Is it safe to dual boot Windows 7 and Windows 10?

Slartybart · 18 Jun 2015

You're welcome Gary,

I understand ... it's frustrating to try these things over and over without success.

Once you get a good disk schema (not that your is bad for Win7) you won't have to muck with it anymore, except to make a new image that reflects the new schema.

Could you feed MS your experience - since you don't have Win10 installed, use the Insider forum. I'm sure that you're not the only person to have the System information on the Boot partition. If that is the problem ...

I helped two members work around an issue by growing the System Reserve part - so it sounds as though it might help your install too. I also read a post by where the install created a new 450 MB partition to the right of the Boot part - but that had to be a GPT initialized disk. So I think MS is trying to figure these things out.

There really isn't a requirement for the System part to be to the left of Boot, it's just 'safer'. The first active part is the one that gets used, so it's common to make the part 1 the active part.

MR = Macrium Reflect?

I'll keep this thread subscribed in case you decide later to give it one more shot.

Bill
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Gary · 18 Jun 2015

I have Win 10 installed build 10130 , but I don't have it connected right now. I think that dual booting would work better for me if I just did a clean install with both disks connected. Yes MR=Macrium Reflect.:)

Slartybart · 18 Jun 2015

Gary said:

I have Win 10 installed build 10130 , but I don't have it connected right now. I think that dual booting would work better for me if I just did a clean install with both disks connected. Yes MR=Macrium Reflect.:)

That makes it really easy then - a bit different work and a bit of experimentation.

Here are some things to chew on. If I'm too shorthanded - ask me to clarify. These are just notes to consider.

Backup your Win7 BCD

If you can wipe the 2nd HDD - use diskpart to clean (not clean all) the 2nd HDD
if not - stop reading here

use diskpart to set the Win7 part inactive

Boot to the Win10 install media

Install Win10 (custom) to the unallocted (or RAW) 2nd HDD

This will create the disk schema ... will it a 450 MB System part - I'm not sure, it might only create a 100 MB System part.
As long as the HDD is unallocated when you begin the install, the System part will be created.

Now you have two HDDs, each with a Windows installation. Both have a means to boot, but the Win7 drive has been 'turned off' and the Win10 HDD doesn't know about the Win7 install (it might pick it up, but I don't think it does).

You can use Disk Management to make the Win7 the active part, but you still won't have a dual boot. And ... and the xxx MB system part is on the other HDD. This is just a way to boot to Win7 until I (or some other member) help with writing the Win7 boot information to the Win10 BCD.

Here's where I need to find the method to incorporate your Win7 install into the Win10 BCD. There are a few ways, but I always have to refresh my memory.

EasyBCD might be the best, there's also VisualBCD, but I've never used that. Native BCDedit would do it too.

Thinking out loud while you take care of the things you need to do at home.

Gary · 20 Jun 2015

If I do this it will be a clean install of Windows 10. My plan is to install it to a unallocated Hard Drive. It should be easier this way. This is how I did it dual booting Vista and Win 7. The booting just worked itself out. I believe that Windows 10 will as well, but I may be wrong. I will look at the tutorial again before I attempt this.

I think that I will leave it as is. Both OS's boot just fine by themselves. I believe the problem is with my Windows 7 install. But I do not want to take the tile to fix it. If I update it to Windows 10 then I will make the 350 MB space before Win 7. It worked OK for me the last time I tried it.
Thanks again Slarty for all of your help.

Gary · 23 Jun 2015

I finally Got Windows 7 and 10 to dual boot! All I had to do was to make Windows 7 default and install easybcd in Windows 7 and not in 10.

Slartybart · 26 Jun 2015

Gary said:

I finally Got Windows 7 and 10 to dual boot! All I had to do was to make Windows 7 default and install easybcd in Windows 7 and not in 10.

rennervision · 23 Aug 2015

Gary said:

I finally Got Windows 7 and 10 to dual boot! All I had to do was to make Windows 7 default and install easybcd in Windows 7 and not in 10.

Hi Gary - I'm having the same problem. I've installed multi-boot systems numerous times and am familiar with EasyBCD, but I'm still confused.

Of course, in the past I just install my new OS on the last unallocated partition and everything works like a charm, but Windows 10 doesn't seem to work like that. After installing Win10 alongside 7, I have to go into the BIOS when booting to select which drive to use!

So I added a Windows 10 option in the Win7 bootloader using EasyBCD - only if I select Windows 10 it just errors out with "0xc0000428 Windows cannot verify the digital signature of this file" and references windows\system32\winload.exe as the culprit. What am I doing wrong?

rennervision · 24 Aug 2015

Thanks genet.

I'm using a Gigabyte GA-X99-UD3P. In the BIOS, the Storage Boot Option Control is set to its default of Legacy Only (my other choice is "UEFI Only") and Windows 8 Features is set to Other OS (instead of "Windows 8").

Windows 7 is installed on disk 0 and Windows 10 was installed on disk 1. Seemed pretty straightforward when I installed 10, but I've obviously done something wrong.

rennervision · 24 Aug 2015

Well I figured out what I did wrong. When I first installed Win10 I selected the Disk 1 partition and clicked on Next. Apparently I should have selected New.

I just installed it again and that made all the difference in the world. Disk 0 showed System and Disk 1 showed Primary. Now I have options when I boot up to choose either 7 or 10. :)

Night Hawk · 25 Aug 2015

Arcturus said:

I remember seeing some stuff about how Windows 10 would wipe all other partitions, so I'm just wondering if that's still a problem.

And if so, can you select which partition to install on? ( I'd assume definitely so, but.. )

Whoever told you that nonsense is pc illiterate! The only time anything is wiped is when you either delete the partitions with either a partitioning program, opened up command prompt to use the clean command in DiskPart, or went into the Disk Management tool under Administrative tools>Computer management in the Control Panel.

At the present moment I have two completely different custom builds put together originally for 7 both set up for dual booting 10 with 7 without issues once the upgrade over quick temp install of 7 on second drives or partitions took place. None of the dual boot disk error problems causing both versions to stall and not load as seen when testing 8! That was a travesty there!

Gary said:

I have Win 10 and Win 7 installed on two separate hard drives and I tried and failed to dual boot then about 4 times. I even tried to use easybcd and failed.

Then you have to be going about it all wrong! The latest version 2.2.0.2 not the previous 2.0.2.1 build is what to use with 10! The structure of the BCD Store for 10 hasn't changed any one bit since Vista brought that in with it. But the newer prefers adding the older version's boot entry in while the older version has a little difficulty when leaving 7 as the host/boot drive! You can even add the 7 entry in without the 7 drive even being plugged in and choose the option for 7 at startup to see 7 load!

On the second custom build used mostly for testing purposes I split the single drive up at first to see a clean install of 10 run with the 7 Pro install later upgraded over and then nuked the 7 to 10 upgrade once both that and the clean install were acitivated. The second fresh primary when moved to the front end of the drive however trashed 10's ability to start up when trying to build a new store. Another clean instasll solved that! And a system image of 7 was then restored to a second drive I added in for dual purpose of splitting the larger drive up to see 400gb for 7 and the remaining portion of the 1ttb drive used for backup.

The 7 part could use a clean install there however since it won't connect by ethernet while 10 won't connect by usb Wireless! No 10 driver for the adapter it keeps prompting about! But the same could be said for the 2013 clean install of 7 on the main case as well both needing a frest start again. First you have to get past that bugged up buggier then buggy upgrade process and then see to a working "Clean Install"!