Im trying to get a dual boot setup going on my laptop, but Im having a lot of trouble with the installation. want to have 2 installs of Windows 7 64bit, running on 2 partitions on the same SSD. One partition/install of Windows for audio production, the other completely separate for my own personal use. The audio partition/install will have no networking devices enabled, no antivirus or any other clutter, just my DAW, some VSTS and thats it.
I have tried making the partitions in the Windows 7 installer, installing into the first partition, then once thats done installing into the second. I have tried installing the first time across the whole HD, and then once Windows is running, in the Disk Manager utility running a shrink on the HD, then rebooting and installing the second install into the newly created partition.
For some reason I keep getting all manner of weird behaviour though. My SSD isnt getting recognised on boot, its hanging during the Starting Windows splash animation, a couple of times I think the SSD wasnt even seen by the BIOS.
Heres my specs to start:
MSI GT680 Laptop with
- Intel i7 2630QM 2.0GHz,
- 16GB DD3 RAM,
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M 1.5GB,
- Micro-Star International Co MS-16F2 Motherboard
I got a Samsung EVO 840 SSD, with 500GB of storage, for my primary drive, and a HGST 7200RPM 1TB for my secondary.
I have tested the Samsung SSD and the HGST with SeaTools, using Short and Long tests, no problems. I have an old Intel SSD and an old WD HD in the laptop, that i was using for years before I purchased the Samsung and the HGST, and they both work fine if I plug them back in, no hangs on startup, no BIOS failure to see the HDs...
Could it be the more recent HDs are not very compatible with my somewhat old motherboard? Or could my attempts to install Windows 7 twice have severely corrupted the boot records or something like that? Another thing to note is my laptops CD drive doesnt work, I was installing off a USB (I tried 2 different USBs, and I validated the ISO I downloaded from digital river), or a proper install disk running on an external USB CD drive.
Has anyone done anything similar with 2 boots of Win 7 on 2 partitions? Any tips would be appreciated
Windows 7 Dual Boot
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- KVRian
- Topic Starter
- 534 posts since 22 Mar, 2006 from Adelaide, Australia
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- KVRAF
- 2193 posts since 25 Dec, 2005
I have it that way,one Windows 7 64 for audio and one for graphics stuff on two different SSD's.
I bought two different licenses.
According to Microsoft you are only allowed to use one installation for one computer on one hard drive.
So you need two keys to get that running properly i guess.
I see no problem to install two different licenses on one hard drive.
As for antivirus,ESET never gave me a problem,it's very unobtrusive resource saving.Imo,updating the os every now and then is important Windows runs very nice without any hiccup.
When updating i don't open any browser but it makes live much more easier to do it online.
For audio i use the administrator account but for updating i use another non administrator account.
Maybe you just create an extra account for your personal stuff?
I bought two different licenses.
According to Microsoft you are only allowed to use one installation for one computer on one hard drive.
So you need two keys to get that running properly i guess.
I see no problem to install two different licenses on one hard drive.
As for antivirus,ESET never gave me a problem,it's very unobtrusive resource saving.Imo,updating the os every now and then is important Windows runs very nice without any hiccup.
When updating i don't open any browser but it makes live much more easier to do it online.
For audio i use the administrator account but for updating i use another non administrator account.
Maybe you just create an extra account for your personal stuff?
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- KVRian
- Topic Starter
- 534 posts since 22 Mar, 2006 from Adelaide, Australia
na this isnt to do with licenses. the install allows you to skip activation for 30 days anyway, so you can get it up and running.
the problem is the dual install seems to be corrupting the hard drive or something, so the hard drive isnt even booting properly once its done.
the problem is the dual install seems to be corrupting the hard drive or something, so the hard drive isnt even booting properly once its done.
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- KVRAF
- 2193 posts since 25 Dec, 2005
One thing you can try for testing however.
I you install windows you can skip the serial number,Windows then don't know if you have two keys but i think you just have just 3 days time to enter the key IIRC.
I you install windows you can skip the serial number,Windows then don't know if you have two keys but i think you just have just 3 days time to enter the key IIRC.
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- KVRAF
- 2193 posts since 25 Dec, 2005
Ah,ok if you didn't enter any key (and i don't mean activation that's another thing) then i don't know.Could be a BIOS thing.matthewjumps wrote:na this isnt to do with licenses. the install allows you to skip activation for 30 days anyway, so you can get it up and running.
the problem is the dual install seems to be corrupting the hard drive or something, so the hard drive isnt even booting properly once its done.
For testing purpose you can ask a friend to lend his key,without any activation of course,i had done this and it is working.
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- KVRian
- Topic Starter
- 534 posts since 22 Mar, 2006 from Adelaide, Australia
ye i think its a BIOS thing, the windows key should have no effect on the actual boot, and as i said, i keep getting "Disk Read Failure press ctrl alt del" when i turn the computer on, before windows even loads.
