Dual OS configuration in windows

Hello all,

This is a question related to the computer, and I would request all familiar users to put in your views.

Currently, I have two OS running in my desktop. One is Vista Business, and the other Windows 7 Ultimate. Initially I had windows Vista Business on an 80GB hard disk(C drive). To it, I added another drive, ie a 500GB one to expand memory. Alongwith that, I also installed a copy of windows 7 onto the new drive after creating some partitions(Windows 7 is on H drive now). Now, vista is being considered as the root OS. If that Hard drive is disconnected, the other OS wont boot up, turning up an error that 'BOOTMGR' not found. 

From this, I came to the conclusion that the computer is dependent on the Vista disk for boot up. Now, I am not using Vista OS at all but I am also not sure of formatting the disk. To add to it, I have lost the administrator password for Vista. Now due to this, I am planning to either re-install Vista on its current partition or format the drive and use it as additional storage.

1. How do I make windows 7 Run independently of the other drive(ie Vista)?

2. If in the case I reinstall Windows Vista on the location its currently in(ie C drive), will my windows seven be recognised as another OS and will the configuration work fine?

3. I am worried that the older hard drive may fail(the 80GB one is quite very old). In that case, I might lose the other OS too. If this is the case, how do I go about?

The boot manager is the file/program that allows you to select the OS - since it is one program, obviously it cannot reside on two drives. As far as I can tell, it usually runs silently when there's only one OS instance, but if there are multiple instances then an entry is made into its configuration.

Tried using EasyBCD and did solve the problem. After that mysteriously the windows activation was cancelled and I was asked to re-activate windows, which finally led to a read write error on one of the hard disks, and finally my worst imagination came true. Now, had to reformat the drive and install XP + Win7 combo.

had a kinda same problem with me..have two os windows 7 n xp vienna on my laptop. i tried to remove the xp vienna before installing windows 7..but i couldnt delete the old xp vienna..im with two os now.

YOu must have either chosen the upgrade option, or if you had selected a separate install, you should have installed it in the drive you previously had XP. That would have cleared XP neatly.

Dear Sankalp

Are you having SATA based Hard Drives or PATA based  or a combination thereof. Basically Whenever you have a dual windows setup the latest windows release (in this case Windows 7) will ALWAYS takes up precedence over older release. So actually your ROOT  drive is now the one with Windows 7 on it. However, since your first hard disk is the one with Windows Vista on it, it has become your BOOT partition. (From this I infer that you have a PATA based Hard Disks - but not sure). Thus when you are removing first hard drive the BIOS tries to boot into it is not able to pass control to bootloader in the boot partition.

Solutions can be (you should try in this order):

1. Configure your BIOS so as to attempt booting from your 500 GB Hard Disk First- Will be in Boot Priority menu of BIOS. 

2. For PATA based setups you MAY need to reconnect the second hard disk to the port where first hard disk is installed so as to be able to configure it as Primary Master.

If above two donot work, please let me know that. I will tell you the procedure to reinstall Windows 7 (no need for Vista) and you will be able to format your 80 GB Hard Disk and use it as spare.

Dear Sarthak,

Many thanks for your inputs. As you have rightly said, the older drive is a PATA drive. I had to reinatall the windows 7 OS along with a copy of XP as things went wrong when I tried to change the configuration. I used EasyBCD, and the boot manager location was changed succesfully and I was able to run Win7 independently, but suddenly, windows got deactivated and it wouldnt accept the Key. Hence, I had to reformat the drives containing the OS and then reinstall XP, followed by Windows 7. Now, as you said, he newer version has been made default and XP is represented as 'Earlier Version of windows'. Now I can use XP as a backup OS and use Win7 by default.

Thanks again.