Dual boot W7 and W10

[Pierre3400]

Hello guys,

I am trying to run a dual boot W7 and W10, but suspect that the way i need to run them is not possible?

Windows 7 Pro is 32bit and Windows 10 Pro is 64bit.

Running on separate hdd.

I was told that all i needed to do, was install W10 on the second hdd and then w10 would figure out there was a W7, and then give me boot opens when i boot up. This did not happen.

I inserted my usb with W10, ran the installer, during first reboot, it picked up the w7 drive and forgot about the 10, so i went into bios, setup w10 as main drive, and continued the installer. Windows 10 was installed, i ran through the setup, but at no point did the dual boot appear. I got all the way into W10, and nothing. Restarted, no choice of w7. Went into bios, picked my W7, and booted up, this had now run into issues, and needed to run a self check before it was able to boot, but it did finally make its way into W7 (which is my main OS atm, while i test all software in W10, and make sure everything works)

Is it the 32/64bit causing issues, or have MS removed the dual boot feature? or did i screw up while doing this?

 

[Mr.Scott]

It's because you put the OS's on separate drives. If you had just partitioned one drive it would have worked the way you expected.
You have to select your boot drive (either W7 or W10) from F8 upon post to work the way it is now.

 

[Pierre3400]

It's because you put the OS's on separate drives. If you had just partitioned one drive it would have worked the way you expected.
You have to select your boot drive (either W7 or W10) from F8 upon post to work the way it is now.

Interresting, i watched a few videos on youtube about this, all of them did it on one drive, but they all said, it can be done with 2 drives.

 

[knoober]

It can be done with 2 drives, but there is a bit of extra configuration when you do it that way. You either have to select which device to boot from manually as Mr.Scott has said, or there is a tool called EasyBCD that will help you with what you want. It has been quite a while since I used EasyBCD but I recall it to be simple to use and effective. I know it has some good word of mouth reputation in these parts also.

 

[Pierre3400]

I will look into that, thnx. Worste case, i have space to shrink the volume and run of one drive.

 

[Alaric]

Interresting, i watched a few videos on youtube about this, all of them did it on one drive, but they all said, it can be done with 2 drives.

I had that problem until I updated my BIOS. Now the dual boot option pops right up. My OS' are on seperate drives as well.

 

[Pierre3400]

I will try this, but i actually believe i updated not too long ago, as i was having issues with USB 3.0. But i will try. Did you just run installation like i did?

 

[Alaric]

I installed W7 Pro on a Samsung SSD, updated it, then installed W10. I had to choose the W10 drive-twice-to boot in to W7 for months. Then I updated the BIOS to solve another problem and suddenly I had the dual boot menu. I did install W7, then disconnect the drive before installing W10.

 

[Pierre3400]

Okay, well, i think i am out of luck on that account. I just checked, and i am running the newest Bios update. Only 5 years old :/

 

[trents]

Pierre, did you have both drives connected at the same time when installing the operating systems? If so, this typically causes trouble as the Windows installer tends to spread some system files onto both drives. Lots of us have had this problem with multiple drives connected during installation.

 

[Alaric]

Pierre, did you have both drives connected at the same time when installing the operating systems? If so, this typically causes trouble as the Windows installer tends to spread some system files onto both drives. Lots of us have had this problem with multiple drives connected during installation.

On my reinstall of W7 either 7 or 10 put the W7 boot.exe on the W10 drive because I didn't unplug it first. I forgot because W7 was already installed before. I won't be making that error again. Every M$ OS install needs to be in a lonely, singular environment, with the older OS installed first.

 

[Pierre3400]

I did have both drive connected yes. This did cause a boot failure when going back to the W7 HDD, but it did mange to fix itself. Currently running single drive, and have partioned the single drive to handle W10 install, i think im going to use that route in any case, since i already made space for it.

But good to know for future, i will disconnect the W7 drive, install W10, and then reconnect W7.