W7/W10 Dual Boot Problem

Ken wrote:
wrote:
On Mon, 21 Dec 2015 06:42:01 -0600, Ken wrote:

. . .winston wrote:
Ken wrote on 12/20/2015 3:41 PM:
wrote:
I have two drives, one with W7, one with W10. Have been working
fine.
Now suddenly, neither will cold-boot. Both hang during boot up
with a
black screen and cursor arrow. Never reaches desktop. Anything I
can
do?

Thanks

John Wayne

Did you have both drives attached to the computer at the same
time? The
reason I ask is I thought I read another poster say he encountered a
similar problem, and he thought having them both attached at the same
time caused it. Just curious so I do not encounter this problem if
that
is what caused it.

If both weren't attached how would the dual boot(which implies the
ability to select *and* run either)function. If only o/s drive is
attached, its not really dual booting.


Although the post title uses the wording "dual boot," he does not say
they were being attached and selected during the boot process. He uses
the term "Cold boot." Cold boot to me simply means booting from a drive
directly. I read his post to imply that something went wrong that
corrupted both drives. That is why I asked if they were both attached
at the same time. Both drives corrupted by chance seems highly
unlikely.

I have always used the term dual boot for my setup wherein I have two
bootable drives, which are always connected, and to use the setup, I
choose which drive to boot from, which usually has a default selection
in the BIOS, which is automatic and is changeable. Maybe I am using a
wrong term. If so, tell me, and teach me. Please.

I didn't think it was necessary to say so, but in reality this problem
is on a friend's PC, who does not live close. Sorry about that.

I am pretty sure that he has three drives on his PC
1 - W7 drive - bootable
2 - W10 drive - bootable
3 - Data drive - not bootable

If I have it right, he installed W7 on drive 2, and upgraded it to
W10, all with the other two drives not connected. He connected
everything back up and says he had been able to work on either the W7
or W10 drive flawlessly. He manually chooses which drive in the BIOS.

Then, suddenly, one morning he tried the usual 'cold boot' (my term
for starting up a PC by turning the power on), and the W7 drive never
got to the desktop window. Instead it 'hung' with a black screen and
a cursor arrow. After a few hours of panic, he retried the 'cold
boot' to the W10 drive. Same result. I told him to retry all this
with only one system drive connected, and I am pretty sure he said he
had the same result.

Now I am e-mailing this post to him to verify I have things correct,
before I post this.

Now he says this:

Last nite he installed W7 on the former W10 drive. Now W7 runs, but
will not allow him to access his former W7 drive, whereon he has
important data. Explorer tells him there is stuff there because the
free and used space says so.

Could all this be from a virus?

Thanks

JW

Thanks

John W

There is a newsgroup listed below that I read, and I thought one poster
said when he attached a hard drive with Win 10 and another with Win 7 at
the same time, something happened that prevented his Win 7 hard drive
from booting again. He thought perhaps the Win 10 HD did it. That is
why I questioned what you did. I have a similar situation and would
like the ability to run either OS on this computer. If it screws up the
OS, I would avoid attaching both hard drives at the same time. I tried
to find the thread on the newsgroup, but I could not find it. Let us
know what you finally determine, it might save someone a lot of grief.

alt.comp.os.windows-10


Here is an interesting read:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/i...1586987?page=1