Dual boot 2x Win7 help

Hi all,

I just got my G73.

My goal is to use first HD for work and 2nd HD for pleasure

I was thinking to have dual win 7 setup.

But ....


I installed second win 7 on the first partition of the second HD. Everything was ok and after 2nd restart i had a choice to choose which win 7 boot I want. But after I completed 2nd win 7 installation (3rd reset) I would not get boot menu and it would not be possible to enter windows.

I did recovery and tried again with same result ...

Please help if it is possible to have 2 win 7 systems on 2 HD on 1 laptop.

Few years ago i did have winxp/vista and even before that win98/winxp.

Is win7/win7 setup even possible?

Thx much in advance.

Best,
kukikuki

 

I curious and just have to ask... why?? I mean, I get wanting a dual win/linux or win/mac box, but I can't see a purpose for this.

 

Just curious but aren't you going to run into issues with the bios not knowing what harddrive the primary harddrive to boot from is? (Hence both drives have a boot partition pointing to different OS installs)

Have you tried making 1 drive primary, installing windows, then making sure it works. Switch primary drives, install windows on the other drive, then make sure that works?

It may be a pain in the rear but you would have to switch what drive you want to boot from primary (or press esc at post to pick one).

I cannot confirm this since I have never done this, just the way I would imagine you would have to go about it....

 

Why don't you just be normal by creating two users and password protecting both? You can make each account private so Home cannot access Work etc.

 

Well you can call it stupid, but for me it is certainly not.

I want to make safe setup and safe environment for my work. That means that on the first HD there should be 0 programs that are not necessary for my work. That means, nothing that is not work related is not allowed to be present. I would even disable second HD so it would not possible to access second HD at all.

Same is with my other windows setup for "pleasure" where HD for work would be also hidden.

I need to make my work HD as safe as possible because I work with some sensible data.

Thx all in advance.

 

hehe "sensible data". mine is that but its also sensitive i too wanted this setup but in the end i opted just to setup 2 user accounts 1 work 1 play and will be installing some security software

 

You need a boot manager. I've never set up multiboot to run the same OS on two partitions. I just want to point out that even if you get this working, the "work" and "play" hard drives can still see each other. So if you are running this in a corporate environment, they can still see everything you've been doing on the other hard drive. Anyway, that's your business. Grub will do what you are trying to set up. It is a boot loader typically used for linux (what I use it for) but it will boot any OS.

 

I also never made setup with the same OS on 2 HD before. Maybe it is just not possible.

I remember that partition Magic had an option to hide hard drives you don't want to see and it worked great for me before. Bu than i also had different OS dual boot setup.

Well i will give it a try few more days and see if I manage to do something.

Thx all for trying to help.

best,
kukikuki

 

Well, I am really dumb I must say .... well anyhow i think i found good solution.

I will remove first HD and instal other copy of win 7 to my other drive. this way I will not have dual boot, but I will be able to choose from bios which HD I want to be primary and thus which win 7 setup to load....

Anyhow, thx all for trying to help.

Best,
kukikuki

 

Hmm one (probably stupid) question.

Will i void warranty if I open bottom door and remove HD?

thx

 

Boot Manager - multiboot of multiple operating systems

This utility is part of Acronis Disk Director 11 Home

 

I can't imagine why it would. It is quite user accessible. I suppose if you broke off a SATA connector you might have warranty problems.