multiboot Win7 and Server 2003 - 2 SATA disks

rpsf

Member
Thank you Mahmoud.
I liked what I read about EasyBCD and gave it a try to fix the multiboot situation I inadvertently created. Although 1.7 could not quite get it, version 2 beta96 worked perfectly.
Robert


I have an old Intel board D845EBT2 with a Sil3112 SATA RAID controller and 2 disks that were mirrored RAID running Windows 2000. I disabled the RAID, physically detached the second drive to be certain I would be able to go back to 2000-just in case. I then installed Windows 7 RC on one drive and ran it successfully until it timed out in April.

My goal now was to dual boot Windows 7 and Server 2003. I reinstalled Windows 7 Ultimate on the one drive connected to the primary. Connecting the secondary drive, I could not at this point get the drive recognized to install 2003 unless it was plugged in to the primary port. So...plugging in the second drive as Primary I installed Server 2003.
The BIOS is set for boot from SATA but RAID is disabled. So my multiboot requires me to either physically swap cables on the drives or change the BIOS to select the boot drive. Bummer! :joy:

The computer hangs on boot when trying to identify drives if both are plugged in. Obviously each one is set to boot. I then found and tried EasyBCD 1.7 and it managed to get both drives recognized again but it was not able to load Server 2003,reporting unable to find NTLDR.

Version 2beta96 solved it beautifully. Just as suggested, I deleted the old entry and reentered it, allowing EasyBCD to auto find and set the drive. :happy:
 
Hi Robert!

Thanks for your message and your kind words. I'm glad EasyBCD 2.0 did the trick for you. I can't wait to get it out of beta and release it to the general public so people can save the time spent fiddling with 1.7 until they discover a version that works.
 
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