to change it Drive H: isn't there.
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Jun 28, 2014
Windows 8, 64-bit.
Used to run Win 7 on our main drive, and used a second one for storage (mainly games), however something happened, making us unable to boot. So we decided to upgrade to Windows 8, which we put on our secondary drive, and that's now the main one (boots from here, is Disk 0). When I turn on the PC, it asks me whether to run on Windows 7 or 8 (8 is the default). C: contains Windows 8, D: Contains Win 7.
MAIN PROBLEM: Since we're going to use the old main drive as storage (the one with Windows 7), I wanted to format it, but it won't let me because, I suppose, of the System files still on it (System, Active). Picture of Disk Management below. How do I format it?
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Jul 6, 2013
Installed Windows 8 first, then installed Win XP to a second partition on the same disk.
In windows 8, the XP partition is seen as D:
If I boot to XP, XP sees itself as I:
it sees the windows 8 partition as C: and that is what I want, is C: being win 8 and XP being D:
Is there anyway to change the lettering on the XP partition?
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Jan 11, 2013
Alright, I just installed my Windows 8 Pro from a USB drive as I was installing it I was installing Windows 8 on the W:/ drive but once it was installed I came to found out that that My C:/ drive which was originally Windows 7's drive letter now belongs to Windows 8, and now the drive that is now Windows 7's is D:/ is is possible to change it back a W: drive or something? and yes, Windows 7 is the main partition on the system, I'm not sure why it changed but it's actually the first time this has happened.
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Aug 18, 2012
I've installed Windows 8 starting the installer from Windows 8 RP and I've just noticed that it picked up the drive letters from the old system. Now my system drive is Y instead of C , because in the old system that partition was Y. If I try to change the drive letter in the Drive Management it gives an error. how to change system drive letter in Windows 8 RTM?
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Apr 1, 2013
When I put my usb in my pc I see on my Computer a new drive letter H:
So now I have: C: D: E:
Floppy: A: and my DVD as F: and a Removeable disk I: but I don't have a any removeable disk on any usb port in my pc.
When I put now my other usb it's assigining it as drive H:
But I need it to be G: since I need to save to it something from a program I saved before and it must be G: not H:
How can I change/force it to be drive letter G: instead H: ?
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May 16, 2013
My C: is a SSD Id like to have back as one disc, one partition..
The 101 mb 'unallocated' It was previously listed as " reserved system protected drive" I removed and formatted its 101 mb...back to empty, unallocated, can I lose that partition??
It shows up under disc management as a part of c...but really has no drive letter at all it just shows as C:
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Jul 27, 2014
I tried to change the drive letter because it wont appear, but it didnt work. I have tried the CMD method with the volumes but the volume did not show up. All I know is that its a G-Technology hard drive. I tried formatting it to NTFS but that wont work. Basically I tried everything and nothing works. P.S The drive is Disk1...
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Mar 12, 2013
I have a windows to go installation in a large external hdd, so I have made a second partition to use as data storage.
Now, when I insert the disk on my "normal" windows installation I would expect the data partition to be available... Instead I have to assign a letter to be able to use it.
The disk appears to be online and once assigned a letter you can unplug it and plug it again without having to do the letter assignment again.
BUT, every time I restart the pc I have to do it all over again.
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Jan 14, 2013
I just recently built a new Windows 8 machine. Since I knew I was going to be getting an SSD down the road, I planned ahead:
Nutshell, the C: drive, the boot drive, is at the end of the partition, sized to 220 DB, so I knew it would be smaller than the 240/256GB drive I knew I'd eventually be getting. The Users folder is on the D: drive, so the C: partition is only the OS and apps. Everything's dandy.
I found EasyBCD and used it to move the boot manager over into the C: partition, so theoretically that's all I need to move over to the new drive. So what I want to do is move the C: partition over to the SSD, have it stay C: once it's there, and then have it boot into that partition. (Note that I cannot disconnect the hard drive when it's time to reboot because that's where the Users folder lives and I don't want to break that.)
I keep running into problems with the "keeping it C" part. When I clone the drive over, the old drive stays as C: (as you would expect), and the new drive gets a new letter. Attempts to change those letters using DISKPART from the Win 8 install DVD have been either futile or disastrous.
I've been using the free version of Macrium as my cloning / imaging tool...is there a better free tool I should be using?
