Multi-Boot?

I have a system i have had set up with two hard drives, one XP, one
W7. I merely select the boot disk I want in the BIOS at boot-start.
Always has worked fine.

Now I am playing with W8 installed on a new hard drive, and have added
that drive as a third drive. It boots and runs fine when it is the
only drive physically connected. But when I connect the other two
drives, things don't go right at boot. Sometimes the selected drive
boots, sometimes not. Sometimes the BIOS does not even ask me which
drive to boot. Sometimes it does. Sometimes CHKDSK runs on one or
two of the drives before the selected drive will boot up.

Is there something I don't know here? Does W8 prevent multi-booting?
Maybe W8 can't interface with W7 and/or XP?
Seems strange to me.

Thanks
dumb ME

On 11/18/2012 6:40 AM, wrote:
I have a system i have had set up with two hard drives, one XP, one
W7. I merely select the boot disk I want in the BIOS at boot-start.
Always has worked fine.

Now I am playing with W8 installed on a new hard drive, and have added
that drive as a third drive. It boots and runs fine when it is the
only drive physically connected. But when I connect the other two
drives, things don't go right at boot. Sometimes the selected drive
boots, sometimes not. Sometimes the BIOS does not even ask me which
drive to boot. Sometimes it does. Sometimes CHKDSK runs on one or
two of the drives before the selected drive will boot up.

Is there something I don't know here? Does W8 prevent multi-booting?
Maybe W8 can't interface with W7 and/or XP?
Seems strange to me.

Thanks
dumb ME

Not so strange, I have seen worse. We are talking about SATA drives,
right? Anyway a number of things comes to mind.

1) That new drive may not play well with others.

2) The BIOS may have a bug dealing with three drives.

3) The disk controller(s) may have problems with three drives.

4) The power supply may not handle the extra load.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Thunderbird v12
Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 4GB - Windows 8

wrote:
I have a system i have had set up with two hard drives, one XP, one
W7. I merely select the boot disk I want in the BIOS at
boot-start. Always has worked fine.

Now I am playing with W8 installed on a new hard drive, and have
added that drive as a third drive. It boots and runs fine when it is
the only drive physically connected. But when I connect the other
two drives, things don't go right at boot. Sometimes the selected
drive boots, sometimes not. Sometimes the BIOS does not even ask me
which drive to boot. Sometimes it does. Sometimes CHKDSK runs on
one or two of the drives before the selected drive will boot up.

Is there something I don't know here? Does W8 prevent multi-booting?
Maybe W8 can't interface with W7 and/or XP? Seems strange to me.

Adding to BillW50's comments, try disconnecting one of the original
drives, either the XP or W7. If that works, try disconnecting the other,
instead. That should tell you if it is a hardware/BIOS problem or W8
obstinacy.
--
Crash

"I'm told that Wagner's music is not as bad as it sounds."
~ Mark Twain ~

On Sun, 18 Nov 2012 08:56:07 -0600, BillW50 wrote:


Not so strange, I have seen worse. We are talking about SATA drives,
right? Anyway a number of things comes to mind.

No - I should have been clearer. The XP is SATA. The W7 is IDE. The
third, W8, is SATA.

1) That new drive may not play well with others.

Maybe. CHKDSK usually wants to run on the W7 IDE drive and the new W8
SATA drive. If I had a way to backup then restore the W8 drive I
would try another drive. I guess I could reinstall a new, virgin, W8
- just as a test. AMOF, I think I will do this first. Good idea.



2) The BIOS may have a bug dealing with three drives.

Recently, I had three drives on the system that worked just fine. The
third at the time was another SATA with XP on it, but not the present
W8 drive.


3) The disk controller(s) may have problems with three drives.

doubt it. but maybe.


4) The power supply may not handle the extra load.

Never thought of that.



Thanks

ME

On Sun, 18 Nov 2012 10:09:49 -0500, "Dave \"Crash\" Dummy"
wrote:


Adding to BillW50's comments, try disconnecting one of the original
drives, either the XP or W7. If that works, try disconnecting the other,
instead. That should tell you if it is a hardware/BIOS problem or W8
obstinacy.


