I have just installed Windows 10,(Oh what fun that was) on a brand new SSD with the view to keep my Windows 7 SSD intact. I was hoping that once I reconnected all HDDS that on boot I would be given the choice whether to boot to 10 or 7 but it booted straight to ten. I could of course just keep disconnecting and reconnecting the SSD's dependent on what I wanted to do but i was hoping for a simpler solution. Is there one?
Yes. Plug both SSDs in and boot into Windows 10. Make a note of the drive letter for your Windows 7 partition. Open an Admin Command (Win + x, a) and type the following Code: diskpart list vol sel vol y assign letter=S exit bcdboot x:\windows /s s: /d /addlast diskpart sel vol s remove exit exit Where y=the number of the volume labeled SYSTEM and x is the drive letter of your Windows 7 partition. That should add the Windows 7 boot files so it appears when you boot from your Windows 10 SSD. I think anyway, been a fair while since I messed with dual boot.
I am fine up to "Where y=the number of the volume labeled SYSTEM" and I know what is meant by "x is the drive letter of your Windows 7" as I think I have hidden the system part of the drive which is the small 100mb or thereabouts one, is that correct?
Couple of things control this in Windows, GUI wise anyway: Type "msconfig" while on the start menu, hit enter, go to the boot tab. - Check both OSs show up under boot in msconfig. Go to System, Advanced system settings (on the left), Advanced tab, click Settings under Startup and recovery. - This is where you can see the list of available options for multiple OSs on boot. This may not help though if for whatever reason Windows boot can't see both OSs.
Where is this part of your post? In relation to the first part of your answer in Windows 10 under Boot in msconfig only Windows 10 is showing.
Sorry, I wrote and didn't really proof read When you type list vol it should throw out all your partitions and their relevant numbers. Like this So y in my case would be 2. For you, there might be two SYSTEM partitions (one from your 7 install and one from 10. 10 has a 500MB one or a 300MB one generally) As for X, it is literally just the partition that has all the Windows 7 installation on it, not the small 100MB boot partition. Edit: msconfig won't be much help in this case as the OSs are completely unaware of each other due to the SSDs not both being connected during install.
So this? diskpart list vol sel vol 4 assign letter=S exit bcdboot E:\windows /s s: /d /addlast diskpart sel vol s remove exit exit
You have just made me feel a bit queasy now, what is the worst that could happen? Please don't tell me. lol.
I meant more along the lines of all the messing about involved. Nothing bad could happen with those commands really
Right click the start button and click "system", then "advanced system settings" on the right column. Won't help if only 10 is showing in msconfig/boot though. Handy if you want to tweak things once you have it working though. Fingers crossed
I just press the f12 button on my motherboards splash screen to choose the disk I want to boot into. Don't most motherboards have an option like that?
I did not think of that though with my board it is the F8 key. I tell you this getting on in years coupled with a medical condition don't half kick the bejeeezers out of one's cognitive abilities.
It didn't occur to me either to suggest using the the boot menu key. At least this way you don't have to remember to press the key on startup
I think I was a bit premature with my thanks Craig as when I booted up this morning and chose Windows 7 I received this message.
Disable Secure Boot if it's on but I guess 7 isn't liking being booted from a 10 bootloader (UEFI/legacy installs maybe). We could fix it so it all works right, or you could just use the F8 boot menu. It's all down to how far down the rabbit hole you want to go
