I have a working EasyBCD dual boot XP media center SP3 (32bit) / Vista (32bit) set-up and I want to complicate things. Presently 3 drives: one with XP, one with Vista & one for data. I can access all 3 drives from XP or Vista.
I need to install Windows7 (64bit) over the Vista system drive (OEM upgrade version, I must do a new install, format, etc. over Vista). Problem A: I have EasyBCD 1.7.2 installed on both the XP and the Vista drives. Should I install version 2.1.2 before installing Win7 or after? Do we install EasyBCD over the old version or must we uninstall? Also from what I can gather, EasyBCD does not need to be installed on the XP drive. Correct?
To further complicate things Problem B: I found out about EasyBCD after I had started to try to make my system dual boot by moving SATA drives & cables around, installing Vista, etc. (SATA drive boot order cannot be set in bios). I do not remember how I actually got it to work a year or two ago. I am worried that I will loose access to one or more drives as I need to keep on working with XP while I install & test applications on the Win7 drive before completely switching over.
Am I overcomplicating things here? I would appreciate any insight. Thank you. LemZ
Here is more info:
XP drive on SATA 0, Vista on SATA 3 (optical drives on SATA 1 & 4).
From within XP, Administrative Tools, Disk Management: Disk0: 698GB (this is XP drive) Basic, Online, C (C
NTFS, Healthy, System // Disk1: 465GB (Vista drive) Basic, Online, C (G
NTFS, Healthy, Active // Disk2: Basic, Online, F (F
NTFS, Healthy.
And from EasyBCD in XP:
There are a total of 2 entries listed in the Vista Bootloader.
Bootloader Timeout: 20 seconds.
Default OS: Windows Vista
Entry #1
Name: Windows Vista
BCD ID: {default}
Drive: G:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows
Entry #2
Name: WINDOWS XP
BCD ID: {ntldr}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \ntldr
From within Vista: Disk0: 698GB Basic, Online, C (G
NTFS, Healthy, System, Active, Primary Partition // Disk1: 465GB Basic, Online, C (C
NTFS, Healthy, Boot, PageFile, Active, Crash, Dump, Primary Partition // Disk2: Basic, Online, F (F
NTFS, Healthy.
And from EasyBCD in Vista:
There are a total of 2 entries listed in the Vista Bootloader.
Bootloader Timeout: 20 seconds.
Default OS: Windows Vista
Entry #1
Name: Windows Vista
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows
Entry #2
Name: WINDOWS XP
BCD ID: {ntldr}
Drive: G:\
[FONT=&]Bootloader Path: \ntldr [/FONT]
I need to install Windows7 (64bit) over the Vista system drive (OEM upgrade version, I must do a new install, format, etc. over Vista). Problem A: I have EasyBCD 1.7.2 installed on both the XP and the Vista drives. Should I install version 2.1.2 before installing Win7 or after? Do we install EasyBCD over the old version or must we uninstall? Also from what I can gather, EasyBCD does not need to be installed on the XP drive. Correct?
To further complicate things Problem B: I found out about EasyBCD after I had started to try to make my system dual boot by moving SATA drives & cables around, installing Vista, etc. (SATA drive boot order cannot be set in bios). I do not remember how I actually got it to work a year or two ago. I am worried that I will loose access to one or more drives as I need to keep on working with XP while I install & test applications on the Win7 drive before completely switching over.
Am I overcomplicating things here? I would appreciate any insight. Thank you. LemZ
Here is more info:
XP drive on SATA 0, Vista on SATA 3 (optical drives on SATA 1 & 4).
From within XP, Administrative Tools, Disk Management: Disk0: 698GB (this is XP drive) Basic, Online, C (C
And from EasyBCD in XP:
There are a total of 2 entries listed in the Vista Bootloader.
Bootloader Timeout: 20 seconds.
Default OS: Windows Vista
Entry #1
Name: Windows Vista
BCD ID: {default}
Drive: G:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows
Entry #2
Name: WINDOWS XP
BCD ID: {ntldr}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \ntldr
From within Vista: Disk0: 698GB Basic, Online, C (G
And from EasyBCD in Vista:
There are a total of 2 entries listed in the Vista Bootloader.
Bootloader Timeout: 20 seconds.
Default OS: Windows Vista
Entry #1
Name: Windows Vista
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows
Entry #2
Name: WINDOWS XP
BCD ID: {ntldr}
Drive: G:\
[FONT=&]Bootloader Path: \ntldr [/FONT]