Dual boot win7 & 8 on t430

Newbie here needing some help. Just got my t430 fresh out of the box and I want to dual boot win 7 and 8. The installed system was 7, but came with windows 8 recovery disks in the box. I thought dual boot would be pretty straightforward, but I haven't been able to get it going. Any advice?

Hey there giovanni8807, welcome to the forums!
I found some perhaps helpful starting information for you to look over that will help guide you into the process. It is important to note, that you check to see what drivers and utilities are available for your machine for Windows 8. This will give you an idea of what is and what might not be available to function completely in that particular OS environment. Of course, take advantage of the Lenovo Solution Center for driver and utility updates for your machine once getting into Windows 8.
Drivers for the T430
How to Dual Boot Via PC world
How To Dual Boot Via CNet (I personally found this one to be a tad bit more clear.)
Good Luck, and keep us posted on your progress.
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Dual boot Win7 on external eSata drive with Precision M4700

Because virtualization doesn't support some HW devices I need, I would like to dual boot Win7 Pro/64 on an external (removable) HDD connected to the eSATA port of my Precision M4700.
eSata means optimal performances, but will the boot menu be happy with a removable disk, i.e. which will NOT be permanently connected (obviously I won't boot the OS on the removable disk if it is not connected) ?
And on the legal side, is it OK to use the OEM license of the OS that shipped with the system for this ?
As a side question, are the OS entries in a Win7 boot menu bound to a physical disk on a specific Sata port ? IOW, what happens if I move a HDD with a bootable partition/volume from the internal bay (port 0) to an external eSATA enclosure connected to the eSATA port (port 5) ? Is the eSATA port transparent to the Win7 boot loader ? Will the volumes and drive letters remain unchanged and appear seamlessly to the OS on it ?

Hi Benoitm,
Assuming the M4700 can boot from an external eSATA port, this should be possible. And it should be possible to install onto an HDD then put that drive in an external case and boot from it. Your preferences and drive letters should be retained. You might want to verify your system can boot to an external HDD first.
The Dell license only covers the version of the OS that came with the system. In theory, dual boot requires two licenses.

How to remove windows 7 safely from my dual boot win7/win8 pc ?

i have a pc which is dual boot with windows 7 ultimate 64 bit & windows 8 pro 64 bit, my pc had four drives C: D: E: F:, windows 7 is on "D:" drive & windows 8 is on C: drive(i had set win8 as current & default OS), now when i opened
disk management i found that the D: drive where win7 is residing is marked as
system,active,primary partition, now i don't want win7 anymore , i want only win8 on my pc, i want to format & get back clean empty D drive to use for other stuff (i don't want to delete the D drive partition), can any one explain me the steps
needed to achieve this safely.

Since you've selected as default OS as Windows 8.1 you can go to disk management console and format the drive as required.
You can remove the Win 7 entry from boot loader:
To launch msconfig:
Click Start
In the Search text box, type msconfig
Launch msconfig by selecting it from the search results above the search text box.
After msconfig is launched:
Go to the Boot tab
Slect the boot entry you want to delete.
Click the Delete button and then click OK.
Arnav Sharma | http://arnavsharma.net/ Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading
the thread.

Windows 7 / Arch Linux Dual-Boot - win7 keeps changing the boot flag!

Greetings!
Its been a long while since I had to dual-boot with windows on the same machine.
I 've installed windows 7 and then arch linux and installed GRUB on my sda1 where the /boot partitions is located at.
I've managed to boot into arch successfully and later into windows also successfully.... but when i tried to boot into arch again I wasn't greeted with the typical GRUB boot screen... grub was ignored completely and win7 booting began as if it was the only OS in my hard drive.
I've used the gparted live cd and realized that the boot flag has changed from my /boot partition (sda1) to my windows partition (sda2). I've changed it back and I was able to boot into arch again. but when I rebooted to win7 and then to arch the same thing has happened. The boot flag keeps changing whenever im rebooting into windows making impossible for me to boot with GRUB unles I manually change the flag again.
I haven't installed GRUB into the MBR because I hear it is a bad practice when you have a windows OS also installed (something with service packs not being able to install, among other things). I also don't want to use the easyBCD method to boot arch using the win7 loader.
here is the partition scheme on my 500gb sata drive :
/dev/sda1 /boot 250mb (primary)
/dev/sda2 windows 7 ntfs 100gb (primary)
/dev/sda3 swap 4gb (primary)
/dev/sda5 / 16gb (logical)
/dev/sda6 /var 8gb (logical)
/dev/sda7 /home the rest of the hd space (logical)
What am I doing wrong and how do i prevent the boot flag from changing?
Thanks in advance for any help you can give me!
Last edited by kamigr (2010-01-12 14:35:07)

