EasyBCD picks wrong drives.

hpdrifter

New Member
I have been fighting a Win7 and Linux dual boot problem. I have tried for 2 days to use the grub from a LInux boot first.
I have a HP DC7800 with an ORIGINAL 160g Hitachi hard drive. I have added a 1Tb WDig for Linux and backup purposes.
I have successfully installed Linux Mint 17 Cinnamon onto the no 2 HD(1Tb WD). It runs fine. I have to switch the boot order in BIOS to do so.
I have updated the grub when both were connected with Linux as the boot program. I got Win 7 in the grub menu. All is well until it is chosen.
The command/route/path does not work; give me a device not found. I have changed device numbers with numbers I found in EasyBCD advanced. Still no love.

So, I finally decided to try EasyBCD; I have the Win7 hd in the correct socket for the SATA connections. I had the Win7 hd in the first order of boot in BIOS.
EasyBCD, upon adding another item, returns drive0 as the Linux drive and Win7 as drive1, which is backwards. Win7 is drive0 and Linux is drive1.

I switched cables on the SATA connections and it reports the same thing. I switch drive boot order in BIOS and it reports the same thing.

Why or what predicts the choice of drive0 or drive1?

It also lists Linux as being in C:/ along with Windows and recovery.

Is there ANY way to make a "elegant" boot choice? Looks like I'm stuck with BIOS as an "unelegant" boot loader.

I DO NOT want to go changing the mbr or whatever because of Windows frality and obstinance.
 
Windows reports drive numbers in a somewhat arbitrary fashion. In Vista IDE always came before SATA even if SATA was the boot device (logically disk 0).
In W7 that Vista quirk was "fixed" by simply reversing the SATA/IDE order (even if IDE was the boot device)
Just ignore what Windows says is disk 0 and which disk 1. It's of no significance.
EasyBCD will still manage the dual boot for you if you boot from the W7 drive, no matter what disk number has been randomly chosen.
 
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