Hi!
I have a bit of a delicate problem. I have this laptop from my employer, and since I don't have any administrator rights on this machine, I got myself an E-SATA SSD thinking that I could dualboot into my own OS. I thought that by selecting the boot sequence in BIOS, I would be able to boot into any one of the two OS'es.
Now, This worked at first, installing Windows 7 onto the E-SATA drive went flawlessly. However, then I found out that I ended up having two options on the boot manager menu when trying to boot into the original OS (also Windows 7). Now, I wanted to get rid of that so that I was able to only choose between OS'es using the boot sequence.
A friend of mine suggested that I should run EasyBCD and delete that newly created entry. Then I should take out the internal harddrive and do a clean install from the SSD. He told me that this would make each harddrive act as there was only one OS to run when choosing that drive in BIOS boot sequence.
Now, I ran into some serious problems. First of all, I didn't have admin rights to the OS on the internal drive. So I ran EasyBCD from the new OS on the E-SATA drive. Then, when booting from the original harddisk I still got the windows boot menu, but there was only one entry to choose from (original OS), it didn't boot automatically until the 30sec timer ran out.
Now after installing win 7 all over again (with only the new SSD as internal), I am only able to boot from it if I kerp is as an internal drive. Trying to swap it to E-SATA makes it loop in the "finalizing windows setup" asking me to create a username and password. After every restart, I'm back to this setup.
If I boot from the SSD as an internal disk, I get to the desktop. Running EasyBCD like this (with the original disk as E-SATA), I can only see 1 entry, and it's located on C:\
After two tries to reinstall with the SSD as E-SATA, I now have 3 entries on the windows boot manager menu, and I have no idea how I can get rid of them. I also don't know why I'm not able to boot properly into windows without the setup looping. Trying to repair through setup didn't do anything either. Remember, I don't have admin-rights when booting into the original OS. Except from the boot manager menu, this OS works normally.
Does anybody have any idea of what I could do?
Addendum:
A little update this morning. Booted into Windows 7 setup and chose "repair" and opened the command prompt.
1) The command bcdedit /enum listed 3 bootloaders and 1 boot manager.
2) I then used the command bcedit /default {identifier string} to change the default boot to my original Windows 7.
3) Deleted both my excess boot loaders by command bcdedit /delete {identifier string}.
Now my original OS boots wonderfully from the internal harddrive just as before. So I'm back to scratch. Don't know of any way of getting a dual boot system without getting the Windows Boot Manager menu, though. Anyone knows?
Addendum:
Ok, so after the boot loaders had gone and the original OS worked ok, I did what I should have done in the first place:
1) I took out the original harddrive and replaced it with the new SSD.
2) Did a normal setup of Windows 7.
3) Switched the SSD to E-SATA enclosure and booted flawlessly from that
4) Installed the original harddrive in the internal bay and booted flawlessly from that.
Now I'm able to choose which OS I want to boot to by choosing the boot device from the BIOS bootlist. Just the way I originally intended :lol:
I have a bit of a delicate problem. I have this laptop from my employer, and since I don't have any administrator rights on this machine, I got myself an E-SATA SSD thinking that I could dualboot into my own OS. I thought that by selecting the boot sequence in BIOS, I would be able to boot into any one of the two OS'es.
Now, This worked at first, installing Windows 7 onto the E-SATA drive went flawlessly. However, then I found out that I ended up having two options on the boot manager menu when trying to boot into the original OS (also Windows 7). Now, I wanted to get rid of that so that I was able to only choose between OS'es using the boot sequence.
A friend of mine suggested that I should run EasyBCD and delete that newly created entry. Then I should take out the internal harddrive and do a clean install from the SSD. He told me that this would make each harddrive act as there was only one OS to run when choosing that drive in BIOS boot sequence.
Now, I ran into some serious problems. First of all, I didn't have admin rights to the OS on the internal drive. So I ran EasyBCD from the new OS on the E-SATA drive. Then, when booting from the original harddisk I still got the windows boot menu, but there was only one entry to choose from (original OS), it didn't boot automatically until the 30sec timer ran out.
Now after installing win 7 all over again (with only the new SSD as internal), I am only able to boot from it if I kerp is as an internal drive. Trying to swap it to E-SATA makes it loop in the "finalizing windows setup" asking me to create a username and password. After every restart, I'm back to this setup.
If I boot from the SSD as an internal disk, I get to the desktop. Running EasyBCD like this (with the original disk as E-SATA), I can only see 1 entry, and it's located on C:\
After two tries to reinstall with the SSD as E-SATA, I now have 3 entries on the windows boot manager menu, and I have no idea how I can get rid of them. I also don't know why I'm not able to boot properly into windows without the setup looping. Trying to repair through setup didn't do anything either. Remember, I don't have admin-rights when booting into the original OS. Except from the boot manager menu, this OS works normally.
Does anybody have any idea of what I could do?
Addendum:
A little update this morning. Booted into Windows 7 setup and chose "repair" and opened the command prompt.
1) The command bcdedit /enum listed 3 bootloaders and 1 boot manager.
2) I then used the command bcedit /default {identifier string} to change the default boot to my original Windows 7.
3) Deleted both my excess boot loaders by command bcdedit /delete {identifier string}.
Now my original OS boots wonderfully from the internal harddrive just as before. So I'm back to scratch. Don't know of any way of getting a dual boot system without getting the Windows Boot Manager menu, though. Anyone knows?
Addendum:
Ok, so after the boot loaders had gone and the original OS worked ok, I did what I should have done in the first place:
1) I took out the original harddrive and replaced it with the new SSD.
2) Did a normal setup of Windows 7.
3) Switched the SSD to E-SATA enclosure and booted flawlessly from that
4) Installed the original harddrive in the internal bay and booted flawlessly from that.
Now I'm able to choose which OS I want to boot to by choosing the boot device from the BIOS bootlist. Just the way I originally intended :lol:
Last edited:
