Dual-Boot problem using EasyBCD 2.2

Oldguy

Member
Dual-Boot problem using EasyBCD 2.2.

I need to dual-boot Windows-7 and Windows-ME. I have asystem hard drive partitioned with two partitions, one for Win-ME (FAT 32) andthe other for Win-7 (NTFS). The Win-ME system was installed first and wasoperating properly. After installing Win-7 on the other partition the computerwould only boot into Win-7. So I installed EasyBCD 2.2 and was then able toboot into either OS. It seemed to be working OK, so I spent most of the dayinstalling software on the Win-7 system. All the software (much of it old)installed and seemed to work properly on the Win-7 system.

I then attempted to boot into the Win-ME system (the Win-7 boot loader menu hadnot changed and showed both systems, as before). But instead of loading myWin-ME system, the screen displayed the following message in a DOS format:

GRUB4DOS 0.4.5c 2012-06-19. Mem: 638K/2038M/0M, End:3548DB

[ Minimal BASH-like line ending is supported. For the first word, TAB listspossible command complications. Anywhere else TAB lists the possiblecomplications of a device/filename. ]
grub>

Pressing the TAB key returns a long list of English words that have no meaningfor me.

I tried many things. Uninstalled all the software on Win-7, no help.Reinstalled Win-7, no help. The Win-7 boot loader menu still showed both OSsbut the same error message displayed when I selected the Win-ME OS. If theWin-7 OS was chosen it booted normally to Win-7. So, finally I decided to notonly re-install Win-7 but to re-format the Win-7 hard drive partition first.After doing this I could again boot to either OS using EasyBCD 2.2. I thenbegan to re-install software, on at a time, and check after each installationif the problem re-occurred. What I found is, after certain older programs wereinstalled the problem occurred – and the only way to recover was to againre-format the Windows-7 partition, re-install Win-7 and start over.


I found that the following older programs will installand run properly under Windows-7 and they cause no problems AS LONG ASWINDOWS-7 IS THE ONLY OPERATING SYSTEM AND DUAL-BOOT IS NOT NEEDED. But all ofthem cause the above-described dual-boot problem.

Adobe Illustrator 7.0
Adobe Photoshop LE 2.0
Adpbe Pagemaker 6.5
And several others that were written duing the Windows-95through Windows-ME period.

My system is now operating well, and I can run theseolder programs using the Windows-ME system, which is the other system to whichI dual-boot. But, since the above listed programs will all install and runproperly under Windows-7, and cause no problem as long as Windows-7 is the ONLYoperating system, WHY does installing them cause this inability to dual-boot?

I am now living in fear that some program I may installto Windows-7 will again cause this problem.

Gary Clark
Colorado Springs

 
Does your W7 call itself "C" when you boot it ?
If not, you will get problems using older third party software (especially from Adobe).
They have an unshakable determination to install data to C:\Program Files\Common Files even when you've pointed the installer to X:\MyPlace.
That becomes a problem when there is file of that name visible, even if that's on a completely different OS.
The results are unpredictable for both systems.
 
Yes, my W7 does call itself drive "C".

Does your W7 call itself "C" when you boot it ?
If not, you will get problems using older third party software (especially from Adobe).
They have an unshakable determination to install data to C:\Program Files\Common Files even when you've pointed the installer to X:\MyPlace.
That becomes a problem when there is file of that name visible, even if that's on a completely different OS.
The results are unpredictable for both systems.

Yes, my Windows-7 installation does call itself drive "C" when I boot to it. So does my Windows-ME installation when I boot to it. That is not the problem. The problem has to do with something those older programs do to the boot loader when they are installed under Windows-7. Later programs from the Windows-XP era do not cause the problem.

Furthermore, no method of fixing the problem other than reformatting the boot sector and installing Win-7 over again will fix it. I tried everything in the operator's guide for EazyBCD (which returned a report that it was successful), but it still did not fix the problem.

I would really like to know what in these older programs causes this.

Regards,
Oldguy
 
Have you tried re-adding the entry in EasyBCD (deleting the old one first) instead of formatting and reinstalling?
It's virtually impossible to know what those legacy apps are doing, they could be doing just about anything that could wreak havoc with your system. My advice? Run them in a limited (non-Administrator) user account, or better yet, in a virtual machine.
 
Have you tried re-adding the entry in EasyBCD (deleting the old one first) instead of formatting and reinstalling?
It's virtually impossible to know what those legacy apps are doing, they could be doing just about anything that could wreak havoc with your system. My advice? Run them in a limited (non-Administrator) user account, or better yet, in a virtual machine.

Yes, I have tried re-adding the entry in EasyBCD as you described. This does not work. However, since posting my original issue to this thread I have found that doing a system restore will eliminate the problem. I am now making manual restore points prior to installing any software.

Oldguy
 
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