Win7 & XP - Preferred install order, & WHY ?
I appreciate the documentation here that describes how to perform either multiboot,
but I have NOT seen any description of which approach is better under what circumstances?
I'm setting up a new laptop to multiboot Win7, XP, and eventually SnowLeo_x86 & Linux.
- have 2 Seagate Momentus XT hybrid 500 gb hard drives.
I'll also have each of these OSs as VMs to run within the booted OS,
but I want the ability to natively boot each OS mentioned.
I can install the SnowLeo_x86 & Linux on the 2nd hdd,
so I'm not concerned with that at the moment -
ESPECIALLY knowing that EasyBCD will be the Boss of ALL of them!![Wink :wink: :wink:](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
.... now, I HAVE experimented with installing XP 1st - then 7 - then EasyBCD,
and also the opposite: 7 - then XP - then .NET - followed by EasyBCD.
so, I can get it to work either way -
but I'd sure appreciate some feedbacks from those who might know -
which way is OPTIMUM, under what circumstances, and more importantly - WHY ??
the MAIN criteria I'm searching for personally, is the ease of reimaging -
I make multiple tiered images of system partitions using Drive Snapshot,
and I reimage about 2x/month, cleaning & updating my current working image as I evolve.
(I only install OS + programs on system partition - all Data is on other logical partitions)
so will it be easier 1 way or the other?
or, will I have to use EasyBCD to rewrite the MBR every reimage, in either case ?
** on a slightly different note of interest -
I set up a multiboot on the 1st Intel Core Duo iMac (2006) proceeding in this order:
Formatted:
1st partition is of course the 200 MB EFI "protective partition"
2nd partition initially set to Mac OS Extended = "Windows 7"
3rd partition initially set to Mac OS Extended = "Windows Data"
4th partition initially set to MS-DOS ............ = "XP Pro"
5th partition set to Mac OS Extended ........... = "Snow Leopard"
6th partition set to Mac OS Extended ........... = "Mac Data"
Installed:
* Snow Leopard on the technical 5th partition,
* then rEFIt on the SnowLeo partition
...... booting each time from here on with rEFIt as the Boot Mgr !!!
* then XP on the technical 4th partition - reformatting it NTFS @ install time
* then Windows 7 on the technical 2nd partition -reformatting it NTFS @ install time,
* .... and being sure that XP is set "Active" after installing Windows 7
* then reformatting the 3rd partition from within XP or 7 using command line
....... convert "X": /fs:ntfs
Then using Drive Snapshot, I imaged both the Windows 7 and the XP partitions (2 separate images).
After making a few changes on XP, I restored the image, and nothing was disturbed -
rEFIt came up at boot and allowed me to choose & go Directly to either 7 or XP.
Then I made a few changes on 7 and then restored the 7 image,
and again nothing was disturbed - rEFIt at boot allows all choices.
So.... my conclusion is that on a GUID/GPT system, with rEFIt as boot manager,
I avoided MBR type reimaging issues - reimaging did NOT rewrite the critical boot information.
...... Ideas ? Thanks !
.
I appreciate the documentation here that describes how to perform either multiboot,
but I have NOT seen any description of which approach is better under what circumstances?
I'm setting up a new laptop to multiboot Win7, XP, and eventually SnowLeo_x86 & Linux.
- have 2 Seagate Momentus XT hybrid 500 gb hard drives.
I'll also have each of these OSs as VMs to run within the booted OS,
but I want the ability to natively boot each OS mentioned.
I can install the SnowLeo_x86 & Linux on the 2nd hdd,
so I'm not concerned with that at the moment -
ESPECIALLY knowing that EasyBCD will be the Boss of ALL of them!
.... now, I HAVE experimented with installing XP 1st - then 7 - then EasyBCD,
and also the opposite: 7 - then XP - then .NET - followed by EasyBCD.
so, I can get it to work either way -
but I'd sure appreciate some feedbacks from those who might know -
which way is OPTIMUM, under what circumstances, and more importantly - WHY ??
the MAIN criteria I'm searching for personally, is the ease of reimaging -
I make multiple tiered images of system partitions using Drive Snapshot,
and I reimage about 2x/month, cleaning & updating my current working image as I evolve.
(I only install OS + programs on system partition - all Data is on other logical partitions)
so will it be easier 1 way or the other?
or, will I have to use EasyBCD to rewrite the MBR every reimage, in either case ?
** on a slightly different note of interest -
I set up a multiboot on the 1st Intel Core Duo iMac (2006) proceeding in this order:
Formatted:
1st partition is of course the 200 MB EFI "protective partition"
2nd partition initially set to Mac OS Extended = "Windows 7"
3rd partition initially set to Mac OS Extended = "Windows Data"
4th partition initially set to MS-DOS ............ = "XP Pro"
5th partition set to Mac OS Extended ........... = "Snow Leopard"
6th partition set to Mac OS Extended ........... = "Mac Data"
Installed:
* Snow Leopard on the technical 5th partition,
* then rEFIt on the SnowLeo partition
...... booting each time from here on with rEFIt as the Boot Mgr !!!
* then XP on the technical 4th partition - reformatting it NTFS @ install time
* then Windows 7 on the technical 2nd partition -reformatting it NTFS @ install time,
* .... and being sure that XP is set "Active" after installing Windows 7
* then reformatting the 3rd partition from within XP or 7 using command line
....... convert "X": /fs:ntfs
Then using Drive Snapshot, I imaged both the Windows 7 and the XP partitions (2 separate images).
After making a few changes on XP, I restored the image, and nothing was disturbed -
rEFIt came up at boot and allowed me to choose & go Directly to either 7 or XP.
Then I made a few changes on 7 and then restored the 7 image,
and again nothing was disturbed - rEFIt at boot allows all choices.
So.... my conclusion is that on a GUID/GPT system, with rEFIt as boot manager,
I avoided MBR type reimaging issues - reimaging did NOT rewrite the critical boot information.
...... Ideas ? Thanks !
.
Last edited: