How to install win 7 on second hard drive?

[compunoob]

Is there anything special I need to do to install win 7 on my 2nd hard drive? I dont want to goof up my XP install. If I do this when I turn on my pc will it just ask me which hd to boot from?

[moshpit]

Is there anything special I need to do to install win 7 on my 2nd hard drive? I dont want to goof up my XP install. If I do this when I turn on my pc will it just ask me which hd to boot from?

Multibooting is the easiest thing in the world. You'll love how easy it is. Simply make sure during Windows 7 setup to specify the drive you want it on, that drive NOT being your current OS load drive. When Windows installs to that other drive, it creates a boot menu on the first OS's drive that includes both OS's and gives you 30 seconds on each boot up to select which one you want. If you don't make a selection, it will default to the newest OS, in this case Windows 7, you can change the default using EasyBCD to change the list order and default OS.

It's REALLY easy.

[Uber_Tiny]

It will not fubar your current XP install unless you accidentally install on the wrong HD or partition. I have one drive partitioned with a previous Win 7 install on it. Going to be installing the newest Beta tonight.

[compunoob]

Awesome!!! Thanks a Million =)

[Uber_Tiny]

You are welcome!

[compunoob]

Well I Dl'd the 64 version and tried to make a bootable dvd in Nero and it says its over 2gb and cant be made into an ISO. Any ideas?

[dawdler]

Well I Dl'd the 64 version and tried to make a bootable dvd in Nero and it says its over 2gb and cant be made into an ISO. Any ideas?

Well you can always try another program...

Personally I'm using deepburner right now to make my copy.

[BiO]

I don't know why you can't burn it in Nero, i can burn ISO without problem with burn image option.




I know ISO9660 doesn't allow to burn a file larger than 2GB but it's not applicable when you try to do it with an image.

You can use Infrarecorder to burn this ISO. It's free.

http://infrarecorder.org/?page_id=5

But you don't need to burn it to install Windows 7 or Vista, you can use daemon tools or virtual clonedrive to launch the installation process.

[Skynet]

Use IMGBurn it's the best

[caveman-jim]

Use IMGBurn it's the best

.

[compunoob]

ok I got it installed with imgburn. But it always boots xp. Do I need to change boot sequence? Ok boot sequence has nothing do do with it. Can't figure how to get win 7 to launch.

[Payne3d]

ok I got it installed with imgburn. But it always boots xp. Do I need to change boot sequence? Ok boot sequence has nothing do do with it. Can't figure how to get win 7 to launch.

Actually it does. Your optical drive has to be the first priority.

[compunoob]

So to boot win 7 I need the img I burned in the dvd player? I thought once it was installed I would choose from there which os to boot.

[caveman-jim]

Steps are this:

1 install imgburn in windows xp
2 burn iso image to dvd
3 reboot pc, select optical drive to boot from
4 follow windows 7 install process
5 ...
6 use windows 7
7 ask 'how do i get back into windows xp??'
8 install ireboot

[compunoob]

Steps are this:

1 install imgburn in windows xp
2 burn iso image to dvd
3 reboot pc, select optical drive to boot from
4 follow windows 7 install process
5 ...
6 use windows 7
7 ask 'how do i get back into windows xp??'
8 install ireboot

Huh?

[caveman-jim]

what?

[compunoob]

What you wrote makes no sense. I have to reinstall xp? I wanted to dual boot.

[Payne3d]

What you wrote makes no sense. I have to reinstall xp? I wanted to dual boot.

Are you being serious or are you joking around?

[caveman-jim]

What you wrote makes no sense. I have to reinstall xp? I wanted to dual boot.

OK. I'm going to do something else, maybe someone else will be able to help you better.

Although, to be perfectly honest, I think this should be an indicator that you are not a good candidate for testing a Windows beta installation.

[compunoob]

OK. I'm going to do something else, maybe someone else will be able to help you better.

Although, to be perfectly honest, I think this should be an indicator that you are not a good candidate for testing a Windows beta installation.

