Windows 7 Dual boot from 2 different HDDs

[Daniele Greguol]

Hi all,
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?
Thank you in advance for your support.
Daniel

 

[tbint]

it really will not work because windows recognizes the O/S as c:/.

run: msconfig select the boot tab. If you we're to ad win 8 to the MBR it would loop back to win 7. Plus you still would have to hit F8 or one of those keys can't remember. You may be able to set the bios to enter the boot menu every time. I think most pc have F9 to enter boot menu these days.

 

[patcooke]

Run sysdm.cpl, under startup and recovery click on settings. Select "earlier version of windows" as default op sys, chain back out and reboot.

 

[Saltgrass]

The Bootrec.exe utility is usually the one to look at when trying to add other installs to a boot menu.

Use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment to troubleshoot and repair startup issues in Windows

The bootrec /scanos or /rebuildBCD would probably do it. You should not need to save a copy of the BCD store, but you certainly can if you want. Make sure and expand the Bootrec.exe options link to see the other options.

 

[Daniele Greguol]

I've yet to try anything but I'll let you know as soon as I have done. In the meantime, thank you for taking the time to reply to my thread. Daniel