Dual booting 7/xp HELP!!

download EasyBCD use it in Windows 7

If you install windows 7 first then xp then only xp will load even when windows 7 is there.

But if you install windows xp first and then 7 then you will get a proper dual boot menu at start-up.

I am myself dual booting those 2 OS but only on a single HD.

I unplugged the XP drive, booted up and windows gave an error, I can't boot into 7, I installed Easy BCD, and it wont start in XP!!!
EDIT:I'm installing .NET2.0 to see if that will fix it
Ok Easy BCD is working, but what do I do?
There is one entry in the Vista Bootloader.
Bootloader Timeout: 30 seconds.
Default OS: Windows 7

Entry #1

Name: Windows 7
BCD ID: {default}
Drive: E:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows

Ok, one thing i've learned from multiple OSs. ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS unplug every hard drive except the one your installing the new OS on. Just a tip for the future, because you'll be having to reload 7 when it expires one of these days.

I've run into to soooo many boot problems before doing this. Now I triple boot with Ubuntu, XP, and Windows 7. If you so choose to boot a different OS go into the BIOS and select to boot from that hard drive. No more boot managers conflicting!

or just skip even bothering worrying about that. If you install Linux it puts GRUB loader on there and that REALLY messes with things. If you install Ubuntu with other operating systems installed you cannot remove Ubuntu without having problems booting. Just unplug the cable to the hard drive and your set.

I've got Ubuntu, XP, and 7 installed on my computer with ZERO boot conflicts. I can remove any of the HDDs with no problems.

Oh is it? You simply go into the BIOS and change your boot drive. I know on my gigabyte motherboard I just hit F11 on boot and pick which drive to boot from. It's very simple and avoid running into ANY boot conflicts.

My apologies if I explained it badly. It all makes sense in my head, lol.

Lets see if I can explain it better this time...

You can install any OS in any order without having to worry about if the boot loader will conflict or not if you do this.
Let's take my computer for example. I have three HDDs and wanted three operating systems. I wanted Ubuntu, XP and Windows 7. It doesn't matter the order you do this in as long as you do it correctly.

-Say you were going to install XP first. Unplug ANY other drives, even if they're just for storage. Install XP.
Now that XP is up and running, you can plug back in those other drives if you need something off of them or what not. Same goes for the next installs.

-Ok, XP works. Now you want to install Ubuntu. Unplug ALL drives again including the XP drive leaving only your choice of drive to install Ubuntu on. Install...done.

-Now Windows 7 needs to be on the computer as well. I'm sure you catching on here...Unplug every drive except your remaining choice for 7 to be installed on.

You should have successfully installed three different operating systems with ease and now you shouldn't have any boot conflicts between the OS's. If you so chose to boot into a different OS, you simply go into the BIOS and select that drive to boot. It's even easier with my Gigabyte mobo, like I said before, with the F11 option going straight to a boot selection instead of going into the BIOS. You can also remove those drives if you so chose without worry of errors.

What I meant before with removing an Ubuntu drive was, I had an old computer that I XP one drive and a spare. So I decided to install Ubuntu on that spare. When I did that, it put GRUB loader as the boot manager. Not a big deal...until you decide to maybe get a new drive or it goes bad. I wasn't able to boot into XP after taking out the Ubuntu drive because of the boot manager. I'm pretty sure the only fix was to reinstall XP to replace GRUB loader.

I get what you're saying... I think you're missing the joke.

No, you will not have any boot problems at all... I realize this. However if you remove one hard drive containing one OS, you will no longer be able to boot to that OS, correct? So if you remove the XP drive... no Windows XP. If you remove the Windows 7 drive... no Windows 7... do you now understand what I meant?



Sheesh... don't you know a joke ceases to be funny when you have to explain it?

Best plan for multiple OS is something like the ICY bay hard disk mounting - you can just switch the disks in and out, saves all the bother of boot sectors getting accidently overwritten, data corrupted by foreign OS etc