Windows7/8 Dual Boot (etc.)

[Stanray]

Hi Stanley, all my music hdd are SATA and I use the external boxes to convert SATA to USB 3.0 to connect it to the mb.
Sorry, I have to update my signature.

I post some pictures here and in I'VE BUILT MY NEW PC FOR XXHIGHEND AND ... with the USB 3.0 boxes, the Anti-vibration discs, etc

Best regards,
Juan

Muchos gracias Juan.

I ordered the converter from the Spanish Amazon site.

Tonight I will install 09z9b. For now on W7, as I didn't succeed in making a dual boot W7 and W8 configuration (pc won't boot on W8 DVD for some reason).

Best wishes,
Stanley

[juanpmar]

Muchos gracias Juan.

I ordered the converter from the Spanish Amazon site.

Tonight I will install 09z9b. For now on W7, as I didn't succeed in making a dual boot W7 and W8 configuration (pc won't boot on W8 DVD for some reason).

Best wishes,
Stanley

De nada Stanley (you are welcome)

Someone else asked (PM) about how to install W8 and W7 for dual boot and I sent him this link http://www.labnol.org/software/install-windows-8-dual-boot/20939/

You can also find there some links that could help you also to solve your problem with your W8 DVD.

Would be a good thing if you could install W8 so you can compare it with W7 and test it with the best settings for each one and see if really W8 and 09-z9 is a good match or not.

Best regards,
Juan

[PeterSt]

Hey you both,

Someone asked to stay on topic. I did not disagree (or otherwise I would have said so).

So I split this from wherever it was not liked much.
But sure continue here if you like.

Peter

[AlainGr]

[juanpmar]

 

[PeterSt]

haha

[boleary]

[Jud]

Stan, did you change the BIOS setting to boot from disk when you tried to install from DVD?

[juanpmar]

Hi Peter,

Could you change the name of this topic to "How to install W8 and W7 for dual boot" or something similar?. Now it seems hard to know what it is about. Or maybe is Stan who has to change it as he is the first one in the thread.

Thanks,
Juan

[Stanray]

Hi Peter,

Could you change the name of this topic to "How to install W8 and W7 for dual boot" or something similar?. Now it seems hard to know what it is about. Or maybe is Stan who has to change it as he is the first one in the thread.

Thanks,
Juan

Good plan Juan, thank you.

Possibly others might run into questions about W7/8 DB.
I will try to install a W8 dual boot later this week when I have time and will report back.

Stanley

[Stanray]

Stan, did you change the BIOS setting to boot from disk when you tried to install from DVD?

Hi Jud,

Yes, in the BIOS I set the DVD-drive as the first device in the boot order, but this is ignored and W7 keep starting up.

*In* W7 however, the DVD-drive works OK and I can start the W8 setup (which is not what I should want).

Stanley

[juanpmar]

Yes, in the BIOS I set the DVD-drive as the first device in the boot order, but this is ignored and W7 keep starting up.

*In* W7 however, the DVD-drive works OK and I can start the W8 setup (which is not what I should want).

Stanley

Hi Stan,

You have an upgrade version of W8 (from W7 to W8) or it is a  W8 dvd to make a clean installation?

This is the tutorial I followed to install W8, there you can find also links on how to make a partition to install it:

http://www.buildeasypc.com/sw/windows_8/install_windows_8.htm

Regards,
Juan

[juanpmar]

Stan, see also this tutorial, it is a very good one also, try to read both tutorials, sure you´ll find a solution to your problem:

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows-8/ss/windows-8-clean-install-part-1.htm

Here is a list of Windows 8 tutorials, these are tutorials about how to install Windows 8 and other different related issues, nothing related with XXHighEnd. For Windows 8 and XXHighEnd follow Peter´s tutorials.

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows-8/windows-8.htm

Juan

[PeterSt]

If you downloaded this from MS etc. ... that version is NOT bootable (I am talking about a normal base version).