You are right. I truely have no business doing it as I just wanted to see it and try it. Everyone is bragging about it and I wanted to see what was up. I just thought it was going to be like what Moshpit said and I would just boot into which ever OS I wanted to. I will just format my other drive I guess. No use having it on there if I cant boot it.

[moshpit]

You are right. I truely have no business doing it as I just wanted to see it and try it. Everyone is bragging about it and I wanted to see what was up. I just thought it was going to be like what Moshpit said and I would just boot into which ever OS I wanted to. I will just format my other drive I guess. No use having it on there if I cant boot it.

It really is as easy as I said, which is the sad part of all this. Burning an iso image or just mounting it as a virtual drive is a fairly basic task for most users on these forums. Setting up a multiboot after that is even easier then the actual getting your install media setup.

Let ME try to outline the steps from beginning to end my way:

1. be in your normal OS of choice, be it XP or Vista.
2. install virtual drive software of choice (Virtual Clone Drive is recommended and free)
3. Reboot so VCD can work.
4. Once rebooted, find your downloaded image of Windows 7 and double click on it, Windows setup should start. Go through Windows 7 setup including it's required reboots, DON'T JACK WITH IT DURING THE REBOOTS, let it do it's thing. You'll see the menus during these reboots but don't do anything with them, they will take care of themselves at this stage.
5. Windows 7 setup will complete when it boots into Windows 7.
6. Reboot computer manually after setup is completed and your at the Windows 7 desktop.
7. NOW you can start using the boot menu it offers with a full 30 second wait time. Your old OS should appear in the list below Windows 7.

That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. Install any drivers, apps, whatnot and your done. Bake for 30 minutes if you want a crispier crust.

[compunoob]

It really is as easy as I said, which is the sad part of all this. Burning an iso image or just mounting it as a virtual drive is a fairly basic task for most users on these forums. Setting up a multiboot after that is even easier then the actual getting your install media setup.

Let ME try to outline the steps from beginning to end my way:

1. be in your normal OS of choice, be it XP or Vista.
2. install virtual drive software of choice (Virtual Clone Drive is recommended and free)
3. Reboot so VCD can work.
4. Once rebooted, find your downloaded image of Windows 7 and double click on it, Windows setup should start. Go through Windows 7 setup including it's required reboots, DON'T JACK WITH IT DURING THE REBOOTS, let it do it's thing. You'll see the menus during these reboots but don't do anything with them, they will take care of themselves at this stage.
5. Windows 7 setup will complete when it boots into Windows 7.
6. Reboot computer manually after setup is completed and your at the Windows 7 desktop.
7. NOW you can start using the boot menu it offers with a full 30 second wait time. Your old OS should appear in the list below Windows 7.

That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. Install any drivers, apps, whatnot and your done. Bake for 30 minutes if you want a crispier crust.

LMAO thank you Mosh!

[moshpit]

LMAO thank you Mosh!

Edit to step 6, it was worded badly I think.

Step 6: Once setup completes totally and your at the final Windows 7 desktop, manually reboot computer.

The way I said it before almost seemed like you had to do another reboot just to get to the Windows 7 desktop and that the boot menu would be waiting there, hehehe. The boot menu is during boot up. Right after you see bios stuff finish up, blam, boot menu.

[compunoob]

I got it =) All I need to do is leave the dvd in the drive and it boots win 7 thank you. I really think its cool. Seems very snappy. I dont like the uac thing though =P

[moshpit]

I got it =) All I need to do is leave the dvd in the drive and it boots win 7 thank you. I really think its cool. Seems very snappy. I dont like the uac thing though =P

Wait, what???? Leave disk in drive? I'm pretty sure I mentioned nothing about real disks or real drives beyond the hard drives everything is getting installed to, now you have me VERY worried as I don't understand what point your at now. Your booting straight into Windows 7 now? No boot menu? Please elaborate as I'm now highly concerned you didn't follow my directions exactly and are now on a full on Windows 7 setup with no multiboot. Do you see a semi-DOS looking menu when you first boot up that pauses there for 30 seconds if you don't do anything? It should contain 2 things in the top list, Windows 7 as the first choice, and Windows whatever-you-had as the second choice, and below all that you should see something about a Windows Memory test. If your not seeing this on boot up, please say so.

