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How to install Win 7 alongside Win 8?

T

ther00kie16

Golden Member
Have a new Win 8 laptop and would like to dual boot Win 7 as well. No optical drive and only a recovery partition. Google only turned up one post saying the file system is incompatible so it's necessary to install Win 7 and then Win 8. But I don't have any media to reinstall Win 8 with unless the recovery partition can be used (never had to use a recovery partition so don't know what's possible).

Anyone have any insights?
 
You can install them in any order you like. Partition your drive as necessary and install Win7 on the empty partition. They'll get along just fine.
 
Not according to some online. I have not found a single case where someone installed Windows 7 after Windows 8. Someone had upgraded to Win 8, backed up, reformatted, re-installed Win 7, restored Win 8 and used EasyBCD to get both OS to show.

I can't get Win 7 to install. Using the ISO in Win 8 gives an error that appears to be file system related. GRT/MBR issues or UEFI perhaps? Creating a backup to my external also messed it up so bad that I can't recover the large data partition so I'm in the process of recovering files. Something's definitely screwy...
 
ViRGE said:
Did you turn off SecureBoot first?
Click to expand...

Yes, that was one of the things I found through google. Turned it off and neither mounting in Win 8 (same error) nor booting from USB worked. Tried 2.0 & 3.0 ports but neither found anything (saw flash drive LED solid on for a few seconds) before booting into Win 8.

Just remembered someone mention IDE mode. Tried that just now and yielded
"Your PC ran into a problem.... collecting error info... restart for you" that flashed for a fraction of a second before restarting.

I used unetbootin if that matters at all for creating the bootable flash drive. Also turned off fast boot. Don't know what CSM is though.
 
I wasn't aware unetbootin could create a proper Windows 7 USB installer. Otherwise I'm afraid I don't know what's going on. However your error sounds like something Windows 8 would be saying, which would indicate you never started the Windows 7 installer.
 
Hi,

This is probably not the answer you were looking for, but I originally planned to do what you are doing (except in the correct order). I had Win7, didn't want to do an upgrade install, wanted a fresh dual-boot with Win8. However because my boot sector was on a different HD, Win8 couldn't handle it. Every other version of Windows had no problem with my arrangement, but the new Boot Menu for Win8 couldn't do it. In the end, I just installed a fresh copy of Win8, and then "Classic Boot Menu" (free open-source boot menu) to acquire the Start button. Now I have Win8, but it boots into the Desktop, and looks and acts just like Win7. I also have Metro to flick over into as I learn the new way to do things, so I ended up with the best of both worlds. In the end, glad I didn't end up getting the dual-boot working as I doubt I would have much use for Win7 any longer.
 
Bat123Man said:
Hi,

This is probably not the answer you were looking for, but I originally planned to do what you are doing (except in the correct order). I had Win7, didn't want to do an upgrade install, wanted a fresh dual-boot with Win8. However because my boot sector was on a different HD, Win8 couldn't handle it. Every other version of Windows had no problem with my arrangement, but the new Boot Menu for Win8 couldn't do it. In the end, I just installed a fresh copy of Win8, and then "Classic Boot Menu" (free open-source boot menu) to acquire the Start button. Now I have Win8, but it boots into the Desktop, and looks and acts just like Win7. I also have Metro to flick over into as I learn the new way to do things, so I ended up with the best of both worlds. In the end, glad I didn't end up getting the dual-boot working as I doubt I would have much use for Win7 any longer.
Click to expand...

There's no "correct order". It's just that installing Win 7 on UEFI (and maybe Win 8) requires extra work that wasn't documented anywhere on Microsoft's sites & forums that I could find.

What open-source software are you using to acquire the start button? I found something that was intriguing but it was for sale by some guy who wrote it.
 
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