You can make it bootable with the "Windows 7 Download Tool" (never mind its name - and download that first). But before you use that you must extract the .iso, so you will see normal files in there. The output of the "Download Tool" must also be normal files.

Of course this is a bit of a stupid hassle because you first must make that bootable file set, and burn that to DVD again.
I wasted 5 or 6 DVDs before I understood what was all wrong and what to do. You can stick to one wasted DVD if all is right.

Hope this helps,
Peter

[Jud]

Or if you go the "Win7 Download Tool" route, you can avoid wasting any DVDs at all, as well as the step to extract from the iso IIRC, by using the "Download Tool" to make a bootable iso from a USB stick (must be 8GB or more, again IIRC).  That's the way I did it, and had no problems.  Goes faster than a DVD, especially with USB3 if you have a capable port and stick.  Probably one of Juan's tutorials describes this method, or if it does not, there are such tutorials on the web.

[Stanray]

Thanks all for the input.

I burned an ISO DVD according to one of the mentioned tutorials, but this disk reacts the same as my official W8 DVD.

Then I tried the disks in another W7 pc (my laptop) and guess what: the dvd's boot up perfectly. No problems here!

So it must be something else and I think it's related to *Legacy* and *UEFI* boottype (which I don't understand yet). 

Any ideas?

Stanley

[juanpmar]

Hi Stanley,

First disable Minimize OS in XXHighEnd, don´t forget it because frequently we start to make changes with this Minimize OS active and that is impossible, restart and after that and when all is done put the W8 DVD in the CDRom try, restart again and while restarting click repeatedly the key delete, that enters you to the BIOS, there go to EXIT and click on Load Setup Defaults, this is just in case you have modified something previously. Then go to BOOT, there you will find 1st Boot Device, 2nd Boot Device, 3rd Boot Device. With the arrows mark 1st Boot Device and click Enter in your keyboard, a window opens where you have in bold letters the Boot Device you have active now to boot your pc, ok move the arrows until the bold letters are ATAPI CD-ROM (or similar), then click Enter again. Click F10 and Ok (Save configuration changes...).
Now it is supposed that your system will start from your CD Rom (W8 DVD). Then follow the steps from the link I sent you yesterday to install W8 in a partitioin. http://www.buildeasypc.com/sw/windows_8/install_windows_8.htm. To create a partition to install W8 take special attention to steps 8, 9, 10 and 11.

Let me know how it goes and if you find a problem

Best regards,
Juan

[PeterSt]

Or if you go the "Win7 Download Tool" route, you can avoid wasting any DVDs at all, as well as the step to extract from the iso IIRC, by using the "Download Tool" to make a bootable iso from a USB stick (must be 8GB or more, again IIRC).  That's the way I did it, and had no problems.  Goes faster than a DVD, especially with USB3 if you have a capable port and stick.  Probably one of Juan's tutorials describes this method, or if it does not, there are such tutorials on the web.

Jud,

Assuming you meant to say "make a bootable USB stick" ... I would personally never advise that to people who don't make a daily job out of these things (so to speak). When this works the first time you are or lucky or have a mobo/BIOS which has been made very (very) explicitly for the job. I mean, even when it already worked, it can take me a plain half of an hour to let it boot again after some mangling. Example in my case : when you take out all of your disks to be sure you won't be formatting a wrong one (inserting disks hot-plugged back in later), it will never boot when the status is not "boot from USB" already. Never. This is because it can only detect the thing in a live (OS) system. So, plugging in the stick when the PC is off and think it will boot from the stick - no way (unless it booted last time from there). It is just not seen in the BIOS in that situation.

... not in my PC ...

And thus, when you are not sure whether your boot medium is bootable in the first place, this is not the way to go of course. But sure, once you have done it before and you know your workflow is OK, then it's a matter of mangling till it works.

