I have an older tower running W8.1 update 1 and Wxp - each OS is on a separate hard drive, when I boot the computer I get the choice of booting to W8.1 or earlier OS. I am now ready to remove the XP drive and delete all the information, my question is:
Is there a proper method to remove the choice of OS on the boot screen, or will it be removed if I just remove the hard drive with XP on it?
i had windows 7 installed and i installed windows 8 on my other partition and after some days i did a format on win7 partition but the dual boot menu is still there any solution to remove that ?
View 2 Replies View RelatedHow do you safely remove Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) from a dual boot with Windows 8.1 Pro (64-bit)
I'm quite happy with Windows 8.1 Pro alone
The scenario:
Both are on the same hard drive (a SATA).
Windows 7 was on the hard drive initially. I installed Windows 8.1 on a new partition (which i made from shrinking the Drive C:)
But since Windows 7 was the original operating system, I had some concern about losing the Master Boot
Record(bootloader configuration data) that Windows 7 had established on the drive.
To address this, best I found : [URL] .....
Here's a screenshot of my disk management ...
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.
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?
View 3 Replies View RelatedLate 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.
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.
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?
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.
First, some context: I have a Dell Inspiron 15R SE that came with Windows 8.
I've managed to get a working dual-boot system with Ubuntu 12.10. I can't remember exactly how I done that, but I remember that I had to disable secure boot. I think that the boot configuration those days was:
Secure boot: DisabledLoad legacy option rom: EnabledBoot list option: Legacy
This "configuration" worked perfectly for 6-7 months.
Then, one day (last week, can't remember the exact day), when I was using Windows 8 the computer crashed. I hard-rebooted and got this screen:
After executed boot-repair from a Ubuntu LiveCD dozens of times I've decided to eliminate Ubuntu temporarily and focus to get a system with Windows 8 working nice.
Then I used my recovery DVDs to recover the system. Yup, Windows has booted. But when I restarted first time I got the same error. Then I, digging a solution, pressed F12 after a reboot and got here:
The highlighted option allows me to boot into Windows 8. So I went to boot options (F2) and changed the following configuration:
Load legacy option rom: DisabledBoot list option: UEFI
Now I can boot directly to Windows without need to press F12.
But my objective isn't complete. I want to erase all Ubuntu entries from the seconds image and restore the legacy boot from the first imagem (because they worked before).
I did two things:
I erased all partitions related to Ubuntu (root partition and home partition).I created a Windows recovery disk (not a system recovery disk).
I used the recovery disk to run the automatic recovery procedure (I forgot the exactly name). I've runned it at least 10 times with no success. Then I went to command prompt to try the famous triad: bootrec /fixmbr, bootrec /fixboot and bootrec /rebuildbcd. Still, no solution.
I cloned my existing Windows installation (8.1 pro, 32 bit) onto my new SSD. I got everything up and running, and I still have my old Windows installation on one of the partitions of my HDD.
Can I turn this setup into a dual boot?
I think this could be useful, in case the new installation gets borked, or in order to run an effective malware scan on the SSD, etc.
I have windows 8 to go on my 320 GB USB harddrive and I would like to be able to boot from the disk a choose if I waht to boot from windows 8 to go or another partition where I have my ghost.
I'm not sure how to go about making a dual boot when it is a USB harddisk.
I'm having a hard time with WinPE 4.0. For starters, my USB is 128GB, which means I have to use exFAT - according to some people, it should work, but others say it won't. So far no luck.
Also, it's my only USB and any way to boot both x86 and x64 WinPE 4.0 from it. Even if I have to use separate partitions, that would be fine.
Finally, I have to do this in UEFI mode.... BIOS won't work on the device I'm trying to boot to.
I have new pc that has windows 8 pro installed. I would like to dual boot with windows 7 because certain software for work is not compatible with win 8. I was reading that I can create a vhd from windows 8, boot to the windows 7 installation media and install win 7 to the vhd, then I have the option to select win 7 or 8. Am I missing something here or is it as easy as this? Also do I need Win 7 ultimate or will he professional one work? I do not want to partition the hard drive.
