Ok guys, I have been dual booting Windows 7 and Windows 8 ever since last October when I bought Windows 8.
So far, 7 has been my default OS, with 8 just being a toy/learning tool, mainly.
I am about sure that I want to make 8 my new default OS.
Ok, now, both OSes are currently installed on SSDs. 7 on a 256 GB SSD, 8 on a 120 GB SSD.
Naturally, I'll want to have my default OS on the larger/faster drive, I guess. I have good disc images of both drives.
So, in swapping SSDs/OSes,
My questions are:
1. Should I just blow the 8 image into the 7 drive, and vice versa?
2. Should I do fresh installs? (I'd have to reinstall all my software, ouch!)
3. Does it work ok to put an image from one SSD onto a different SSD?
4. Any other advice?
Any opinions and advice will be greatly appreciated. (Other than the typical "Ditch Windows 8 and be happy." response...hehe.)
@Redneckdude
It likely isn't working for you is because you are not properly replacing the smaller system partitions required, thus not having 'bootable' OS'es. There are some automated tools that work well in situations such as these like the product line from EaseUS or for the more technically inclined and non-command-line averse my personal favourite program which does this exact thing very well and more (www.drivesnapshot.de).
You will not only need to clone/replace those small individual system partitions at the start of the drive but you will need mark your OS partition as 'active'. All products pertaining to this operation from EaseUS do this (in my experience) and that nice little german util I linked to above does it also although you have to do so manually.
yeah, because your computer has no idea what to boot now. (the entries in your bootloader do no longer match the installed operating systems.)
inserting a Windows 8 setup disk in a bootable drive might enable you to fix this.
you could also fix this from a Linux live disk.
my advice is to "reinstall" Windows 8 over the existing copied installation, your Windows 7 install should be automatically recognized.
Doc, I needed that laugh, thanks!
LMAO @ Doc.
The system partitions monk refers to should automatically be included in the image it's basically the new place for the boot.ini files etc that used to reside in C in xp.
if for some reason those files are missing then switch to sector by sector clone (for win 8 this should be fine as it's a smaller drive) not sure if sector by sector recovery allows you to install to a smaller drive from a larger one,a normal image recovery will so long as data amount doesn't exceed the intended drives capacity
easeus todo backup is free for personal use
Next thing i see may be wrong & why you can't boot is whether the win 8 you now have placed on the 250gb is still pointing to the wrong drive location,so in computer management you would've had this list showing what drives & capacities & their numbering you have along with extended partitions if any
DISKS partition & name
---------------------------------------
disk 0: NTFS win 7 250gb
--------------------------------------
disk 1: NTFS win 8 120gb
since i'm more familiar with the xp boot ini i'll go with that layout & you'll get the idea of what may be happening ,to avoid confusion i've set it up to look like your setup so win 7 "default" appears first in the list (anything BETWEEN the QUOTE MARKS ONLY ) \WINDOWS= " here " can be changed to whatever you want,i also assume windows on both drives is on partition 1 & there are no recovery partitions before the OS partitions
.....................................................................................................................................................................................................................
[boot loader] timeout=30default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS [operating systems] multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="WINDOWS 7" /fastdetect multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="WINDOWS 8" /fastdetect
assuming my thoughts are correct notice the rdisk numbering above where it says "default" (below timeout) & the subsequent listings under [operating systems],what i think maybe happening is when you clone win 8 to the 250gb hdd it's still pointing to (rdisk) 1,that's no good as the BIOS is looking for rdisk 0 but it ain't there coz your boot file is wrong,changing it to rdisk 0 should solve it,the easiest method most probably is use the win 8 install disk & use the fixboot & fixmbr commands or do it manually or modify it in the backup image itself,obviously you'll need to change the win 7 boot disk order also from disk 0 to disk 1
......................................................................................................................................................................................................................
make sure in the win 8 boot ini that rdisk is also at 0 & not 1 in boot loader selection,basically you replicate the boot order of win 7 & apply it to win 8 & do the reverse for the win 7 boot ini,assuming win 8 still uses the same vista/win 7 boot files
[boot loader] timeout=30default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
failing all this maybe send an email to yrag
It's fixed yall! Wizard1956 straightened me out after I tried Jafo's solution. Jafo had it right, but I went at it in the wrong order. Thanks Wiz!
I had to install 7 first, on the smaller drive, then blow the image to it, then once 7 was on, I was able to recover 8.
I had been trying to do 8 first, but the 7 image contained the MBR.
Thanks guys!!
You're welcome.
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