Peter

[CoenP]

Or if you go the "Win7 Download Tool" route, you can avoid wasting any DVDs at all, as well as the step to extract from the iso IIRC, by using the "Download Tool" to make a bootable iso from a USB stick (must be 8GB or more, again IIRC).  That's the way I did it, and had no problems.  Goes faster than a DVD, especially with USB3 if you have a capable port and stick.  Probably one of Juan's tutorials describes this method, or if it does not, there are such tutorials on the web.

That's the way I was successfull too. My music PC has no optical storage devcies.
I keep the install-usb for mobo and OS drive updates. I store the motherboard drivers in a separate driver directory.

Easy as pie, even I can do it!

regards, Coen
regards, Coen

[stefanobilliani]

In my experience the bootable USB stick is handy *when* you explicity want to boot in UEFI . Not all DVD's are make up for UEFI , even the ones that comes from the Windows Upgrade tool . Moreover , if your motherboard is set up for a Windows boot loader , and *not* a legacy OS , that is when your mobo will not see the DVD somehow .

There is also a way to format the USB stick in FAT 32 by the command prompt ( terminal ) and copy all the files of the DVD into it with explorer , and obtain that way a UEFI bootable media , without the W7 tool .

S

[Jud]

Have a reasonably old mobo, *not* UEFI (Asus Formula III Rampage), and the stick install worked like a charm first time, so my experience mirrors Coen's rather than Peter's.  (The BIOS does let me boot from a USB device.)

But I do have a fair number of years of experience in both multiboot arrangements and USB stick installs, so it wasn't anything new or scary.  A big reason it wasn't scary is that I *always* have at least one backup ready, a lesson from painful experience.  That way it's just aggravation (time) rather than disaster (lost stuff).  In fact I recently managed to accidentally erase my main external music drive but was able to restore nearly everything from a backup, though it's taken some time.

[AlainGr]

My experience in this matter is quite nonexistent. I have made some dual boots a long time ago.

With all that is possible nowadays, I have decided to have a different drive for each OS. Of course, this can be done only whenever feasable, affordable and practical.

I use SSD for the OS. It is "standard" for me to expect quick boot and quick access to any program. I can also afford to have all my drives external.

Each OS stands on its own SSD. I just have to swap the connection between one drive or the other. 

Not that this is economical nor practical for everyone of course, but it can be another avenue...

Alain

[juanpmar]

At the end the only OS that we´ll use will be W8, it looks that Peter is not going back to W7 and all the upgrades of XXHighEnd will be done for W8. So this dual boot configuration is only for the purpose to make some momentary comparisons between the two OS. That's at least what it seems.

Juan

[Jud]

At the end the only OS that we´ll use will be W8, it looks that Peter is not going back to W7 and all the upgrades of XXHighEnd will be done for W8. So this dual boot configuration is only for the purpose to make some momentary comparisons between the two OS. That's at least what it seems.

Juan

I know, and since my MacBook Pro laptop in the main system is only W7-capable with Boot Camp, I will have to do something in a year or two at least: a newer MBP, or a PC music server.  The latter would I think be much less expensive.  Because there is also Mac software I like, I would want to build it as a "Hackintosh," and why not throw in Linux as well?  (See, multi-booting, so almost on topic!)  An interesting project, but not for the immediate future.

[PeterSt]

Each OS stands on its own SSD. I just have to swap the connection between one drive or the other.

Yes, but people must be careful that they don't make a Dual Boot of *that*. I mean, once you set this up from within the other OS, you will just have that. This is tricky, because the BCD Store will not be on both disks. And of course at one time it is on the one not in the system. And now the other won't run too anymore (can be repaired, but this is not so easy).

So, this is just the warning that a pair of swappables disks is very OK, but it should NOT be Dual Boot as such. Dual Boot is something different and it can be done with two disks just the same.