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Mar 13, 2013
This morning, my laptop wouldn't boot and I got a message saying I needed to use the recovery disk to fix the problem. A little investigating using the command prompt from that disk revealed my system and data partitions had no drive letter assigned to them. A little work with Diskpart fixed that but left me wondering what would have caused them to disappear.
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Sep 22, 2014
My windows 8 partition is inaccessible. Win 8 won't boot, even after attempted repair and running chkdsk.
This all happened after an automatic update.
I booted to another drive. Windows explorer shows the bad partition letter but no size or contents. Other partitions on the same drive are ok.
I also can see the bad drive contents from a cmd prompt.
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Jul 23, 2014
That is, I can allocate it one through drive management but it still doesn't show next switch on in My Computer, so I must go in an allocate it one. Otherwise it works fine. Bit tedious after a while.
Do I have to reformat it completely to regain auto allocation of a letter?
Used to be fine, but not now. A USB 3.0 Toshiba 500 gig external drive (sealed unit) doesn't have this problem.
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Nov 14, 2013
After last "patch-tuesday" my Windows 8.1 don't assign drive letters to hotswaped HDD's and USB keys.
When starting my backupdrive (eSATA), it is now without a drive letter, I can give it one though in disk-management, but before last tuesday, it was given a letter automatic. Same problem when I connect an USB-HDD or an USB-stick.
Is there a way to get back "autoassign of a drive letter"? (don't know the correct word for this function in English).
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Apr 7, 2013
I'm just going through the process of personalizing a new Inspiron 14z with Windows 8. The one thing that has me stumped are all the partitions that ship installed on the drive, due to a combination of everything being different on Win8, Dell doing things their own way, and GPT formatting. Generally I would like to know what the heck all those partitions are for, but it's fine if that will be a slow learning process. Specifically and immediately, I need to change the drive letter assigned to the "WINRETOOLS" partition. Currently it's D:, and the problem is that for 10 years I've been using D: as my data partition, and quite a number of applications, configurations, settings, etc. assume that all my files are on D:. For instance, by having all my music on D:, I can sync iTunes library and preference files between machines, and all ratings and playlists match from one machine to the next. Same thing for my photos. Same thing for a bunch of utilities like FTP consoles, sync utilities...
In a prior version of Windows, I would just go into Disk Management, right click the partition in question, assign a different drive letter, and job done. On my machine, the 2GB WINRETOOL partition doesn't even show as having a drive letter in Disk Management, despite the fact that it's D: in Win Explorer. Additionally, the only right click option is "help". I've taken that option, and, despite its aspirations, it's not useful.
How can I change that drive letter to something else? Should WINRETOOLS even have a drive letter in Explorer (some posts I've seen indicate that it should be hidden)? If I do manage to change the drive letter, will that break its function, whatever that is?
My machine has a 500GB spinning disk, which has all the aforementioned partitions. I've shrunk the C: partition to 80GB, in preparation for creating a data partition. I have not yet formatted the unassigned space as I would like to solve this WINRETOOLS thing first. Finally, there is a 32GB SSD that I've set up as an Intel Smart Response cache, and it's no longer visible to the OS.
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Aug 31, 2013
I had a computer with windows 7 home premium x64. A while ago I decided that I wanted to up grade to windows 8 and so I partitioned my os drive and installed (OEM) windows 8 Pro on the new partition. During the set up I was able to set up a duel boot system with windows 8 and windows 7. When I look at the drive structure I noticed that there isn't a system recovery partition for windows 7 or windows 8.
I would like to generate a system recovery partition for windows 8 and remove windows 7 but I am not sure how to go about doing this.
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Jan 9, 2014
have Acronis 2013 Plus. What I am trying to do is image the disk of a Windows 7 machine (source) to a machine that had Windows 8 pre-installed (target - Gateway SX2110G).
I connected the Windows 7 drive to the new machine (USB data cable), disabled Secure Boot, and enabled Legacy. Booted to True Image and started the cloning of the drive. Everything seemed to go ok, but as soon as it starts to boot Windows 7, it gives a 7D BSOD. (the same BSOD it gives when I simply plug the source hard drive into the target and try to boot from it).
The source HDD (win 7) boots fine in its original machine.
*I tried the startup repair that's included with the image.. does it matter if I use the one from a disc instead?
