W8.1/W7-64 dual drive (SSD & SATA) GPT/MBR installation/boot menu problems (Network Steve Forum)

W8.1/W7-64 dual drive (SSD & SATA) GPT/MBR installation/boot menu problems

I'm posting here because I'm not sure which forum (W8 or W7) is most appropriate since this is a dual boot problem.

Setup:

New Dell Xto XPS8700 with Windows 8.1 installed on a 256GB SSD drive. I upgraded to W8.1 Pro but have no installation disk for it.

2nd drive is a 2TB SATA.

Goal:

Keep W8.1 Pro on SSD.

Install W7 Ultimate 64 (legal copy, installation DVD) on SATA.

Select which one I want at boot.

Main Issue:

Both are installed but I cannot easily choose which one I want at boot. See Dual Boot Problems and Current State for details.

Background

1. I disabled Secure Boot in the BIOS and Fast Startup in Win6.ws 8.1

2. I created 3 partitions (D,E,F) on the SATA drive (a GPT drive)

3. Used the Advanced Option in W8 to boot from the DVD.

4. The Windows 7 installation started from the DVD but at the initial screen (Language, Country), it hung. No keyboard, no mouse. Had to turn computer off. Happened multiple times, either from cold start, using F12 to boot from DVD, or soft start from inside W8.

5. Using F12, selected legacy boot from DVD. Installation got beyond first screen, selected Custom Install. Tried to install to the E: Partition and got the message that W7 could not be installed on a GPT drive - no doubt because I had done a legacy boot. But please remember, I made that choice because it was the only way to get past the first screen.

6. Went back into W8 and deleted the volumes on the SATA drive, changed it to MBR, recreated the volumes.

7. Using F12, again selected legacy boot from the DVD and was able to install W7 on the E: partition - except for having to do multiple F12 selections during reboots to keep from getting sent back into W8.

8. Finally got W7 installed. Logged in. OK so far.

Dual Boot Problems:

1. No boot menu. Computer booted directly into W8. And, yes, Fast Startup in W8.1 still disabled.

2. Downloaded and installed EasyBCD. Created boot menu for W8.1 and W7. Windows 8.1 is listed first & is the default. Windows 7 is listed second.

3. Reboot: select W8. Fine, I'm into W8.1

4. Reboot: select W7. One line of hieroglyphics across top of screen. Hard freeze. Had to unplug.

5. Do F12 legacy reboot from SATA drive. Get a different boot menu. Windows 7 is on top, Windows 8 Media Version is below. I select W7 and log into W7.

6. Do F12 legacy reboot from SATA drive. Selecct Windows 8 Media Version. Get long error message gist of which was that no Windows installation found.

Current State:

1. The default boot into W8 works fine.

2. Can't get into W7 unless I do an F12 legacy boot from SATA at startup.

3. If I do F12 legacy boot from SATA, I can't get into W8.

This isn't acceptable. I want W7 to be my default working environment. More to the point, I want to be able to switch between the two OSes via a single boot menu.

I'm assuming the boot problem may stem from the original GPT/MBR split (with the SSD being GPT and the SATA being MBR) but remember, the only reason I changed the SATA to MBR was because the W7 installation software froze during the standard, original configuration.

Things I've tried:

1. Via W8, got to a command prompt where I ran bootsect.exe /scanos. Result was that it found NO Windows Installations. Obviously incorrect.

2. Uninstalled EasyBCD from W8.

3. Rebooted. Same boot menu as before, text choice between W8 and W7 (as I'd set things up in EasyBCD).

4. Via W8 Command Prompt, did a bcdboot c:\windows: Got the error message: failure when attempting to copy boot files.

What I want to do seems to me to be quite simple: run W8 from the SSD, run W7 from the SATA. It's my understanding that I should be able to install W7-Ult. 64 on a GPT drive and that would, I am hoping, solve the boot menu problem. But the W7 installation setup will not run from the DVD if I do a normal (no F12) boot from the DVD.

Does anybody know what change I could make to get past that freeze and install W7 to a GPT - or is there some other fix?

Note: I do not want to re-install W8. Dell's recovery disk is for W8.1. I don't have a recovery disk for W8.1 PRO (or even a file for that matter since Microsoft simply downloaded what it needed after I bought the upgrage).

I don't mind starting over with the W7 install but don't want to repeat what I've already done.

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February 25th, 2015 5:21pm

I hate to have to ask this, but why dual boot? Why don't you use VirtualBox and create a virtualized guest operating system? https://www.virtualbox.org/

This way you have access to both operating systems at the same time...

Hypervisors (virtual systems) are becoming very efficient at passing dedicated processing power to the guest operating systems, that you'll see very little benefit having a dual boot scenario...

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February 25th, 2015 5:25pm

I was afraid of this question.

First, I always dual-boot and have done so for the past 2 decades. I usually have two different OS generations, although on my last computer I ran W7-32 and W7-64. My main reason is simple: something always goes wrong with Windows. Always. With a dual boot machine and my main apps installed under both, when one of them blue screens or freezes or does something else weird, I can simply boot to the other and continue working. When I can find a couple hours or days to solve the problem with the misbehaving OS, I do. But I do not want to lose hours or days troubleshooting an OS problem when I should be working.

Second, the SSD drive is only 256GB. I've already installed a Hyper-V for Windows 7 -32 for the one app I use that won't run under any 64-bit OS.

More to the point, the main apps I use are also ancient but run just fine under W7-64. They do not run under W8 and are, according to Microsoft's page, incompatible with Windows 8. I don't want to create yet another virtual machine for W7-64. I would spend all my time inside it and expect there would be numerous, endless problems because, as I understand it, virtual machines are designed essentially to be test environments, not work environments.

Lastly, I hate Windows 8. Even with Classic Shell installed, I keep falling into Metro which is a complete and utter disaster. This is a work/professional computer. I use a tablet for social media stuff.

I had thought it would be easier to install W7-64 and dual boot with W8 (in the hopes that next year W10 might be usable) than to downgrade from W8 to W7. But the latter is looking more and more necessary until I can solve this problem.

February 25th, 2015 7:12pm

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