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- KVRAF
- 2083 posts since 28 Feb, 2011
Most experts recommend using separate drives for each OS. What you are experiencing is characteristic of dual-boot systems running on a single drive. It is far less reliable, so therefore I would ask what your objective is for the dual boot? It would be more reliable to just set up a single OS and tweak it for performance than to install two OS on one drive. Does the laptop have a bay for a 2nd ssd? If you need to dual-boot or a separate data drive, you need two drives. There are Sager laptops with three drives. But if you configure Windows well for performance, you don't need to eliminate anti-virus. Just get a fast laptop, and top-notch security suite with low performance hit and set it to Silent Mode (Norton 360).
The most reliable way to run multiple OSs, and I've been doing this constantly for over 20 years, is to use separate drives for each OS and to install them to the disk which is currently the boot disc as selected in the BIOS. Some people remove the other OS disks during install. Configure the drive controller for AHCI and after you install each OS, use Disk Management to remove drive letter assignments from the other OS disks, thus making them invisible to the other OSs. Boot into the OS of choice by selecting it at boot time from the BIOS utility (F12 or whatever), not by configuring Windows boot loader or by using any sort of boot selector software at all (the idea is to make sure each instance of Windows never is even aware that the others exist). This is by far the surest way to eliminate conflicts or boot sector problems.
The most reliable way to run multiple OSs, and I've been doing this constantly for over 20 years, is to use separate drives for each OS and to install them to the disk which is currently the boot disc as selected in the BIOS. Some people remove the other OS disks during install. Configure the drive controller for AHCI and after you install each OS, use Disk Management to remove drive letter assignments from the other OS disks, thus making them invisible to the other OSs. Boot into the OS of choice by selecting it at boot time from the BIOS utility (F12 or whatever), not by configuring Windows boot loader or by using any sort of boot selector software at all (the idea is to make sure each instance of Windows never is even aware that the others exist). This is by far the surest way to eliminate conflicts or boot sector problems.
Last edited by Gonga on Sun Oct 19, 2014 11:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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- KVRAF
- 2193 posts since 25 Dec, 2005
FWIW,i think the key does matter.matthewjumps wrote:ye i think its a BIOS thing, the windows key should have no effect on the actual boot, and as i said, i keep getting "Disk Read Failure press ctrl alt del" when i turn the computer on, before windows even loads.
If you enter the same key on two Windows partitions it won't accept it at boot.
That's why i said you could lend a key (without activation) from somebody trustworthy just to test if it is working.
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- KVRAF
- 2083 posts since 28 Feb, 2011
That may be true for partitioned OS installs, it's been a along time since I did so, and that would have been using WindowsXP or earlier. But activation isn't a problem as long as you are using separate drives. MS gives you a certain amount of time between installs. If you try to install the same copy within a short period of time, even on another computer, it won't activate (unless you call MS to activate, which works fine). But I have routinely run multiple copies of XP, Win7 and Win8 on a single machine using separate drives. However, you have to wait a few months between installs of a given license (someone else here could tell you how long - it's around 3 months I think).
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- KVRAF
- 2193 posts since 25 Dec, 2005
What Gonga said.
Beside that windows is automatically renaming C to another drive letter so that's not a problem.
It just doesn't look nice and is confusing that's why i hide the other SSD respectively,there is a command for that via the DOS window.
You can hide another partition too.
However,i doubt it will work without two different keys.
Beside that windows is automatically renaming C to another drive letter so that's not a problem.
It just doesn't look nice and is confusing that's why i hide the other SSD respectively,there is a command for that via the DOS window.
You can hide another partition too.
However,i doubt it will work without two different keys.
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- KVRAF
- 2193 posts since 25 Dec, 2005
Forgot to say the 100 MB boot partition is also renamed and treated as a separate partition,so chances are there to create another 100 MB boot partition for the other installation.
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- KVRAF
- 6323 posts since 30 Dec, 2004 from London uk
Dual boot on the same OS isn't worth it. Its different if you have two different OS. I used to have triple boot, w7/OSX/Linux. One partition messed up and game over. If youre trying to get around a problem - what is it? I bet dual boot w7 isn't going to help. As was mentioned, one drive per OS is what youd need. I found that w7 will do pretty much all in one. On the net and also DAW work. No latency issues attall.
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- KVRian
- Topic Starter
- 534 posts since 22 Mar, 2006 from Adelaide, Australia
ok to clarify a few things.
i am definitely going to be doing a dual boot for audio and personal. the personal boot will have programs installed that have background services that use memory and cpu. it will have games, will be used for internet browsing and other non-audio related stuff. it will also have the windows aero settings set to be more visually pleasing, but of course that uses more cpu. on top of that, in the audio OS, i will have several devices disabled in the device manager, for example the windows batter controller, which is known to cause severe dhcp latency spikes every 15 or so seconds. this isnt a problem for personal use, but having a separate audio boot allows me to strip everything back, without having to manually do it every time i want to work on audio.