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Dec 15, 2013
I just got a refurbished ASUS K75DE laptop, and it came with Windows 8 on it. I am wanting to run a dual boot with Win7, so I disabled fast-boot just fine, and went into the UEFI BIOS and disabled the secure boot.
While I was there, I did like I have always done and set a BIOS boot-up password. I then proceed to boot to my Win7 installer USB Flash drive, but I was running low on battery power so I aborted the install and shut the computer down to try again later.
Now however when I get into BIOS to select boot priority, all options are grayed out except for system time and a few other non-essentials. At the bottom of the first BIOS screen it says "User Level : User" and I can't seem to find a way to reverse this issue. So now I'm stuck, can't boot to anything but the HDD because it is first by default.
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Jun 28, 2013
I have installed Blue 8.1 on a separate drive in my system along side 8.0. When I restart the 8.0 boots unless I manually select the 8.1 drive in bios. How can I alter the Boot menu to add the option to boot from either OS?
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Feb 18, 2013
Late last Fall I bought a new Desktop, an HP H81414, with Windows 8 installed with the intention of installing Windows 7 on an SSD. I migrated Window 8 to an SSD, removed that from the system, installed new SSD and put Windows 7 on it. Both worked fine. I wound up with 2 SSD's. capable of running on the EFI BIOS machine with Secure Boot turned off. I later bought a new laptop with Windows 8. I found the Win 8 with Classic Shell to be very acceptable.
What I would like to do now ,if possible, is to mount both SSD's in the HP case and switch to either one of them at boot.
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Jun 30, 2014
I have 2 hard drives and 1 is a lot bigger than the main one. I was wondering if I changed them around would my computer run faster and how I would go about doing this, what I mean is make my larger hard drive my default disk C if possible? [URL] ....
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Apr 28, 2014
I had windows 7 running on my computer. When windows 8 came out I used a second harddrive as the windows 8 installation drive. Windows 8 automatically setup a dual boot system where every time I started the computer it took me a windows screen where I could select either windows 7 or windows 8. This has been going on since Windows 8 was released.
I decided it was getting old so I decided it was time to remove the old windows 7 harddrive. I tried doing it inside the windows 8 dual boot screen but could not find an option. So I decided to reformat the windows 7 harddrive. I did this in command prompt mode. After doing so when my computer restarted it said it could not find any harddrive to boot. Windows 8 is installed on the other harddrive, the one that was not reformatted. So how do I get it to start using that harddrive as the boot drive? I checked my bios and even physically disconnected the old HD that had windows 7 on it, but none of that seemed to work even though the Windows 8 HD is definitely in the boot order in the bios.
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Jul 11, 2014
I recently felt the urge to experiment with Linux and installed Ubuntu Mint and tried to set up dual booting.
However I seem to have only suceeded in preventing Windows booting at all. I cannot get into the recovery drive to undo my wrong doing.
How can I reset the windows boot manager without access to windows or recovery partitions?
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Jun 8, 2013
I am dual booting Windows 8 and win7. I actually have Windows 8 installed on its own hard drive and win 7 installed in its own hard drive. The win7 hard drive has been in use for the past 2 years and I have had Windows 8 running for about a week now. I purchased another hard drive for Windows 8 and left the old Win7 as it was.
I also have 3 other hard drives in the system. Everything is formatted NTFS.
So my system is as follows
Drive C - Boot Drive - I physically swap out the dedicated hard drive for Win 8 or Win 7
Drive D - internal 250 GB sata drive
Drive F - internal 250 GB sata drive
Drive H - internal 250 GB hard drive.
I have been running this config for about 2 years under Win7 with no problems.
The problem that I have now is when I swap the boot drive and boot up a different OS than last time (Like booting Windows 8, powering down system, swap boot drive, boot Win7) the system always says that there are problems on the 3 non-boot drives. It runs chkdsk(it least that is what it look like) and processes the 3 non boot disks one at a time which take about 10-12 minutes for all 3. Most of the time it finds no problems, but about 1 out of 5 boots will find a problem with one of the disks and then fixes it. The disks seem to be OK while I am running. I then power down and swap boot drive and reboot the other os and we start all over again. I am powering the system completely down for each reboot to make sure that the disk cache is flushed.So far the disk problems have been fixed by chkdsk at boot, but I am sure the day will come when the disk cannot be fixed and I will loose data.
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