Installed Win8 on my second drive and when I bootup I get the select Win7 or Win8 screen. Win8 boots fine, but I notice when I select Win7 it almost starts loading the screen goes black and computer reboots. It then boots directly into Win7 without showing the Win7/8 menu. Is this normal? It boots fine and I can restart and boot into Win8 but each time I boot back into Win7 I I get the reboot?
Yes, I had the same issue with non RTM builds and its a PIA. Never tried with RTM as its on its own SSD now.
It's normal, that's how it's designed to work. Windows 8's boot loader it's part of the OS itself. You can't boot into Windows 7 directly from the bootloader because that bootloader is part of the Win8 OS. It's not designed for multi-booting. So if you choose a separate OS it has to reboot again in order to access the other OS. If you want to choose which OS to boot to without rebooting between then you'll have to use a traditional/dedicated bootloader. Either install one yourself, or you can use the legacy Windows bootloader which was designed for multibooting. If you want that then you can run an elevated command prompt and type in: bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy
Because the HDD boot sector is not enough to hold the metro-boot files, so on boot-up it actually boots into the win8 drives and load system32\bootim.exe; if win7 is chosen, it sets a bcdedit /bootsequence command for the next boot to go directly to win7. I think MS would modify this arrangement when ReFS becomes standard in win9.
The boot problem is while using 2 OS's on the same HDD. I use to install each OS on it's own HDD and therefore could use the BIOS Boot Manager for you boot what OS I like while chose the dedicated with that specific OS. In that case I didn't need to use 3.party Boot Manager and therefore avoid problems if that Boot Manager didn't work. That HDD which hold the OS I most working with is set as default Boot HDD in BIOS.
You Can Disable New Metro Boot Loader and Bring Back 7 Style Boot Loader in Windows 8 1. Login in Windows 8 2. Run cmd as admin 3. Type Code: bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy and hit enter 4. You'll get a message "The operation completed successfully" 5. That's it. Restart your system and you'll see classic Windows Vista and 7 style boot loader in Windows 8. To re-enable execute this command Code: bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy standard
This works a treat. Specifically Recovery options (access to safe mode) is a disaster in Windows 8. As the new bootloader is essentially loaded after Windows has started, if something in the boot process is messed (bad drivers) you're high and dry. In theory the old standby of F8 for recovery options has moved to Shift+F8, but I've had limited success getting it to work. By using legacy bootloader, when I have the countdown going on the B&W options to select Win8 (default) or Win7, I can hit F8 and I immediately get Windows 8 recovery options (IE: safe mode) Another useful option is Code: bcdedit /set bootstatuspolicy IgnoreAllFailures. This allows you to crash during boot as much as you want without triggering system repair.