windows dual boot

Discussion in 'Windows 8' started by jessie, Sep 13, 2013.

  1. jessie

    jessie MDL Member

    Jun 30, 2007
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    Hi I purchased win8 upgrade install on clean drive but i dont wont the dual boot screen
    any more I disconnected the win7 and the windows8 drive wont boot
    so i booted to win8 upgrade dvd selected repair and it wont repair because it cant find windows7 drive
    iam i stuck with with dual boot or spend $$ but retail dvd and start all over i want to keep my win7
    drive and boot to it from bois menu when i want win7
     
  2. intel_outside

    intel_outside MDL Novice

    Sep 8, 2013
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    By the look of things it appears that your boot sector is located on Win7 drive. So to successfully boot from Win8 hd you have to move the boot partition to that drive. You can google "How to move System Reserved Partition/Boot Partition".

    However, the boot menu option menu would still show during boot up as the boot manager contains two os'es. However, you could delete Win7 entry from boot menu but then in future if you want to use win7, you have to add it to the boot menu again.

    Or you could leave the boot entry intact and set Win 8 as default os.

    Good luck.
     
  3. pisthai

    pisthai Imperfect Human

    Jul 29, 2009
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    Or you could just do a clean new install of Windows 8 or 8.1 using the Upgrade key you've already! That would be the most clean solution.In that case you could even keep the Windows 7 drive in workable condition for the time being. Just disconnect the drive before you start the clean install of 8 or 8.1!
     
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  4. endbase

    endbase MDL Guru

    Aug 12, 2012
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  5. intel_outside

    intel_outside MDL Novice

    Sep 8, 2013
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    Or if you don't want to reinstall any os taking a cue out of pisthai's idea of having separate boot partition for either os I would suggest this:

    First boot into Win 7 hd. Then from Disk Management create a primary partition similar to Win 7 Reserved Partition on Win 8 hd. Assign it a drive letter and copy the boot information from Win 7 reserved partition to this partition. Now you have two partitions having boot information. However system will still boot from win7 part because it is still the active partition.

    Now go to boot menu and delete Win 8 boot option from there. Now restrart your computer and again boot into win7 but this time set win 8 hd reserved partition you just created as active and win 7 hd reserved partition as inactive using diskpart. Restart again and hopefully you would get to the boot screen menu. This time select Win 8 to boot. Once at desktop, again goto boot option, set Win 8 as default OS and delete the Win 7 boot option. Shut down and remove the Win 7 hd and start your computer. If everything went well you would boot straight into Win 8 without boot menu screen and both your os'es would have their separate boot partition.

    However when wanting to boot Win 7 again you would have to set the Win 7 hd reserved partition as active from diskpart so that system can see your Win 7 reserved part.

    Note: All this is valid only if you haven't changed anything in Win 7 reserved partition and both os'es boot information is still there.

    Good Luck.
     
  6. jessie

    jessie MDL Member

    Jun 30, 2007
    166
    7
    10
    thanks for the help but the only thing that will work is

    Or you could just do a clean new install of Windows 8 or 8.1 using the Upgrade key you've already! That would be the most clean solution In that case you could even keep the Windows 7 drive in workable condition for the time being. Just disconnect the drive before you start the clean install of 8 or 8.1!