How to dual boot windows server 2008 and windows server 2008 R2

K

kuckc

Member
how do i dual windows server 2008 and windows server 2008 R2 on seprate drives windows server 2008 was installed first then i purchased a seprate drive for windows server 2008 r2, i did the add/remove entries and add windows server 2008 r2 gave it the drive letter saved did view settinges and i see the entry, but when i reboot i see the entrys and when i choose windows server 2008 r2 it will not boot it says error trying to boot and i will need the disk to do a boot repair when i do boot repair it says nothing to repair, i cant figure out for the life of me as to how to do this, sombody help.


thanks
 
S

SIW2

Distinguished Member
I assume 2008 R2 is on F?

Bootmgr and the Boot folder containing bcd that are currently in use are on E.

What does the Easybcd View show?
 
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S

SIW2

Distinguished Member
That is vey odd.

Your new drive ( Disk0 ) is first in the Bios boot order. The system reserved partition was created by the R2 installation.

Your old installation of 2008 appeared in bcd , but not the new R2 installation?
 
K

kuckc

Member
what if i switch the sata cable on the mother board with the disk "0" to disk "1" and disk "1" to disk "0" will that change the issue?
 
S

SIW2

Distinguished Member
If you do that - Disk 1 will be first in Bios boot order - presumably as it was before you added the new drive.

Disk 1 will then be the boot drive, and C will the System partition.

You will be then using bootmgr and the bcd store on C.

You can add an entry for R2 manually to the C bcd store like this:

Open an elevated cmd prompt, Type ( press enter after each cmd)

bcdedit /copy {current} /d "2008 R2"

You will get a response saying that a new {GUID} was created successfully. It is a long number in curly brackets - use that, including the brackets, in the cmds below

bcdedit /set {your_new_GUID_here} device partition=F:

bcdedit /set {your_new_GUID_here} osdevice partition=F:

( If you prefer to use Easybcd - it does the above cmds for you)
 
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K

kuckc

Member
i used Easybcd 2.0 earlier, i now have 1 more entry since you have been helping , but if this works i will delete the bad one, thanks for your help.

There are a total of 3 entries listed in the bootloader.
Default: Microsoft Windows Server 2008
Timeout: 30 seconds.
Boot Drive: C:\
Entry #1
Name: Microsoft Windows Server 2008
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Entry #2
Name: Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2
BCD ID: {cf50bb3b-b210-11de-8f38-00508d98f403}
Drive: F:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Entry #3
Name: 2008 R2
BCD ID: {cf50bb3c-b210-11de-8f38-00508d98f403}
Drive: F:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
 
S

SIW2

Distinguished Member
Otherwise, you could try running startup repair by booting the dvd - at the Install Now screen , select Repair My Computer ( it's at the bottom of the screen ) - this time with Disk1 first in boot order.

I would give it 3 runs as it only fixes one thing at a time.

Hope it helps
 
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K

kuckc

Member
you fixed it, the lines that i add to the bcd fixed it, after i did reboot i still would not work, so i tried boot repair startrep.exe, and this time it fixed it, there was something i wasnt doing to the bcd that wouldnt allow me to proceed, but it is all good now.


thanks
 
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