Dual boot drive letter question

[pekingman]

I recently installed Windows 7 on my D: drive, which I partitioned and reserved for such tinkering. When I boot into XP, the OS is installed and runs off the C: drive, while Windows 7 is located on D: However, when I boot into Windows 7, they are reversed. Meaning Windows 7 thinks its installed and running from the C: while XP in on D: WTF?

 

[Scotteq]

That is correct, each operating system calls itself "C:" by default.

 

[C1]

You should be thankful that it works that way as programs often are prescripted to install into the partition dented C. However, I would recommend that you ensure making the OS partitions hidden from each other.

 

[Nothinman]

That is correct, each operating system calls itself "C:" by default.

Sometimes, it depends on which drives are present during installation and what order Windows enumerates them in.

You should be thankful that it works that way as programs often are prescripted to install into the partition dented C

Luckily that's not true and any program that assumes it'll be run from any specific location should be avoided at all costs.

 

[C1]

Actually I have a multi-boot Windows system & WIN XP boots from another physical drive and establishes itself as D:

This actually has basically never caused any issue. You just have to get used to it if your a basic hard core windows user.

What pekingman describes is what I would think that most people would actually want.

 

[Bozo Galora]

if you want to avoid all multiboot probs with win 7, you do two things:
pre install create/format win 7 partition with xp disk man or third party sw - to avoid 100mb hidden system file partiton creation by win 7
install win 7 from within xp, not booted to DVD
(this means you will need xp x64 installed for win 7 x64 install)
xp will protect its booting files and drive letter while running

 

[Golferdude1977]

I have two physical drives, one has XP 32 bit, drive C, and I am wanting to load WIndows 7 64 bit on the other physical drive, drive D. Should this be done with XP running or should I boot up the computer with WIndows 7 disk?

THanks,

Jimmy

 

[Quadriflax]

Originally posted by: Golferdude1977
I have two physical drives, one has XP 32 bit, drive C, and I am wanting to load WIndows 7 64 bit on the other physical drive, drive D. Should this be done with XP running or should I boot up the computer with WIndows 7 disk?

THanks,

Jimmy

I'd like to extend this question a bit, if I may. I currently have one physical drive with XP installed. I purchased another drive to install Win7 on. When I plugged in the new drive to play around with Win7, I unplugged the XP drive, so there was only one physical drive running (just in case things got weird... I have some older equipment and I wanted to play it extra safe, even after a back up).

What I'd like to do is have a dual boot into Win7 and XP, one from each drive. Here's the plan so far:

1) Hook up Win7 drive and select that as the priority HD drive in BIOS to boot from.
2) Hook up XP drive as secondary drive.
3) Boot from Win7 DVD and perform a repair so I can set up a dual boot.

From everything I've read so far, I understand that Win7 will automatically detect the Win7 install I just did and the old XP install on the second physical drive and allow me to set those two OS up for a dual boot. Though it is possible that I will need to reinstall Win7 on the new HD while the XP drive is hooked up. That's not a big deal.

What I'd like to know is that if I need to, after setting up a dual boot as described above, would it be possible to remove the Win7 drive and plug in just the XP drive and boot to XP as if Win7 and the other drive never existed? Or does installing Win7 and setting up a dual boot somehow change the XP install on the physical drive, thus requiring me to reinstall XP?

I'm hoping all the dual boot information would be on the Win7 drive and if I unplug that drive the XP drive would be none the wiser and would just load up, per usual. I'm worried that all this might do something funky to the XP install though.

Any advice would be helpful.

Thanks!