EasyBCD Dual Boot management for Win10 and Win7 on separate drives

AddRAM said:

When I said Label the drives, I meant label one Windows 7 and the other Windows 10.

It does not matter what letter the other drive has when you are booted into each OS, the one you`re using will always be C and the other drive will be D, E, F etc

If you want to change the other OS system letter, you can do that in Disk Management.

If there is another item ( say a dvd drive ) which is already using D, then you have to change that to another letter first before you can change the other drive to D

I always name the dvd drive Z

Please post a shot of Disk Management from Windows 7

In my opinion, (and this is just the way I prefer to do it) it is easier to just use the 1 time boot key to bring up the boot menu to choose which drive you want to boot into, this will always keep each drive independent from each other, you simply set your default drive (the OS you use mostly) to #1 in the bios so it boots to that OS on it`s own, then just use the 1 time boot menu to choose the other drive when you want to.

As far as W10 goes, after you have it setup the way you want it, you will barely notice the difference between it and 7, other than the user interface :) You will be fine, it`s just another OS :)

I'm squared away on how to change the drive letters and before the macrium ordeal they were C&D but after that somehow, while in 7, the 10 disk drive shows up as E now instead of D and the option to get D back is not there. Literally goes A,B,C,E,xxx on down the alphabet. While in 10 tho, 7 disk is labeled D. I can change that to E to avoid confusion but where did D go and why is it no longer an option. I can send another screen shot in a bit when I get back home but that question still remains along with how can i add boot files from primary to secondary drive and visa versa. No matter which drive I run bcdboot D:\Windows from I get the failure to copy error message even after just completing bcdboot /rebuild on the OS drives?? Should they be converted something other than gpt and would I still be able to uefi if so? Does one being ssd and other hdd have something to do with it? I've reinstalled both enough times with one or the other being installed first to determine that installation order is not playing a role in it at least as far as I can tell. Can one be gpt and the other mbr and still boot uefi with the option to boot either from the graphical menu. It's brand new system but before and up until one of the more recent clean installs I even had a win 7 textual dual menu. The several clean installs I refer to have been in last couple weeks for both os's as one would destroy the other during first attempt at dual boot.

AddRAM said:

Post a shot of Disk Management from Windows 7, there has to be something using the D letter.

There is no reason to change W7 from D to E, (when booted into 10) leave it be D

You can't change a GPT drive to MBR if you want it to be strictly UEFI (as far as I know) any experts can chime in on that.

My Z170 Bios has a Legacy & UEFI setting and that`s where I leave it, if I had a GPT OS disk and a MBR OS disk, I could boot into either one if I wanted to, but I only install in Legacy Mode on a MBR Disk ( I like having only 1 partition for an OS on my SSD ) but that is just the way I like it.

There is no real difference between a ssd or a hard drive when it comes to a OS, it has no idea what it`s using ( if you understand what I mean ) :)

i understand exactly what your saying but at this point im throwing everything out there since nothing seems to be working. my x730 bios has uef only, legacy only, or do not launch either which i assume is the same as whatever is needed is what gets chosen

AddRAM said:

Post a shot of Disk Management from Windows 7, there has to be something using the D letter.

There is no reason to change W7 from D to E, (when booted into 10) leave it be D

You can't change a GPT drive to MBR if you want it to be strictly UEFI (as far as I know) any experts can chime in on that.

My Z170 Bios has a Legacy & UEFI setting and that`s where I leave it, if I had a GPT OS disk and a MBR OS disk, I could boot into either one if I wanted to, but I only install in Legacy Mode on a MBR Disk ( I like having only 1 partition for an OS on my SSD ) but that is just the way I like it.

There is no real difference between a ssd or a hard drive when it comes to a OS, it has no idea what it`s using ( if you understand what I mean ) :)

thats just it, i didnt change it. when it booted to the wrong drive after trtied with the macriums reflection or whatever it is called i suddenly had an extra login option. the regular admin. account you get when you first install and the elevated admin microsoft keeps hidden. thats when i noticed D was changed to E and when i looked to change it back, there was no D to choose. i cant keep the drop down open when i open up the snipping tool to show you but it is not there i promise

AddRAM said:

Your cd rom is using D, at least in your DM shot it is. Change it to Z, then D will become available.

And if you ever want to add a picture that has the drop down, tap the Print Screen key once, then open paint and click paste, you now have a picture of everything, now use the snipping tool to capture what you want and save it to your destop as a jpeg, then add it to your post,you can always delete it later.

ill be damned it is.. if misread that since it got changed last night i guess. problem one solved now for #2 how am going to get my dual boot back?lol

Boomhauer said:

i understand exactly what your saying but at this point im throwing everything out there since nothing seems to be working. my x730 bios has uef only, legacy only, or do not launch either which i assume is the same as whatever is needed is what gets chosen

i think maybe finding out this answer to this question may lead to solving the dual boot issue going on. both os's installed gpt. win 10 has one more partition than win 7. why is that and why did the win 10 windows partition get boot files but the win7 windows partition did not? especially if both installed by themselves no other drives hooked up besides optical

AddRAM said:

Post a shot of Disk Management from Windows 7, there has to be something using the D letter.

There is no reason to change W7 from D to E, (when booted into 10) leave it be D

You can't change a GPT drive to MBR if you want it to be strictly UEFI (as far as I know) any experts can chime in on that.

My Z170 Bios has a Legacy & UEFI setting and that`s where I leave it, if I had a GPT OS disk and a MBR OS disk, I could boot into either one if I wanted to, but I only install in Legacy Mode on a MBR Disk ( I like having only 1 partition for an OS on my SSD ) but that is just the way I like it.

There is no real difference between a ssd or a hard drive when it comes to a OS, it has no idea what it`s using ( if you understand what I mean ) :)

im at a complete loss now!!! i shut her down unplugged 10 booted right into 7 >disk mngt> C: and here is what it looked like

notice in primary it has the boot files. so then i shut 'er down unplug 7 plug in 10 boot her up and she looks the same primary has the boot files. everything looks identical from one to the other what could go wrong right??? so since i was thinking i had enabled setting in bios that would let me avoid the whole post and boot process which is where i figure the confusion was happening and i plug in 7 and without looking since i am counting on it working i jump into cmd and run bcdboot and " failure while attempting to copy" again. ideas ideas?????