running separate drives for each OS would be ideal, but im in a laptop and i only have 2 hard drive bays, and i cant afford 2 SSDs, so i have one SSD and one 7200 RPM disk drive. i honestly dont see any reason why a dual boot on the same drive cant be done. you are supposed to be able to dual boot Win 7 and Win 8, or Win 7 and Ubuntu, or even Win 7 32 bit and Win 7 64 bit, there doesnt seem to be any reason why 2 Win 7 64 bit shouldnt work if all those others do.
again i will say that licences has absolutely nothing to do with this. i have made some progress, and this makes me even more certain of that.
i finally got something that works - most of the time. i did a few things that may have helped, not sure which it was, or perhaps it was a combination.
i swapped the drives around in the laptop, perhaps my laptop prefers the boot drive in a specific port. i also used a specific usb port to install off of, i have heard that Win 7 installs have issues on usb 3 ports, and my laptop has both 2 and 3.
so now i have the 2 installs running. i have still had a few issues, but they are highly intermittent. they can be separated into 2 categories.
the first issue is the very rare, "Disk Read Error, press Ctrl-Alt-Del" type. i think ive had this setup going for 2 days and i have had this once or twice. this occurs straight after the BIOS splash screen, and before the boot selection menu appears.
the second type of error has happened slightly more. the "Starting Windows" splash animation hangs, very early on, before the 4 dots appear that turn into the windows logo. this appears after the BIOS splash, and after the boot selection menu has appeared and i have picked the "Audio" boot. for some reason it only seems to happen on the "Audio" OS install, not the personal one. i believe i installed the Audio OS second, but im not sure.
more often than not neither of these issues will occur, and i will smoothly boot into the OS of choice.
i am definitely going to be doing a dual boot for audio and personal. the personal boot will have programs installed that have background services that use memory and cpu. it will have games, will be used for internet browsing and other non-audio related stuff. it will also have the windows aero settings set to be more visually pleasing, but of course that uses more cpu. on top of that, in the audio OS, i will have several devices disabled in the device manager, for example the windows batter controller, which is known to cause severe dhcp latency spikes every 15 or so seconds. this isnt a problem for personal use, but having a separate audio boot allows me to strip everything back, without having to manually do it every time i want to work on audio.
running separate drives for each OS would be ideal, but im in a laptop and i only have 2 hard drive bays, and i cant afford 2 SSDs, so i have one SSD and one 7200 RPM disk drive. i honestly dont see any reason why a dual boot on the same drive cant be done. you are supposed to be able to dual boot Win 7 and Win 8, or Win 7 and Ubuntu, or even Win 7 32 bit and Win 7 64 bit, there doesnt seem to be any reason why 2 Win 7 64 bit shouldnt work if all those others do.
again i will say that licences has absolutely nothing to do with this. i have made some progress, and this makes me even more certain of that.
i finally got something that works - most of the time. i did a few things that may have helped, not sure which it was, or perhaps it was a combination.
i swapped the drives around in the laptop, perhaps my laptop prefers the boot drive in a specific port. i also used a specific usb port to install off of, i have heard that Win 7 installs have issues on usb 3 ports, and my laptop has both 2 and 3.
so now i have the 2 installs running. i have still had a few issues, but they are highly intermittent. they can be separated into 2 categories.
the first issue is the very rare, "Disk Read Error, press Ctrl-Alt-Del" type. i think ive had this setup going for 2 days and i have had this once or twice. this occurs straight after the BIOS splash screen, and before the boot selection menu appears.
the second type of error has happened slightly more. the "Starting Windows" splash animation hangs, very early on, before the 4 dots appear that turn into the windows logo. this appears after the BIOS splash, and after the boot selection menu has appeared and i have picked the "Audio" boot. for some reason it only seems to happen on the "Audio" OS install, not the personal one. i believe i installed the Audio OS second, but im not sure.
more often than not neither of these issues will occur, and i will smoothly boot into the OS of choice.
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- KVRAF
- 2083 posts since 28 Feb, 2011
The boot loader is on one of the Windows partitions and not the other. That's the trouble. In other words, the BIOS always has to point to the OS with the bootloader, no matter which OS you actually want to boot. All sorts of things can cause your system to be totally unbootable, and in my experience, Windows cannot automatically repair these in most cases, and when it tries, it often makes matters worse by altering the bootloader file beyond hope.
It's only a matter of time before you have a totally bricked MBR, so make sure you back up. And in any case, and I mean this sincerely, good luck!
It's only a matter of time before you have a totally bricked MBR, so make sure you back up. And in any case, and I mean this sincerely, good luck!
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- KVRian
- Topic Starter
- 534 posts since 22 Mar, 2006 from Adelaide, Australia
is this certainty of a bricked MBR applicable to all dual boot installations on the same HD? if not, why would a dual boot Win 7 32 bit and Win 7 64 bit work, or a dual boot Linux and Windows, or Win 7 and Win 8, all work fine and not herald inevitable bricking of MBRs, but two Win 7's be so doomed?
