Windows 7 Dual boot woes

jonathanc

New Member
Hi all!

I recently decided to try out Windows 7. I was previously using Vista 64bit so I though I could try to dual boot them. I have partitioned my main HD into 2, one for the current vista and another which I have named Windows7.

Everything went fine when I was installing Windows 7. Note that at the moment my Vista = C: and Windows7 partition = D:.

However, after I have installed Windows7 in D:\ I can't dual boot Vista. No matter what I tried it just won't "see" Vista. All it does is boot into Windows 7. I have tried MSCONFIG boot options but it could only see Windows 7 as well.

Can anyone advice what I have done wrong? :(

I really want to dual boot as I have most of my priority work in Vista...
 
Try booting to the Win7 DVD, do a repair, and see if it finds your Vista partition and it should fix it automatically, or you can have a look at this. EasyBCD
 
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Try booting to the Win7 DVD and see if it finds your Vista partition and it should fix it automatically, or you can have a look at this. EasyBCD


Thanks. I am trying EasyBCD now to re-enable Vista MBR. I can see the partition Vista is installed in but unfortunately I can't enable dual boot for it :< It keeps booting into Windows 7...

edit: Now I have used EasyBCD it boots into Vista instead of Windows 7. Hmmm, is there no way to dual boot both OS if they are on the same HD but different partition?
 
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Right, it seems that no matter what I tried, it only allows ONE boot partition. So I guess there's no point of going through this much trouble trying an unsupported software.

Well, I hope that Windows 7 will launch soon so I can finally (and safely) sample it.

For now, I will just delete Windows 7 completely and reinstall Vista. It is really not worth all the hassle that I have been through.
 
I would also advice those who is thinking of trying out Windows 7 to NOT try it. Unless of course you have another spare computer just dedicated to it. There's no point at all trying this buggy software on your main computer without any support.
 
Hi johnathan,

If Vista is the System partition , and you are currently booting into it, you may find this does the trick:

Open an elevated command prompt and type: ( press enter after each command)

bcdedit /copy {current} /d "Windows 7"

It will return a long number, a GUID, in brackets. Use that , including the brackets, in the following commands:

bcdedit /set {THE-GUID-YOU-GOT} device partition=D:

bcdedit /set {THE-GUID-YOU-GOT} osdevice partition=D:

Close cmd prompt.

If you have any more questions, please post a screenshot of the Disk Management window, and also of bcdedit command window ( just type bcdedit into an elevated cmd prompt , press enter - and the entries will be displayed).

You should see the Vista and the 7 entries under the bootloader heading.
 
Right, it seems that no matter what I tried, it only allows ONE boot partition. So I guess there's no point of going through this much trouble trying an unsupported software.

Well, I hope that Windows 7 will launch soon so I can finally (and safely) sample it.

For now, I will just delete Windows 7 completely and reinstall Vista. It is really not worth all the hassle that I have been through.

Dont do that, Vista will still be there, we just need to find why its not in your boot menu.
 
Hi

Thank you for the reply.

I have formatted the whole hard disk and reintalled Vista.

Is there any correct way of installing Windows 7 as dual boot? I googled "Windows 7 dual boot Vista" and have tried the techniques mentioned but unfortunately I can't get both OS to show under the boot menu (both partition on same HD).

I would be happy if someone can show me the correct method of doing this. I have the bulk of my work in Vista so I really do not want to loose the option of not being able to boot into it. Thank you.
 
Dont do that, Vista will still be there, we just need to find why its not in your boot menu.

edit: I formatted my whole HD ><


What I did was partition my C: which was originally populated by Vista 64 bit.

After partitioning, I have C:\ (for vista) and D:\ a new partition created for W7. (so basically C: and D: are on the same physical HD)

I put in the W7 in my DVD drive and reboot the PC. PC boots into DVD and I install W7. Everything went smoothly except for the fact that I can only boot into W7 after doing this. The only way I can every get to boot back into Vista is by using EasyBCD to modify the MBR.

Is there anything that I did wrong?

Anyway, I will be away to work now, will check back in a few hours. Hopefully someone would find out what I did wrong as I really want to sample W7 out since Vista seems to be a little of a resource hog.
 
You already have created the other partiton for 7 to install into? You shouldnt have to do any thing other than install 7 normally on the other partition, and Windows should sort out the boot menu for you.

