Windows 7 FAQ and Questions - Page 55

TheOtis · 05-01-2009, 06:46 PM

Of course it's fine dude. Create two partitions. Install one OS on each, regardless of what operating systems they are. If you use the Vista Boot Manager you can create however many partitions you want and have as many OS' as you would like.

EDIT: I should add I'm talking about Windows, not Linux or OSX.

Mak213 · 05-01-2009, 08:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TKF

This has probably been asked answered before but heres gos is it possible to dual boot a 64bit and a 32bit OS on the same drive without problems ?
The reason I'm asking is I'm planing to download 64 bit win 7 rc1 when its becomes available to try a 64 bit OS for the first time.

The HD in question is a (sata drive300g) it has XP pro32bit and Vista bis32bit on it now I would replace the XP partition with win 7 rc1 64bit.
Or would it better to install another HD (pata 150g) in the above system and install the win 7 64 on it ? (This HD has win 7 beta on it now in a another system)and would this be possible ?

Please feel free to scrutinize and add the best way you would accomplish this feat with the least amount of problems

Thanks for any suggestions and advice.

Yes it is possible to do. But you will want to check out which drive is your System Active drive so you dont mess up your boot.

Trotter · 05-01-2009, 09:33 PM

OK, along these same lines... I have XP 32-bit on one partition, and Vista 64-bit on another. I plan on installing Seven over the XP.

The XP installation was first and was the main. Vista took over, even though it was installed on the D: partition. Vista now says it is the primary installation. So, if I install over XP, am I screwing up my dual boot?

Mak213 · 05-01-2009, 09:37 PM

Could be. But you could also recover it using EasyBCD. Could also set teh Vista partition as the System Active and then recover the boot with the Vista DVD.

TKF · 05-01-2009, 11:16 PM

Thanks for the help and advice, still undecided whether I'm willing to gave up my xp install

And as Trotter asked

Quote:

So, if I install over XP, am I screwing up my dual boot?

If I were to add my other HD and install win 7 on it would my system recognize that OS and just add it to my boot menu and give me a 3rd option to choose from or would I need to run EasyBCD and build a new boot menu... really not wanting mess up what i have now.
Thanks for the suggestions

Trotter · 05-02-2009, 12:03 AM

When I installed Vista on a separate partition, it added itself to the boot menu and never missed a beat. Win7 should do the same.

I set my Vista partition to Active and rebooted. I am currently posting from my wife's computer as it hit the fan with mine. My Vista DVD is not working and the BOOTMGR is missing. I DL the Vista Recovery Disc from NeoSmart and am trying to use it to recover... but it takes friggin' forever to boot up off of it.

Mak213 · 05-02-2009, 09:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TKF

If I were to add my other HD and install win 7 on it would my system recognize that OS and just add it to my boot menu and give me a 3rd option to choose from or would I need to run EasyBCD and build a new boot menu... really not wanting mess up what i have now.
Thanks for the suggestions

If you added another hard drive it would depend on what you installed. If you installed XP you would lose ALL of your boot info for Win7/Vista cause XP does not use the same boot setup that they do. XP uses boot.ini while Vista/Win7 uses the BCD.

Messing up what you have not is not the concern. If you could fix it or not would be.

TKF · 05-02-2009, 12:53 PM

First off thanks for all the replies for these noobish questions. Seeing y'all helped get my Dual boot system set up and working so great I came back for more reliable Information

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mak

If you added another hard drive it would depend on what you installed.

Mak I would be installing win7 64bit only on that IDE drive, was wondering if, and how it would show up on my boot menu with Vista and 7 using the same type bootloader. If at all.

Also Mak I read you were testing a copy of win7 rc1, as of now what do you think so far, and when the final release becomes available would you be going with 64 bit or 32 bit ?

Mak213 · 05-02-2009, 01:14 PM

With the way Win7 works it would take over the boot priority. Which is not what you would want in a mixed drive system with SATA Drives and IDE Drives. you would want the SATA Drives to have the boot priority for optimal performance.

Win7 can be installed at any time if you have older versions of Windows installed BEFORE you install Win7. Win7 will see them and add them to the boot loader just fine. It is when you try to install a older version of Windows AFTER you already have Win7 installed that issues come up and it causes havoc on a system.

I just helped Trotter get his system ready. He has a setup where XP was installed first, then Vista but XP was the boot drive. He is formatting the XP Drive and putting Win7 there. but in doing so he would lose his boot to Vista.

I have helped him get the Vista drive to be the boot drive now so he doesnt have to worry about losing his Vista boot when he install Win7.

So there are many things that could happen and they all come into play when trying to figure out the boot setup. Install is the easiest thing. It is trying to figure out what to do about the boot process.

For you i would remove all other hard drives and install Win7 on the IDE drive by itself in the system. Then at Boot you would only have to hit F12 for your BIOS to give you the boot menu and you select which to boot yourself. This way your Vista install wont be affected by the fact that you have its boot information on a slower drive. Causing Vista to boot slower.

So there are options. It is just how you would want to do it.

As for my opinion on Win7 RC at this point, i love it. I just did a fresh install of XP on Wed and Win7 RC on Friday. They both are running the same exact software, both setup to operate with minimal tweaking done to them. XP uses roughly 46% of my 3GB of RAM during heavy usage, Win7 uses 51%.

XP uses roughly 38% at my desktop win7 uses 43%.

So yes the resource usage is up, but no where near what Vista's is. I can get Vista to eat up almost 75% of my RAM running the same software.

I also have Steam installed with 10 games from that installed. I played Left 4 Dead and Portal for over a hour today with no lag, everything on max and it ran perfectly.

I am oging with Win7 when it gets released. At this point due to the limitations of my Pc it will be 32 bit. But if i ever update it will be Win7 64 Bi for me.

Osiris · 05-02-2009, 02:10 PM

‘Compatible with Windows 7’ Logo Leaked

Spanish site MadboxPC has what appears to be an official “Compatible with Windows 7” logo. Either that or it’s a quickie PhotoShop pic designed to fool unwary news seekers like myself into posting a link to their site. Here’s a Google-translated version of the site, if you want to see it in English. Let’s hope MS does a better job of managing what’s really compatible this time. I’d hate to see a rehash of the whole “Windows Vista capable” debacle again.

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