View 9 Replies View RelatedI set up a dual boot with Windows 7 and 8 and it is extremely slow up until the Windows 7 and 8 appear. From that point on both load quickly. Also under the Windows 7 icon it says "recovered". Otherwise eveerything seems to be functioning normally.
View 9 Replies View RelatedWell, I had a dual booted machine booting Windows 8 and Ubuntu.
Windows 8 was starting to play up so I decided to completely reset the computer. I backed everything up, booted to Windows 8 and hit the 'Reset PC' button.
After answering some questions (full erase, whole disc etc), it informed me that it was going to restart. I clicked accept.
Short Story:
- Corrupted Windows 8 partition
- Corrupted Windows 8 recovery partition
Long Story:
Instead of rebooting back to anything, I got left sitting at a grub rescue prompt. From there I told it to boot windows 8.
I then spent five minutes staring at the booting screen. Nothing happened.
I powered off and tried again, this time pointing grub rescue at the windows 8 recovery loader partition. Well, initially that looked like it worked. I got the nice metro UI, and chose 'reset this PC' It then informed me that the recovery partition was missing some files. The only other option was to shut down.
I tried booting just plain windows 8 again, but had the same problem as before (nothing happening), And now when I try to boot the recovery loader, Grub tells me the EFI file isn't where it expects it to be. (Interestingly, how are you meant to boot to this without having a non-windows bootloader?)
Additional Details: Computer: HP Envy M6-1206TX. Pre-installed with Windows 8. Bought about 1 month, 1 week ago.
The Questions:
Since windows 8 came pre-installed, I don't have a Windows 8 disc, are there any possibilities for me to get back windows 8? (other than contacting the store I purchased it from)
After going through the license agreement, my interpretation is that I still have a license for Windows 8, but I am not under their limited warranty (due to dual booting). I do not wish to buy another license, as I already have one.
One last question:
If you acquired the software on a disc or other physical media, your proof of license is the genuine. Microsoft certificate of authenticity label with the accompanying genuine product key.
Neither my laptop, nor the box, nor any of the paperwork provided in it had this 'certificate of authenticity.' I suppose that means I have no legal rights to the software. Who's fault is this, HP, Microsoft, or the store I bought it from?
I have previously posted about the recommended Windows OS for my new laptop... and Then I decided to install Windows 8.1 Pro alongside my previously installed Windows 7 Ultimate (32-bit)... Is it OK to install and dual-boot Windows 8.1 Pro with Windows 7 Ultimate?
And also tell me about the partition size allocations for both Windows, I have two partitions each of 24.7 GB for both the OSes, is this size worth applicable?
Didn't plan ahead Dual boot Windows 7 and 8. I only initially allowed 100 GB for my primary Windows 8 on a 2 TB drive. I'm hardly using the W-7 and now find myself out of space on the W-8 (C) I'd like to repartition to give (C) 1 TB and 1 TB for (D)
View 9 Replies View RelatedIs it possible to have two hard drives in the computer and to be able to choose which one to start with ?
I have in mind that one hard drive has all my normal programs and the other is used for Flight simulation program.
Both hard drives would have win 8 installed. If I could use one hard drive and partition it so the flight sim is on a separate partition. However, for two reasons I wouldn't want this as the flight sim with scenery requires a lot of Gigs. and secondly I believe that it would run faster on its own hard drive.
So. Is it possible to set up the computer to decide which Drive I wish to start ? and if so, how to set it up ?
My Old laptop died. Not a Harddrive issue it functions fine. I had Vista installed. I now have a new HP ENVY DV7. I would like to set up my new system to allow booting from either my old hard drive, or my new system. How to accomplish this?
View 6 Replies View RelatedSo, previously I had Windows 8 and a system image of that drive. I want to dual-boot it with Win7, so I replace my Win8 with Win7, and reinstall Win8 on another partition. Can I restore my Win8 with the previous system image, or will it affect my Win7?
