Won't read 2nd drive for Dual Boot

[LMO]

Aloha all. This may be OT, so maybe someone can point me in the right
direction...but I always get good replies here, and those people that don't
like OT...well, I'll givew them something to grump about...
I'm using Vista Home Premium. I have a spare 250GB SATA drive, so I thought
I'd install XP on that, then dual boot with my original Vista drive (AMD
Athlon dual-core at 3 GHz, 4GB RAM, 64 bit Vista Home Premium...when it
boots). The XP install seemed to go fine, in that the drive would boot up
alone (with the Vista drive disabled). But when I plugged my main Vista
drive in, the system would not boot up at all. I would get a Drive Read
error.
I don't get it. Both drives boot up fine by themselves, but when both are
running, neither will boot. Do I need to set one drive's jumpers or
something? I don't know SATA drive jumper settings, or if that's even the
issue.
Can someone give me at least a starting point?
Thank you.

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Windows Vista no longer starts after you install an earlier version of the Windows
operating system in a dual-boot configuration:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919529


Aloha all. This may be OT, so maybe someone can point me in the right
direction...but I always get good replies here, and those people that don't
like OT...well, I'll givew them something to grump about...
I'm using Vista Home Premium. I have a spare 250GB SATA drive, so I thought
I'd install XP on that, then dual boot with my original Vista drive (AMD
Athlon dual-core at 3 GHz, 4GB RAM, 64 bit Vista Home Premium...when it
boots). The XP install seemed to go fine, in that the drive would boot up
alone (with the Vista drive disabled). But when I plugged my main Vista
drive in, the system would not boot up at all. I would get a Drive Read
error.
I don't get it. Both drives boot up fine by themselves, but when both are
running, neither will boot. Do I need to set one drive's jumpers or
something? I don't know SATA drive jumper settings, or if that's even the
issue.
Can someone give me at least a starting point?
Thank you.

 

[LMO]

Part two of my previous msg. Instead of XP, I installed Windows 7 beta on
the spare drive. By itself, it booted up fine. However, I wanted to have
Vista be the main drive, and Win 7 be the secondary drive, but when I have
both drives up and running, the Win7 drive always boots up. I get no dual
boot option.
Can I get the Vista drive to be the primary drive?
Thanks again.

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Use the Windows 7 beta DVD instead and follow the instructions in this KB article:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919529


Part two of my previous msg. Instead of XP, I installed Windows 7 beta on
the spare drive. By itself, it booted up fine. However, I wanted to have
Vista be the main drive, and Win 7 be the secondary drive, but when I have
both drives up and running, the Win7 drive always boots up. I get no dual
boot option.
Can I get the Vista drive to be the primary drive?
Thanks again.

 

[LMO]

Carey;
Appreciate yout tutelege. Howqever, the article points to installing an
earlier version of windows with Vista. The latest problem I had was using
Vista and Windows 7 beta, which is newer than Vista.
Would it work if I installed 7 while Vista was still running on its own
drive? Would that make a difference?
Thanks.

 

[andy]

You have to go into bios setup and check the Boot Sequence. If Boot
Sequence just shows HD, then there's a secondary boot sequence for
hard drives called Hard Disk Boot Priority or Hard Disk Drives. Move
the Vista drive to the top of this list.

If the Vista drive is connected to the motherboard, and the bios is
set to boot from that drive while Windows 7 is installed, then dual
boot will be created on the Vista drive during Windows setup.

 

[LMO]

Okay, I have the Vista and Win7 drives loaded and working. Minor issue now
is that the Win7 drive seems to be the default drive. When the screen comes
up giving me the choice of which system to load, it is so brief that unless
I am sitting at the computer, with my hand on the Vista key, I miss it, and
the Win7 drive boots. Not what I want.
Is there a way to lengthen the time that choice screen stays up? Else, I can
try Andy's suggestion to go in to BIOS and change the default drive.
Thanks, all!

 

[webster72n]

Okay, I have the Vista and Win7 drives loaded and working. Minor issue now
is that the Win7 drive seems to be the default drive. When the screen
comes up giving me the choice of which system to load, it is so brief that
unless I am sitting at the computer, with my hand on the Vista key, I miss
it, and the Win7 drive boots. Not what I want.
Is there a way to lengthen the time that choice screen stays up?

There is, you can press the pause/break button, but not tooo long, please.

Harry.

 

[LMO]

Okay. I decided this was a PITA, not worth the results. I removed the second
drive and want to boot up normally into Vista Home Premium, as orginally set
up. However, when I boot up now, I am still getting the Dual Boot screen,
which offers Windows Setup, Windows 7, and Vista. If I don't quickly choose
Vista, it tries to continue with setup, then goes in to a reboot cycle.
HELP! How do I get rid of the dual boot screen, and just bootup into Vista?
Thanks!

 

[LMO]

Thanks, Frank. Nifty little utility that did the trick nicely!

 

[jaf]

Hi,
Vista, and presumably Win7, no longer use a boot.ini file to define or change the startup drive.
There is now BCD and the info is located in bios memory.
To change the default o/s you need to get a BCD editor.
Here is one. http://www.vistabootpro.org/

Do a google search for BCD vista for other options.

John