Dual-boot Vista(x32) + Win7(x64) on separate drives?

[klynam]

Ok gurus, I thought I could handle this one but I'm stumped.

Is there a way to dual boot Vista and Win7 when installed on two separate HDDs?

I'm running a Dell XPS-420. It came w/ Vista Home Premium (x32) installed on SATA-0 HDD. It works fine, but I want to try Win7x64.

I unplugged the SATA0-HDD, added another HDD to SATA1, then loaded the new Win7 onto the new SATA1-HDD. Install was fine and Win7x64 runs fine on my box.

So I plugged in the SATA0-HDD (original Vista load) and restarted. The normal start up boots to Vista and no boot or OS options appear.

If I physically unplug the Vista drive, the Win7 drive comes up fine. But with the SATA0-Vista drive plugged in, only Vista will boot.

I've looked everywhere I can find online for this, and not having much luck since this is a DUAL HDD scenario and not a partitioned HDD scenario.

So for the basic questions - no offense taken, I'd start here too...LOL...


Yes - I have the new HDD physically installed correctly and SATA1 enabled
No - I'm not presented with an OS selection option on start up.
No - Advanced System Preferences does not give me a Win7 option either, only Vista.
No - hitting F12/F2 doesn't get me anywhere, because the Win7/SATA1 drive doesn't show up as a boot disk option anywhere on those menus.
Yes - the Win7/STAT1 drive does appear (as H: drive) after Vista loads, and otherwise seems to function properly.
Yes - if I unplug the STAT0 (Vista) drive the SATA1 (Win7) loads Win7 properly.


Hoping I'm missing something silly to get a dual boot Vista/Win7 working here...???

[MaxxuM]

If you had left Vista connected while installing Win7 on another drive the boot loader would have given you an option to boot either OS. If you haven't invested a lot of time in Windows 7 I would just install again and leave Vista there and let the software autodetect the OS. You can fix this but it's a pain.

Just an FYI, it doesn't really matter what drive an OS is installed as long as the install order is followed (generally older to newest OS). Vista and Windows 7 will boot as C: drive. Other drive letters can be moved around as you see fit, but the CD/DVD shouldn't be moved.

[overclicker]

A couple more options...

Use bcdedit to manually add Win 7 to your Vista bootloader.

or

BootIt Next Generation (BiNG)
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootit-next-generation.htm

How-To Guides
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/howto/index.htm

or some other third party bcdeditor

[klynam]

thanks for the input - I never thought of installing the second OS with the existing drive running. I'll also try the boot edit options...

[hollis_f]

I've never used it, but Acronis Disk Manager has a pretty comprehensive OS Selector/Boot Manager. I own ADM for all its other goodies. If the OSS/BM is as good then it'll be just what you need.

[klynam]

Just found this - http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1 - it's free and seems pretty straightforward (compared to a lot of other options...LOL) - gonna try it later today...

[overclicker]

Well, if you're going to go the EasyBCD route... you might do better using the latest beta which supports Windows 7:

http://neosmart.net/forums/showthread.php?t=642

Looks like the latest atm is: EasyBCD 2.0 Beta - Build 63.exe

It's been awhile since using EasyBCD, so I'm not current with it. Not sure if it'll find your OS if it's on another drive... maybe it will/does.

As for the other option... using BiNG... it really would be easy to hook things up as they are now. The video/tute for doing this is here:

Installing Windows 7 to its Own Primary Partition
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/videos/bing/win7.wmv

pertinent info begins @ around 2:01

Basically, all you have to do is:
Add Boot Menu item
Give it a unique name, say, "Win7"
Select the drive that Win7 is on (probably will show up as being on Drive 1, partition 1)
Move the Win7 entry to the top
Hit F10 to save

Now, when you boot up, you'll see Windows Vista and Win7, select which one you want to boot into... and away you go.

The plus side of using BiNG is that you would then also be able to manage/create/re-size partitions very easily now and in the future.

2¢

[klynam]

Switched to latest eBCD 2.0 beta release...and posted to the eBCD forum.

If it doesn't work, I'll fallback to BiNG per recs above...