View 5 Replies View RelatedI have created dual boots before but in each case I did it the "usual" way by doing a fresh install of a second OS on a new drive (or new partition) and then letting the newest installation figure out how to arrange boot loaders or boot managers or whatever, i.e to figure out the dual boot parameters for me.
In this case I want to set up a dual boot using what is now 2 separate drives each with its own complete install of Windows. Of course, I can boot to one or the other by disconnecting the drive for the one I don't want to start up, but that is obviously a hassle.
Is there an easy way to set it up so that one of them (Win 8.1 pro) actually recognizes the other and asks me which one I want at boot up. I know if I re-install one of them I can do it, but I want to just set up the dual boot, and not touch either of the OS installations per se.
When dual/multi booting with previous versions of Windows, you have your basic black screen w/white text and when choosing your OS to boot to, you have to use the up/down arrows and hit enter.
With the visually nice boot menu screen of Windows 8, you can actually use your mouse to choose your OS, just click the OS you want. Saves a few seconds by not using the keyboard.
I get to the new win 8 graphical boot screen, but the timer is not working at all. I've tried to change the timer from the default 30 seconds to 15 seconds & back again with no success. It will sit on that boot menu for as long as I choose to wait before making a selection.
View 2 Replies View RelatedI have two hard drives One is a SSD and the other is a WD 64 MB cache 2 terabyte drive. I have Windows 7 installed on the SSD which works fine. I later, when I received it, installed Windows 8 on the other drive for a dual boot. It works, the screen comes up allowing me to choose between the OS's. Like I said picking 7 works fine but when I go into 8 it boots up, shows the Metro and is locked solid. I havent waited more than 5 mins but i get tired of it locking. I have 16 gigs of Kingston Ram, 2 ATI 6950 with combined 4 gigs. AMD 8 core and a ASUS motherboard. Everything was bought this year. Except for the Video cards. I am trying to update the ATI software but it is locked so i cant.
View 2 Replies View RelatedI've been doing the above ^^ for some time now. I've been using W8.1 as the main OS for my notebook. Yesterday I rebooted into Win7 to poke around. Every time that it said 'Starting Windows' it bluescreen (very rapidly) and restarted.
I tried the disc auto-repair, and this cut the bridge to W8.1 of course. When I tried Win7 it then said that there was another problem. The logon screen appeared, as if in safe mode, then produced numerous errors about being untable to log on or start logon services. I could not resolve this.
I eventually decided to try the manufacturer inbuilt restore of Win7 while leaving data alone. This seemed fine until it says 'preparing Windows for first use', then it said that the installation was interrupted (not by me or power use). I tried this several times but no use.
Shortened, I could not get back into Win8, I tried all the repairs, though it should only have been a bootloader issue, right? The Win8 bootloader will look back and see Win 7 and offer both. I formatted that partition, reinstalled Win8 on that partition, removed all data from the Win7 drive and then tried a complete reinstallation of the entire hard disk with the manufacturer restore disks. This worked.
I would like to poke around with W8.2 when it comes in the Spring. I need to understand what happened. My top two guesses are:
1. Minitool Partition manager, I suspected that program of being ... ruthless in hard drive partitioning and resizing in the past.
2. Perhaps some incompatibility coming from Win8?
Can you dual boot with Windows 8.1 Preview and OS X 10.8
View 6 Replies View RelatedId like to Dual boot linux onto windows 8
View 9 Replies View RelatedI'm trying to dual boot Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit and Windows 8 Pro. I want to have each OS installed on separate Hard drives. I want the default OS to be Windows 7 (loads automatically) or goes to the boot manager screen and choose either Win 7 and Win 8.
I've been running Windows 7 on an SSD hard drive with a UEFI Boot. I'm looking to install Windows 8 on a WD Caviar Black 1 TB drive.
Steps taken:
-Burnt Windows 8 to DVD to boot and install from.
-Re-ordered boot order to boot from DVD
-Windows 8 install starts
-Windows 8 drive screen - format the WD Caviar Black 1 TB to install Windows 8 on.
