About dual booting

esoteric · 31 Jul 2015 at 21:46

I have Windows 7 installed on 2 different SSD's. I've been swapping between them via BIOS by moving the disks to 1st and last boot priority depending which one I want.

Is this what people normally do? I've never done it before.

I tried using boot menu via F12 during POST but that wasn't what I expected, it just let me move disk priority like I would in, BIOS but it didn't boot the OS I wanted. Went to try F12 again and when I exited it hung so I had to hard reset and just did it via, BIOS.

esoteric · 1 Aug 2015 at 07:06

Having problems this morning. I am trying to go back to the new install, I've adjusted the boot priorities so the SSD with the new OS is booting first but it keeps loading my normal OS. I booted from USB and did a Windows Restore on the new O/S thinking some updates may have done something but even after that I still can't boot to the new OS.

james.miller · 1 Aug 2015 at 07:44

It's not normal, no. You shouldn't need to change your boot priority really. When installing multiple OSs you keep the boot priority the same. Each new OS gets added to the boot menu which then allows you to choose which OS to start at boot up.

Try easybcd, that's pretty good at sorting multiple OS boot issues. Might not work though as changing the boot priority probably means both OSs think they're installed on the C drive. You may have to reinstall one of them at least.

esoteric · 1 Aug 2015 at 08:35

hhhmm, it's never behaved like that, it always loaded an OS I never automatically had an option to choose which is why I started to change boot priorities.

[EDIT] Well this is strange. Since you said boot priority in BIOS doesn't matter I changed it to how I want it with the main OS SSD being first, rebooted and the new install has loaded. Doing my head in this is.

[EDIT 2] Struggled again to get back to my main OS. From here I'll try easybcd.

I finally have Win10 reserved on the other install though which is against my Win7 key.

evohicks · 1 Aug 2015 at 19:25

james.miller said:
Try easybcd, that's pretty good at sorting multiple OS boot issues.

I use this from time to time, good program.
I also agree there's no need to change boot order as you should be able to change the prefered default O/S to start.
I dual booted W7 and W8.1 for a while but after not using W7 for a while now, I swapped it for W10

esoteric · 1 Aug 2015 at 21:05

EasyBCD sorted it.

Wasn't so straight forward though. Some how the drive lost it's letter so when I was looking in EasyBCD it wasn't showing the drive. Reassigning the drive a letter then let me choose it in EasyBCD and add it's Windows install to the boot loader.

I've rebooted and tried it, all good.