Here is a good guide from LifeHacker
 
Hi johnathan,

If Vista is the System partition , and you are currently booting into it, you may find this does the trick:

Open an elevated command prompt and type: ( press enter after each command)

bcdedit /copy {current} /d "Windows 7"

It will return a long number, a GUID, in brackets. Use that , including the brackets, in the following commands:

bcdedit /set {THE-GUID-YOU-GOT} device partition=D:

bcdedit /set {THE-GUID-YOU-GOT} osdevice partition=D:

Close cmd prompt.

If you have any more questions, please post a screenshot of the Disk Management window, and also of bcdedit command window ( just type bcdedit into an elevated cmd prompt , press enter - and the entries will be displayed).

You should see the Vista and the 7 entries under the bootloader heading.

This assumes that my Windows 7 is in the D:\?
 
You already have created the other partiton for 7 to install into? You shouldnt have to do any thing other than install 7 normally on the other partition, and Windows should sort out the boot menu for you.

Hi there, thanks for reply.

Not really sure what you mean but originally I have 2 hard disks. The first HD is used to install my OS while the second is for data storage. When I decide to install W7, I used Disk Management in Vista to Shrink my first HD. This produced C:\ (Vista) and another unallocated space. I left that space as unallocated. So at the moment I have C:\, unallocated space, and D:\ (Data storage).

I reboot into W7 installation DVD and select unallocated space to install W7. However, after the installation it seems that I will only get to boot into W7. There's no boot menu selection.
 
Here is a good guide from LifeHacker

That's the guide I used :p Followed exactly his steps but I installed W7 from a USB key instead.

edit: Hmmm, *might* have skipped creating the "New Simple Volume" bit... I think I just formatted the partition into NTFS...
Well off to work now! Keep the suggestions coming! Hopefully I will find a solution when I get off work later!

Take care and thanks for any help offered!!!
 
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That's the guide I used :p Followed exactly his steps but I installed W7 from a USB key instead.

edit: Hmmm, *might* have skipped creating the "New Simple Volume" bit... I think I just formatted the partition into NTFS...
Well off to work now! Keep the suggestions coming! Hopefully I will find a solution when I get off work later!

Take care and thanks for any help offered!!!

You dont really need to format the partiton there, you can do it at install. Im not sure why its not working for you.
 
Posting a screenshot of the Disk Management window will be a great help, like this:

Link Removed due to 404 Error

NOTE: The commands in my previous post are for when C is the Vista partition and D is the 7 partition - as seen when booted into Vista.
 
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I'm classified as a beginner but: Go into the Bios do a clean install, advanced systems delete so you have one full partion. Delegate one partion a certain number of GB to windows 7say on a 1 TB system 500 GB to this and a certain number of GB to vistasay 500 GB to this. Install vista in one partion and windows 7 in the other. When you boot. you'll get a black screen asking which partion you want to boot. Choose either windows 7 or vista?

Does this make any sense?
 
Sorry for the late reply, very busy at work ><

I have reformatted my C: and created two partitions. One is for vista which I already have installed and the other is unallocated space if I remembered correctly. I boot into Vista fine at the moment. Not at home now so I will post Disk Management screenshot in few hours. Too scared to install W7 atm ...

Oh btw, I am thinking of getting an SSD solely for loading the OS. However, most SSDs are around 50GB or so. My question is, can I install the OS on the SSD and somehow make it install programs to other drives?

For example if the SSD is C:\ and I have a 1TB HDD as D:\... I install windows in C: but the program files goes to D:\Program Files. If this is possible how would it work with multiple OSes?

Thanks.
 
I had this problem I had Vista on one drive and W7 on another I iahd to restore 7 and it lost the Boot manager during restore I just put in the W-7 disc and did a repair had to do it twice and it restored the boot manager. I now have Vista Boot Pro installed so I can do repair in the future if need. I have it installed on W7 and Vista.
 
I had this problem I had Vista on one drive and W7 on another I iahd to restore 7 and it lost the Boot manager during restore I just put in the W-7 disc and did a repair had to do it twice and it restored the boot manager. I now have Vista Boot Pro installed so I can do repair in the future if need. I have it installed on W7 and Vista.

Yeah somehow W7 and Vista doesn't like to co-exist. I have installed them both on the same HD though, but different partition.

I lost the MBR for Vista once W7 is installed hence I can only boot into W7. The diskmanagement shows all the partitions but the one with Vista in it doesn't have the label "boot" which I reckon makes the partition bootable. Only workaround for me so far is to use EasyBCD to restore Vista's MBR but that means I can't boot into W7 after reboot...
 
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