New
#1
Dual Boot issues (Win7/10) and data corruption
I have a major problem and I'm hoping someone can help me figure out how to resolve it.
Here's my environment:
- I have Win7 installed on Drive 0 on a single partition (SSD); except for 100MB "system reserved" partition
- I have Win10 installed on Drive 1, which has 3 primary partitions and 3 logical drives (see screenshot)
Win7 was installed originally. When I installed Win10, I unplugged the SSD so that only Drive1 was visible during Win10 installation. Win7 is my primary OS, when I want to run Win10, I change the boot drive using BIOS boot manager (ie. pressing F12)
Here's the problem:
In most cases, after returning from Win10 back to Win7, Win7 would tell me that the disks need to be verified (chkdsk). This would finish relatively quickly and wouldn't usually find any errors. Until last night, when it found/repaired a slew of errors and the result was locked files/folders (security descriptors had to be reset) and a lot of corrupted files.
I should also mention that when I was in Win10 last night, there were some very strange things occurring:
- Firefox wouldn't start; just no response at all. Once I got back into Win7, trying to start Firefox told me there were corrupted files.
- Perhaps the strangest detail: in certain folders, I noticed that the files in the folders seemed to be a reflection of the contents from a couple weeks ago (most likely, the last time I was in Win10). There were files displayed that I had since deleted, and there were missing files. Once I got back into Win7, the file lists were back to normal.
- There was a Windows Update which failed to install. This was before I was completely convinced there was a serious problem, so I rebooted back into Win10. Win10 failed to load. That was the least of my concerns.
Another possibly relevant detail: I'm fairly certain that no files on my disk0 were affected/corrupted -- only files that are on the same physical disk as Win10.
I also remember having a heck of a time setting up the partitions on Disk1 and that was before installing Win10. I don't remember the exact details, but I think I was getting errors/corruption and it only "worked" once I used 6 partitions instead of the 7 that I wanted (or maybe I fiddled around with the type of partitions).
Because I suspect the problem has to do with the way that I'm dual-booting, I've attached a screenshot of my disk management. I've read that the 100MB "system reserved" partition is normal for Win7, but that Win10 needs a 350MB reserved partition, but there isn't one. It seems unlikely that it's sharing Win7's since that drive was disconnected when I installed Win10. Is that the problem? Why didn't Win10 create a system reserved partition -- do I have too many partitions on that disk?
I have no problem wiping out the Win10 partition, but the other partitions on the disk could be a problem, so any possible solutions that might require formatting/losing those would be more of a last resort.
Thanks for any help!