-ERROR Message appears - Can't find media location (I didn't write it down but will on next install I will update). Something like 0x00007B. The solution I found was to disconnect my Windows 7 drive (and all other hard drives).
(Issue: won't that affect the set up of the dual boot?)
-Disconnected Windows 7 drive and was able to install Windows 8.
-After successful install of Windows 8 I re-started my system expecting to see the dual boot menu options. However, Windows 8 loaded directly.
-Changed boot drive order to SSD (with Windows 7) then WD 1TB Drive (with Windows 8). However, Windows 7 then loaded directly.
-I rebooted into Windows 8 and went to the boot order menu in Settings > Control Panel > System > Startup and Restore > (might be a few other tabs). The drop down box shows Windows 8 but no Windows 7.
So, I'm sure I did something wrong on the install. Any thoughts?
If the SSD is a UEFI boot should the WD 1TB (Win 8 install drive) be the same? Is it critical to have the Windows 8 drive connected while installing Windows 8 to the other hard drive? If so, I will have to solve the error message I get after formatting the WD 1TB drive during the Win 8 install. (I know not having the specific error code doesn't work - will update tonight with that info).
Also, I have a 2TB drive that I think has a MBR partition. Would that affect things? Should I even have that? I'll confirm that too. Just hoping to possibly get the ball rolling with answers.
I've recently installed a dual boot, Windows 7 and Windows 8. The installation went fine but then after a very short time my Windows 8 Screen goes black. I had to press the power button to exit. When again rebooting into Windows 8 the "blue window" shows and the spinner goes around for about 20 seconds, then all goes black.
I've checked the Power settings and ensured the "Turn off display" was "never". I also updated my Video drivers thinking that might be the problem. Both to no avail. I've done a "Refresh" and a "Reset (which took 3 hrs). Again, all was fine for a short time, but while exploring the OS, again the black screen. What else I could try to fix this Windows 8 problem.
I was wanting to dual boot a Dell pc inspiron 600 with win 8. I thought I will breeze through it like I used to circa WXP/Vista/W7 and didn't research what changes there might be with Windows 8. I have focused my attention more on Android and I really should have done that research.
I hadn't backed up externally docs that I needed to save - so I will remove the drive and copy the contents to my laptop to be on the safer side. So the first wrong move has led to missteps.
I downloaded Easus and created a blank disk space before the current active partition instead of behind it. I thought I needed to have win 7 in the first partition. Before rebooting I also installed a popular freeware boot selection manager (I totally forget the name but I know some most will know the one I am referring to EDIT: ***EasyBCD*** ). It gave me a warning that no bootable system was selected. I kept editing to point it to current Windows 8 but nothing changed. It also warned me that my pc might not boot. I thought I will fix it to a bootable drive with my old discs-Ultimate boot cd, CPM, etc. Easus performed creation of the new partition and then trouble started. It refused to boot.
None of my discs are working as they did before Windows 8. on UBCD Fdisk cannot find any partition it can make active. I decided not to write an new MBR. My windows 7 install CD is giving me the "Windows cannot be installed to Disk 0 Partition X" details ->"The selected disk is of the GPT partition style."
Here are the partitions
My questions are: At this point I don't mind to have only windows 7 installed or if this situation is salvageable a dual boot then I don't have to remove the drive to copy the docs. I can just boot into 7 (which is what I mainly want to use) and just have access to Windows 8 partition from there to access my docs. I would prefer not to pull the drive out if I can avoid it but only if I know for sure what I am doing.
Second question : I believe partition 3: 489GB is the newly created one and Part 4 OS would be the Wind 8 partition. How can I know for sure that this is the wind 8 partition?
If I format the partition 3: 489GB will windows now allow for windows 7 to be installed?
Is there any way I can fix windows 8 partition to boot?
Lastly the basic question is how do I fix this error so that I Can install windows 7?
I don't have any pre-created OS discs of Windows 8. My current laptop is a toshiba win 7.