I have tried some of that. One thing I find is that I do not see the
problem until I connect the W8 drive. That should mean something I
guess.

Thanks

ME

Set the boot selection using EasyBCD 2.2. The Win8 boot selection is
flakey. You almost have to get Win8 all the way up before the options are
shown.

I have 4 drives on my system with Win7 on an SSD and Win8 on SATA. I've
installed numerous WIN7/8 dual boots and have always used EasyBCD and never
had problems. I've installed such setups for our 1500-member computer club
and on 3 of my home computers.

wrote in message
...
I have a system i have had set up with two hard drives, one XP, one
W7. I merely select the boot disk I want in the BIOS at boot-start.
Always has worked fine.

Now I am playing with W8 installed on a new hard drive, and have added
that drive as a third drive. It boots and runs fine when it is the
only drive physically connected. But when I connect the other two
drives, things don't go right at boot. Sometimes the selected drive
boots, sometimes not. Sometimes the BIOS does not even ask me which
drive to boot. Sometimes it does. Sometimes CHKDSK runs on one or
two of the drives before the selected drive will boot up.

Is there something I don't know here? Does W8 prevent multi-booting?
Maybe W8 can't interface with W7 and/or XP?
Seems strange to me.

Thanks
dumb ME

wrote in message
...
I have a system i have had set up with two hard drives, one XP, one
W7. I merely select the boot disk I want in the BIOS at boot-start.
Always has worked fine.

Now I am playing with W8 installed on a new hard drive, and have added
that drive as a third drive. It boots and runs fine when it is the
only drive physically connected. But when I connect the other two
drives, things don't go right at boot. Sometimes the selected drive
boots, sometimes not. Sometimes the BIOS does not even ask me which
drive to boot. Sometimes it does. Sometimes CHKDSK runs on one or
two of the drives before the selected drive will boot up.

Is there something I don't know here? Does W8 prevent multi-booting?
Maybe W8 can't interface with W7 and/or XP?
Seems strange to me.

Thanks
dumb ME

------

I had a "similar" problem.

I have been dual booting Vista and W7 on the same Laptop drive.

I decided to remove Vista from the drive and install W8 Pro to that
partition.

Booting from the W8 media, I formatted the Vista Partition and installed W8.

After the install the choice screen to select either partition on boot had
gone, and all I could boot to, was W8.

I used the following See:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392#method1

Bootrec /ScanOS
Bootrec /rebuildBCD

Afterwards the bootscreen was back, and like you, I had to run CHKDSK on
each partition.

YMMV, but it put my Laptop back on dual boot.

mac

BTW, I used the W8 install disk.

mac

wrote:
I have a system i have had set up with two hard drives, one XP, one
W7. I merely select the boot disk I want in the BIOS at boot-start.
Always has worked fine.

Now I am playing with W8 installed on a new hard drive, and have added
that drive as a third drive. It boots and runs fine when it is the
only drive physically connected. But when I connect the other two
drives, things don't go right at boot. Sometimes the selected drive
boots, sometimes not. Sometimes the BIOS does not even ask me which
drive to boot. Sometimes it does. Sometimes CHKDSK runs on one or
two of the drives before the selected drive will boot up.

Is there something I don't know here? Does W8 prevent multi-booting?
Maybe W8 can't interface with W7 and/or XP?
Seems strange to me.

Thanks
dumb ME

I've seen this before, on the preview versions of Windows 8.

It depends on whether you've done a "full shutdown" of Windows 8,
or Windows 8 is using one of its *two* hibernation states.

When Win8 does the kernel hibernate thing, it tells the BIOS
to read the hiberfile. And *that* gives the impression you've
"lost control" of the computer. The computer thinks it is doing
restore from S4, while you the user are furiously hammering your
popup boot menu key (F8 perhaps), and not getting a response.