[compunoob]

not seeing any of that and I am just doing it differently. No mem tests or anything. If I leave my burned DVD in the drive it boots Win 7. I take it out and it boots XP.

[moshpit]

not seeing any of that and I am just doing it differently. No mem tests or anything. If I leave my burned DVD in the drive it boots Win 7. I take it out and it boots XP.

Wow. That's really odd. That doesn't make sense at all. Am I the only one who thinks that's not right? You see, the DVD is a bootable image of Windows Setup. It has no inherent method built in to boot a normal OS. It has to set one up to boot from the hard drive, OR, repair an existing install on a hard drive. That's the extent of what you can do with the DVD.

Whatever happened, you DEFINATELY didn't follow my instructions. My instruction left no room for something of that nature since it expected you to run Windows 7 Setup from within XP so that it could create the multiboot menu. In fact, I'm unsure how you did what you did considering that your description of how you use the DVD to pick with OS boots up.

Does anybody know something I don't about Windows Setup routine that would allow this strange scenario to happen? I thought being an MCSE, I knew every way there is to setup Windows. Remote setup? No prob. Unattended? No prob. Slipstreamed? No Prob. Multiboot? No prob. Weird DVD determined boot? Got a prob.

[caveman-jim]

Am I the only one who thinks that's not right?.

thats why I bailed. I'm floating down to ground, now. Then its off to the bar, to see a stewardess about going to Tahiti!

[moshpit]

thats why I bailed. I'm floating down to ground, now. Then its off to the bar, to see a stewardess about going to Tahiti!

Indeed. He thanked me for the instructions and then totally didn't follow them.

[compunoob]

Wow. That's really odd. That doesn't make sense at all. Am I the only one who thinks that's not right? You see, the DVD is a bootable image of Windows Setup. It has no inherent method built in to boot a normal OS. It has to set one up to boot from the hard drive, OR, repair an existing install on a hard drive. That's the extent of what you can do with the DVD.

Whatever happened, you DEFINATELY didn't follow my instructions. My instruction left no room for something of that nature since it expected you to run Windows 7 Setup from within XP so that it could create the multiboot menu. In fact, I'm unsure how you did what you did considering that your description of how you use the DVD to pick with OS boots up.

Does anybody know something I don't about Windows Setup routine that would allow this strange scenario to happen? I thought being an MCSE, I knew every way there is to setup Windows. Remote setup? No prob. Unattended? No prob. Slipstreamed? No Prob. Multiboot? No prob. Weird DVD determined boot? Got a prob.

I appologize to you and to Jim. It is and never was my intention to drive you all nuts. You are right. By the time you got into the thread I already had booted from the disc and installed windows 7 on my second hd. I played around in Win 7 for a while and installed some stuff and needed to reboot. I then rebooted and it went straight into win xp on the next boot as I had taken the disc out of the drive. If I have the disc out of my rom drive it will boot xp. If I have it in it will boot my second hd with win 7 on it. Why I dont know but it does. I may wipe the second drive and do it like you said as it would be much more convienient. I hope you know I appreciate your time and help. Jim if you even come back into this post at all I am sorry. I will PM you saying so if not.

[Payne3d]

I appologize to you and to Jim. It is and never was my intention to drive you all nuts. You are right. By the time you got into the thread I already had booted from the disc and installed windows 7 on my second hd. I played around in Win 7 for a while and installed some stuff and needed to reboot. I then rebooted and it went straight into win xp on the next boot as I had taken the disc out of the drive. If I have the disc out of my rom drive it will boot xp. If I have it in it will boot my second hd with win 7 on it. Why I dont know but it does. I may wipe the second drive and do it like you said as it would be much more convienient. I hope you know I appreciate your time and help. Jim if you even come back into this post at all I am sorry. I will PM you saying so if not.

