Windows 8 dual boot Separate Drives

[lupi]

You do a search for dual boot you come across a bunch of articles about how wonderfully easy and great it is, why does it seem doing so from 2 different drives is a PITA? can't boot into 8 unless I select boot menu on boot and 7 keeps trying to find a disk error and the 8 drive.

 

[corkyg]

I use a hardware solution for that - relatively foolproof. One machine has two separate boot drives, and control is by means of a power switch I installed on the front panel. IOW, only the drive I want is powered.

On a newer machine I use a EZ-Swap 4 SATA HDD mobile rack. I simply insert the drive I want and boot. I have a choice of 6 boot drives with that. 2 Win 8, 2 Win 7 and 2 XP Pro.

 

[ViRGE]

Note that the disk error in Win7 is because of Win8's fast startup (partial shutdown) feature. Go into your Power Options control panel, "Choose what the power buttons do", and turn off fast startup.

As for your other problems, could you please go into more detail? You should just be able to add the additional copies of Windows to the BCD menu and call it a day.

 

[lupi]

I don't have that boot selection menu that I see in some screen shots. My computer will always just load 7 unless I pick the drive through the bios at boot to select the drive with 8 instead.

 

[ViRGE]

http://neosmart.net/EasyBCD/

Use that to add Win8 to the BCD menu, and you should be set.