If you do a "full shutdown" of Windows 8, your BIOS popup boot
menu should magically be working again.

Been there, bought the white cotton short sleeve shirt.
And yes, Microsoft, this is annoying.

Paul

Paul wrote:
wrote:
I have a system i have had set up with two hard drives, one XP, one
W7. I merely select the boot disk I want in the BIOS at boot-start.
Always has worked fine.

Now I am playing with W8 installed on a new hard drive, and have added
that drive as a third drive. It boots and runs fine when it is the
only drive physically connected. But when I connect the other two
drives, things don't go right at boot. Sometimes the selected drive
boots, sometimes not. Sometimes the BIOS does not even ask me which
drive to boot. Sometimes it does. Sometimes CHKDSK runs on one or
two of the drives before the selected drive will boot up.

Is there something I don't know here? Does W8 prevent multi-booting?
Maybe W8 can't interface with W7 and/or XP? Seems strange to me.

Thanks
dumb ME

I've seen this before, on the preview versions of Windows 8.

It depends on whether you've done a "full shutdown" of Windows 8,
or Windows 8 is using one of its *two* hibernation states.

When Win8 does the kernel hibernate thing, it tells the BIOS
to read the hiberfile. And *that* gives the impression you've
"lost control" of the computer. The computer thinks it is doing
restore from S4, while you the user are furiously hammering your
popup boot menu key (F8 perhaps), and not getting a response.

If you do a "full shutdown" of Windows 8, your BIOS popup boot
menu should magically be working again.

Been there, bought the white cotton short sleeve shirt.
And yes, Microsoft, this is annoying.

Paul

This goes into the details, better than I could.

http://www.online-tech-tips.com/wind...-in-windows-8/

Paul

Paul wrote:

This goes into the details, better than I could...

That would be a first...

--










Paul

Paul wrote:
Paul wrote:
wrote:
I have a system i have had set up with two hard drives, one XP, one
W7. I merely select the boot disk I want in the BIOS at boot-start.
Always has worked fine.

Now I am playing with W8 installed on a new hard drive, and have added
that drive as a third drive. It boots and runs fine when it is the
only drive physically connected. But when I connect the other two
drives, things don't go right at boot. Sometimes the selected drive
boots, sometimes not. Sometimes the BIOS does not even ask me which
drive to boot. Sometimes it does. Sometimes CHKDSK runs on one or
two of the drives before the selected drive will boot up.

Is there something I don't know here? Does W8 prevent multi-booting?
Maybe W8 can't interface with W7 and/or XP? Seems strange to me.

Thanks
dumb ME

I've seen this before, on the preview versions of Windows 8.

It depends on whether you've done a "full shutdown" of Windows 8,
or Windows 8 is using one of its *two* hibernation states.

When Win8 does the kernel hibernate thing, it tells the BIOS
to read the hiberfile. And *that* gives the impression you've
"lost control" of the computer. The computer thinks it is doing
restore from S4, while you the user are furiously hammering your
popup boot menu key (F8 perhaps), and not getting a response.

If you do a "full shutdown" of Windows 8, your BIOS popup boot
menu should magically be working again.

Been there, bought the white cotton short sleeve shirt.
And yes, Microsoft, this is annoying.

Paul

This goes into the details, better than I could.

http://www.online-tech-tips.com/wind...-in-windows-8/

Paul

And this is the previous article, reduced to an image suitable
for posting on your computer room wall :-) For as long as this
stays up... Save and view in a separate viewer app.

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/4583/completeshut8.gif

Paul

On Sun, 18 Nov 2012 18:30:58 -0500, Paul wrote:

Paul wrote:


And this is the previous article, reduced to an image suitable
for posting on your computer room wall :-) For as long as this
stays up... Save and view in a separate viewer app.

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/4583/completeshut8.gif

Paul


Hi Paul

You know who this is - Wei as in Weilienshih and a few others.
That said, you have hit a home run again, at least here. And I thank
you. I hope you outlive me.

ME