How to install Win 7 on a second HD for dual booting with Windows 10 ?


  1. jim1931
    Posts : 7
    Windows 10, Windows 7
       New #1

    How to install Win 7 on a second HD for dual booting with Windows 10 ?


    I have Windows 10 installed on HD1 (Samsung) and working will.
    I had a second HD2 (WD) with Win7 installed for a dual boot operation.
    For some reason, I could never successfully boot into Win7. Out of frustration I decided to format the Win7 drive and start over.

    The problem now is I cannot install Win7 on the HD2 drive. When I choose F12 on boot up and select the WD disk, a screen appears saying "Windows Boot Manager" It instructs me to insert my Win7 install disk an reboot.

    Next steps:
    I insert the Win7 install disk and reboot using F12 to select the WD disk.
    The "Windows Boot Manager" screen appears again with the same instructions as above!
    If I reboot again and do nothing, the system will boot to Windows 10.
    My question, how to install Win7 on the WD disk and then setup a dual boot operation?

    Help is greatly appreciated.

    Jim
    Last edited by Brink; 27 Feb 2016 at 10:51. Reason: removed email address
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  3. jimbo45
    Posts : 11,247
    Windows / Linux : Arch Linux
       New #2

    jim1931 said:
    I have Windows 10 installed on HD1 (Samsung) and working will.
    I had a second HD2 (WD) with Win7 installed for a dual boot operation.
    For some reason, I could never successfully boot into Win7. Out of frustration I decided to format the Win7 drive and start over.

    The problem now is I cannot install Win7 on the HD2 drive. When I choose F12 on boot up and select the WD disk, a screen appears saying "Windows Boot Manager" It instructs me to insert my Win7 install disk an reboot.



    Next steps:
    I insert the Win7 install disk and reboot using F12 to select the WD disk.
    The "Windows Boot Manager" screen appears again with the same instructions as above!
    If I reboot again and do nothing, the system will boot to Windows 10.
    My question, how to install Win7 on the WD disk and then setup a dual boot operation?

    Help is greatly appreciated.

    Jim
    Hi there.

    is the HD2 a GPT drive -- I think W7 can't boot to a GPT formatted drive but can of course use them. If I'm wrong on this (I don't dual boot any more --preferring to use VM's or simply slide a HDD caddy into one of my bays on a microserver) I'm sure there's some sort of restriction with GPT and W7 --maybe the GPT HDD has to be the first one.

    If I'm 100% wrong here - then please ignore - but I do remember something in the past about W7 and booting from GPT HDD's.

    Cheers
    jimbo
    Last edited by Brink; 27 Feb 2016 at 10:51. Reason: removed email address
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  4. jim1931
    Posts : 7
    Windows 10, Windows 7
    Thread Starter
       New #3

    jimbo45 said:
    Hi there.

    is the HD2 a GPT drive -- I think W7 can't boot to a GPT formatted drive but can of course use them. If I'm wrong on this (I don't dual boot any more --preferring to use VM's or simply slide a HDD caddy into one of my bays on a microserver) I'm sure there's some sort of restriction with GPT and W7 --maybe the GPT HDD has to be the first one.

    If I'm 100% wrong here - then please ignore - but I do remember something in the past about W7 and booting from GPT HDD's.

    Cheers
    jimbo
    No it is not a GPT drive, it is an older type HD.
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  6. NavyLCDR
    Posts : 18,432
    Windows 11 Pro
       New #4

    jim1931 said:
    The problem now is I cannot install Win7 on the HD2 drive. When I choose F12 on boot up and select the WD disk, a screen appears saying "Windows Boot Manager" It instructs me to insert my Win7 install disk an reboot.

    Next steps:
    I insert the Win7 install disk and reboot using F12 to select the WD disk.
    Try booting to the inserted Windows 7 install disk instead of the now blank hard drive.
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  7. jim1931
    Posts : 7
    Windows 10, Windows 7
    Thread Starter
       New #5

    NavyLCDR said:
    Try booting to the inserted Windows 7 install disk instead of the now blank hard drive.
    Will give that a try and get back to you soon.

    Jim
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  8. jim1931
    Posts : 7
    Windows 10, Windows 7
    Thread Starter
       New #6

    jim1931 said:
    Will give that a try and get back to you soon.

    Jim
    Win7 now works fine. After the install was complete I shut down and re-connected my Windows 10 HD.

    On start up, I went into the bios setup (enter key) and changed the drive order to Windows 10, Windows 7, and last the CD.

    I will normally be running Windows 10 as the default OS. I guess I'll just change the bios when I want to load Win7 - unless you have some suggestions.

    Anyway, thanks again for your help.

    Jim
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  9. NavyLCDR
    Posts : 18,432
    Windows 11 Pro
       New #7

    jim1931 said:
    I will normally be running Windows 10 as the default OS. I guess I'll just change the bios when I want to load Win7 - unless you have some suggestions.

    Anyway, thanks again for your help.

    Jim
    In Windows 10, from an elevated ("run as administrator") command prompt type:

    bcdboot e:\Windows /addlast /d

    The path in red will be the path to your Windows 7 Windows folder and whatever drive letter Windows 10 assigned to it.

    Then you can do Win + R to open a run dialog box, type msconfig. Go to the boot tab and select the timeout and options you want for your boot menu.

    On some systems, Windows 10 fast startup interferes with dual booting so if you have issues you might want to try turning it off first:
    Fast Startup - Turn On or Off in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums
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  10. jim1931
    Posts : 7
    Windows 10, Windows 7
    Thread Starter
       New #8

    NavyLCDR said:
    In Windows 10, from an elevated ("run as administrator") command prompt type:

    bcdboot e:\Windows /addlast /d

    The path in red will be the path to your Windows 7 Windows folder and whatever drive letter Windows 10 assigned to it.

    Then you can do Win + R to open a run dialog box, type msconfig. Go to the boot tab and select the timeout and options you want for your boot menu.

    On some systems, Windows 10 fast startup interferes with dual booting so if you have issues you might want to try turning it off first:
    Fast Startup - Turn On or Off in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums

    Thanks for the suggestion, will give it a try.

    Jim
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