Peter

[PeterSt]

And of course there is the story that when you boot Windows 7 on a Dual Boot with Windows 8, you will loose your Restore Points from Windows 8.
Can be fixed ahead of disaster, but this really doesn't go automatically.

Peter

[Jud]

Oh.  Thanks for the warning, as I'll be installing XXHE on Win8 soon on the desktop where I have a dual boot.  So if I have a restore point in Win 8, I want to be sure to reboot to Win 8, or...?  I haven't noticed any problems with XXHE on a minimized Win 7 and dual booting with Win 8.

[PeterSt]

Well, I think XXHighEnd is "stable" now on the Minimized OS and needing a Restore Point for whatever reason. I mean, I don't think people ever need it for that reason.
But there can be other reasons of course. And when you need your Restore Point while it has gone, this is not nice.

Your W8 Restore Point disappears as soon as you even look at one of the other boots (including Repair - nice !).
W7 has the same behavior towards XP (and Vista ?) but less "hard". Actually it is a feature, though very hard to grasp, especially when you are in troubles.
And getting your "F8" operable in W8 is just that other thing. Can be done too, but by default it is nowhere - especially when you do NOT have a Dual Boot. Haha.

Peter

[AlainGr]

Ah... You helped me remembering what this was about (the restores that were lost) because of some interaction between W7 and W8...

I think I understand about a combination of dual-boot and 2 different physical drives... Bur of course, you know that this is not my case... They really are totally independant.

Alain

[PeterSt]

Ah... You helped me remembering what this was about (the restores that were lost) because of some interaction between W7 and W8...

Oh, you actually forgot eh ? Well, I recall a full Sunday afternoon chatting full a topic with you. For you it will have been morning though. Haha.

[AlainGr]

I may have a ram instead of a rom as memory

[Jud]

Well, I think XXHighEnd is "stable" now on the Minimized OS and needing a Restore Point for whatever reason. I mean, I don't think people ever need it for that reason.
But there can be other reasons of course. And when you need your Restore Point while it has gone, this is not nice.

Your W8 Restore Point disappears as soon as you even look at one of the other boots (including Repair - nice !).

Got it.  So quick followup question: Is this only between Win OSen?  Because Win7 can go away on my desktop as soon as I hear Win8 sounding the same or better.  But I would like to be able to use Linux and FreeBSD without having an additional concern.  I have backups on a schedule (happens while I'm away at work) so there wouldn't be data loss to any significant degree, but just the time and aggravation factor.

[PeterSt]

Jud, I can't tell. But typing BCDEdit /enum in an elevated command prompt (in Windows) should tell you enough. If you there see all OSes passing by, I guess the problem will be no different.

Actually, nah - I can't imagine. But still.

Internet won't bring you much luck either. At the time (last February I think) the problem of disappearing Restore Points was known, but the cause was not. I found that out myself (and Google may bring you my own posts about it).

Btw, for Windows it's a matter of not letting the OS see the drive of the other OS (there's Registry hacks for that).

[Jud]

Jud, I can't tell. But typing BCDEdit /enum in an elevated command prompt (in Windows) should tell you enough. If you there see all OSes passing by, I guess the problem will be no different.

Well, if the choice is between multi-booting and using XXHE with restore points intact, I guess you know which way I'll go.  See all of you, it's been nice.


















Yeah, right!!!

 

[PeterSt]

I don't care much.

















































Because I will allow any Restore Points to be deleted; I just know when that will happen, and will recreate one later.

[AlainGr]

Suddenly answers seem to take much place with so few words ?

[PeterSt]

Typically Dutch Alain.
Or American. I'm not sure about that yet.

[Jud]

Suddenly answers seem to take much place with so few words ?

Return/Enter key problems.   

[Stanray]

Thank you all for your time and advise.

It seems time and experiences have caught up on me and I decided to skip the dual boot and installed W8 only. It seems to work ok (nice to see W8 disguised as W7). Serious listening will start this weekend.

Best regards,
Stanley