Multiboot Win 7 doesn't work on 8.1

G

Gary McAllister

Member
I am trying to boot Win 7 on a separate drive onto a Win 8.1 pc. I turned on legacy boot, disabled secure boot and turned off fast boot. EasyBCD shows both drives and boots to Win 8.1. Win7 locks up and does nothing, even after hours. I tried booting from the Win 7 disk and get an error this disk is for the wrong machine. I bought EasyRepair for Win 8 but that does not seem right now since Win 8.1 boots fine. Any help is appreciated.
 
If this is a W7 system drive from an older PC, it won't be able to boot on a different h/w configuration.
When originally installed, setup will have configured a driver set for the old hardware, most importantly for the mobo chipsets, which are unlikely to be compatible if the old and new PCs are of different vintages.
If you own a full retail version of W7, you might be able to "upgrade in place", letting setup remedy the hardware inconsistencies from the DVD or via WUD.
If the W7 came pre-installed on the old PC, it will be an OEM licence which is tied irrevocably to the old h/w.
Even if you could access a W7 DVD, it would not help. MS would not activate the OEM licenced OS on different h/w.
The EULA on an OEM machine states that the licence doesn't belong to you, it belongs to the old h/w.
 
Terry60 said:
If this is a W7 system drive from an older PC, it won't be able to boot on a different h/w configuration.
When originally installed, setup will have configured a driver set for the old hardware, most importantly for the mobo chipsets, which are unlikely to be compatible if the old and new PCs are of different vintages.
If you own a full retail version of W7, you might be able to "upgrade in place", letting setup remedy the hardware inconsistencies from the DVD or via WUD.
If the W7 came pre-installed on the old PC, it will be an OEM licence which is tied irrevocably to the old h/w.
Even if you could access a W7 DVD, it would not help. MS would not activate the OEM licenced OS on different h/w.
The EULA on an OEM machine states that the licence doesn't belong to you, it belongs to the old h/w.
Click to expand...
I was concerned this would be the case but the EasyBCD description seemed to indicate it would work so I gave it a try. Thanks for the quick reply.
 
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