It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
Community
General discussion (archive)Win7 Dual Booting on 2 Harddisks with XP(8 posts)solved(8 posts)solved
(8 posts)solved
Pages:
1
This is my favourite topic
Posted November 01, 2011
Not sure how to go by it since I never really needed to dual boot OSes before, until now.
I have a 1 TB harddisk with WinXP and all my games, work and data inside. I'm thinking of getting a new 2TB harddisk along with the retail box of Win7 Home Premium and install Win7 on the 2TB harddisk. WinXP will still be my main OS and no, I'm not doing this for BF3. Now with the 2 harddisks connected, how do I activate dual booting where you select which OS u wanna go to at the start? From BIOS?

Also I've been using OEM Windows all this while. As I understand it, a retail box copy of Windows will allow activation of Windows with no limit to how many times you change your motherboard as long as you keep installation on 1 computer?
This question / problem has been solved by Arkoseimage
Posted November 01, 2011
avatar
cw8: Not sure how to go by it since I never really needed to dual boot OSes before, until now.
I have a 1 TB harddisk with WinXP and all my games, work and data inside. I'm thinking of getting a new 2TB harddisk along with the retail box of Win7 Home Premium and install Win7 on the 2TB harddisk. WinXP will still be my main OS and no, I'm not doing this for BF3. Now with the 2 harddisks connected, how do I activate dual booting where you select which OS u wanna go to at the start? From BIOS?

Also I've been using OEM Windows all this while. As I understand it, a retail box copy of Windows will allow activation of Windows with no limit to how many times you change your motherboard as long as you keep installation on 1 computer?
If those OSs will be installed on separate HDDs there will be no need of additional program. In my PC I can press F8 while powering up - comes a menu when I can choose if I want to start from HDD0 or HDD0 (or any other bootable device). Look for message like Press Fx for BBS Popup. If you want to keep those OS separated - I would disconnect XP drive, install Win7 and then reconnect XP drive. After that it would be feasible to boot from bios pop up menu those 2 systems.

EDIT: I use AMIBIOS on Asus mobo.
Post edited November 01, 2011 by tburger
Posted November 01, 2011
avatar
cw8: I'm thinking of getting a new 2TB harddisk along with the retail box of Win7 Home Premium and install Win7 on the 2TB harddisk. WinXP will still be my main OS ... how do I activate dual booting where you select which OS u wanna go to at the start?
All you have to do is go ahead and install Windows 7 to the new hard drive; it will see XP and set up a dual boot for you automatically. Note that Windows 7 will become the default OS so you'll need to change it back to XP as described here (try "Option One" first).

Having a dual boot setup will give you a menu which waits for a few seconds before launching the default OS (or you can hit enter to launch it immediately). If you aren't using Windows 7 all the time and don't want to have a timer every time another option is to disable the selection timer shown in the steps above and use F8 at boot to get to the other OS when needed.
avatar
cw8: Also I've been using OEM Windows all this while. As I understand it, a retail box copy of Windows will allow activation of Windows with no limit to how many times you change your motherboard as long as you keep installation on 1 computer?
Only OEM versions have hardware upgrade limitations; retail versions can be installed however you like.
Posted November 01, 2011
avatar
Arkose: All you have to do is go ahead and install Windows 7 to the new hard drive; it will see XP and set up a dual boot for you automatically.
In this scenario - if HDD with Win7 fails - will OP have opportunity to boot XP drive without any additional activities?
Posted November 01, 2011
avatar
tburger: In this scenario - if HDD with Win7 fails - will OP have opportunity to boot XP drive without any additional activities?
XP can't recover from this by itself but fixing it should be as easy as booting from an XP install CD, launching the Recovery Console and using the fixboot command (or, if that doesn't work, fixmbr followed by fixboot)--although for some OEM systems the correct partition may need to be entered manually. If the removal of the Windows 7 hard drive is known in advance these changes can be made within XP without needing the disc.

Either way this isn't a situation that can be avoided because launching XP through the 7 boot loader is the best and cleanest way of doing things, especially if the long-term goal is to drop XP in favour of 7.
Posted November 01, 2011
No need to BIOS anything here: just use EasyBCD and the chainloading of the boot loader for the OS you choose should be easy enough....
Posted November 01, 2011
avatar
Arkose: snip
Well.. for me the cleanest way is when Win7 and XP don't interfere with each other... In BIOS you set HDD with your main OS as primary boot device (this is one-time operation), save it and next time when you need to enter your secondary OS just bring BBS pop-up menu (this is NOT equivalent to enter BIOS) and choose alternate HDD. Two fully independent systems with both OSs ready to run even if other fails. But again - I don't know if OP's mainboard supports it.
Post edited November 01, 2011 by tburger
Posted November 05, 2011
Btw, Win 7 Home Premium doesn't have Win XP mode? How does one run programs that aren't compatible with Win7 in Home Premium then?
Pages:
1
This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)Win7 Dual Booting on 2 Harddisks with XP(8 posts)solved(8 posts)solved
(8 posts)solved