Well that's a first. It would seem that you graduated from the class of Phail I see.

[compunoob]

I get a set up cannot run on this version of the operating system. To install indows please try booting from the install media. That is the error I get from using VCD.

[ECH1]

Steps are this:

1 install imgburn in windows xp
2 burn iso image to dvd
3 reboot pc, select optical drive to boot from
4 follow windows 7 install process
5 ...
6 use windows 7
7 ask 'how do i get back into windows xp??'
8 install ireboot

I too am interested in a burning this OS on a second drive and wanted to make sure it was seemless. So let me see if I got this right:

1. Use whatever ISO burning program that will allow you to Burn (IE: install the ISO image downloaded to a DVD so you can install from that DVD.

2. Burn that ISO you downloaded onto that DVD and label it so you can identify it later.

3. Leave the burned ISO, DVD in your DVD drive and reboot your current OS (be it XP or Vista).

4. Go into your Bios of your motherboard and make sure that your DVD Drive is the first component of your PC that your motherboard will boot from

5. Save your settings and then exit the bios, rebooting the PC once again

6. Once your PC is rebooted it should this time reboot from the DVD you just burned the Win7 iso from earlier.

7. Follow the instructions found in the Win7 installation. However make sure you select the 2nd hard drive to install from.

8. After a few reboots you should be able to install win7 and also should be able to choose which OS to select without the disc in the driver bay.



Sidenote:
I've read elsewhere that it's better to install Win7 with just the 2nd drive connected to the motherboard (IE: the 1st drive's power connector and IDE/SATA connector removed). Some have reported problems getting back to XP regardless of what Bios setting you tweak.

[Meteor_of_War]

I'm going to install Win 7 on my secondary HDD tomorrow and dual boot with XP. I've never dual booted 2 OS's before but I'm confident that I know the process well enough. I of course am open to tips if I have anything wrong.

This is what I'm planning:

1) Burn Windows 7 .iso to DVD with Nero.
2) Going to completely disconnect the HDD with Win XP installed to avoid any "mishaps."
3) Format and install Win 7 on secondary HDD.
4) Reboot

From there I'm assuming after reconnecting my XP drive I'll have the option to choose which OS to boot to. Am I correct? Or am I missing something. Any input is appreciated.

[caveman-jim]

No. if you disconnect the XP drive then the windows boot loader will not be able to boot, and the XP boot loader will not be able to boot Windows 7.

Be clear on which drive is which before installing windows 7 and you'll be fine. If they are different capacities /manufacturers then you won't have any problems, and be able to select either OS to boot from.

[Meteor_of_War]

Thanks for the advice.

But I was wondering, if I did it that way wouldnt I be able to choose what OS to boot to by hitting F12 at the POST screen? (or whatever key to go to the BIOS boot menu)

I read about this method somewhere and that there was some advantage to having separate boot files for each OS. But if you suggest this is not ideal then I'll heed your advice.

[caveman-jim]

It has to do with how to drives are seen by the bootloaders and how they write their signatures; if a drive appears thats not present when the bootloader was installed the bootloader may try to use the wrong drive to run Windows 7 from. I'm not 100% on that because I haven't tried it myself, but you might be able to use the motherboard easy boot option as you say. If you do decide to do that, the worst that can happen is your new Windows 7 install will not boot, and you'll have lost ~30mins.

[Meteor_of_War]

Hmm, well it seems one way is fool proof and the other way has a chance of failing. I'll just do it your way. My two HDDs are different enough to not confuse them, one is 200 GB the other is 500.

[Meteor_of_War]

Success. I'm posting on Windows 7 now. I didnt realize how fast it installs! Took only about 20 minutes. Dual boot worked out great too. Doesnt seem to be any issue, when I start the computer I get the black screen that lets me choose which OS to boot. Now to start installing programs.

[caveman-jim]

Good job!