Dual Boot Dilema
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From: Mike S on 4 Jun 2010 18:40 On 6/4/2010 1:57 PM, Db wrote: > > having a dual boot with > vista and w7 won't be > worthwhile. > > there isn't any advantage > and you can only use > one o.s. at any one time. > > if however, you had two > different computers like > a pc and laptop, > > you could make each > one have a different o.s. > and enjoy the best of > both worlds. I have a dual boot XP/Ubuntu machine, if I push F8 while the computer is booting up a menu comes up with boot options. I think most modern computers have this feature now. I only mention it because I don't like trusting any OS to install a dual boot with any other OS and do it right. Whenever I install a 2nd OS on a machine I make sure the hard drive with the 1st working OS is disconnected & unplugged so there is no possible way for it to be corrupted, then complete the 2nd OS installation. I like to keep life simple! Just a thought, Mike
From: Andy on 5 Jun 2010 00:49
On Fri, 4 Jun 2010 11:36:56 -0700, Andy Siegel <AndySiegel(a)discussions.microsoft.com> wrote: >I have a computer with space for only two hard drives. It was originally >built with Windows XP Pro (Disk 0). I added a drive (Disk 1) and loaded >Vista Ultimate on it and I do a dual boot routine as needed. At this point, >I'd like to install a new Disk 0 and build it as Windows 7 Pro. (I really >wish I could upgrade my Vista Ultimate to Win7 Pro) I guess my question is >this, if I put in a new Disk 0, boot to a DVD and build it to Win 7, what >will happen to my Disk 1? Will Windows still recognize that there are two >bootable drives and ask me which one to use? When I put a new drive into the >disk 0 spot, the system didn't seem to know what to do which leads me to >believe that there's something in the MBR of disk 0 that tells the system >that there are two bootable drives. I guess you could say that I'm not sure >exactly how it all works. > >Thank you for any help. Disk 0 contains the Windows System partition. The System partition contains the Boot Configuration Data (BCD) that allows booting to either Vista or an earlier operating system, viz., Windows XP. When you replace Disk 0 and install Windows 7 on it, the new BCD won't know anything about the Vista installation on Disk 1, so you have to boot from Windows 7 DVD and run startup repair, adding Vista to the BCD. Then you will be able to dual boot to Windows 7 or Vista. |