naequs wrote:
bumping this because i have the EXACT same problem !
however i installed grub to sda1 because i didnt want my installs to mess with each other (not that ive had any problems with grub in mbr though...) .
this just looked cleaner to me.
if anyone has figured out how to prevent windows from automagically changing the bootgflag, id like to know !
but maybe this is a question more suitable for a windoze forum
tia
/edit: seriously, ive been searching the net for some time now, including irc chans and there seems to be no solution to this ! all threads similar to this just end dead !
i hate how windows claims to own my computer!
1. don't necrobump
2. as mentioned in the thread, just install grub to mbr and chainload windows. It works just fine and is the easiest way to get it working reliable.

Dual boot Win7 pre-loaded and XP

I have a T510 that came pre-loaded with Win7 Professional. I'd like to dual boot with XP that I have loaded on a different hard drive on the same T510.
I do have the recovery disks. I can't do a fresh install of XP because it have over 300 programs installed. Is there some way to run the recovery disks with Win7 Pro to not format the XP partition. Can I make the XP partition read only and then run the recovery disks?
Maybe someone knows of a way to install the recovery disks, then ( I know how to move Win7 and make a partition before Win7 then restore XP to the hard drive) then repair Win7 so it has the correct drive letters.
Thanks,
Docfxit

Docfxit wrote:
That's a good idea. I might end up doing this. The problem I have is I can't get all the Lenovo setup/programs that come with the restore disk to load. I know I can get some of them loaded with System Update.
What setup/programs will you be missing? I run a vanilla WIn 7 Pro 64 on my T400 and used TVSU to pull down everything that I need.
It may be that some multimedia stuff will be missing, but grab the installers for them from your Lenovo Win 7 setup before wiping it or removing that drive. Probably in C:\SWTOOLS (at least they were there in the old days. I don't have a Lenovo '7 load to examine.)
I'd probably do something like this, since I can't resist messing with a multiboot machine: clone the XP install to a large HD - or use the one you have if it 's big enough. Shrink the XP C: partition with your favorite tool. Fire up a MS '7 install DVD and install into the free space. I'm told you can use the Win 7 activation code that came w/your machine, but you may have to call MS.
Install TVSU for Win 7 and let it pull down the rest. Come to think of it, that's what I did with my XP T61.
Z.
The large print: please read the Community Participation Rules before posting. Include as much information as possible: model, machine type, operating system, and a descriptive subject line. Do not include personal information: serial number, telephone number, email address, etc. The fine print: I do not work for, nor do I speak for Lenovo. Unsolicited private messages will be ignored. ... GeezBlog
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Dual boot Win7/Win8 not showing

Hi,
after installing Windows 8 parallel to Windows 7, Windows 7 loads without showing dual boot. But: dual boot shows when inserting the Windows 8 installation dvd (without booting from it, though!).
I thought that maybe the problem is about two volumes set to active. But the strange behaviour remains the same when disconections all other drives and only one active volume remains.
Any idea?

Hi,
Please try BCDboot command to repar the boot menu:
Refer to this part "Set up or repair the boot menu on a dual-boot PC" in this article:
BCDboot Command-Line Options
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh824874.aspx
If the issue still persists, please help to post back the results of this command:
BCDedit
Kate Li
TechNet Community Support

Dual HDD dual boot Win7/Win7 hibernate corrupts partitions? W510

I have two SSDs in my laptop using the ultrabay caddy. Both have 2 partitions each one with Windows 7 64bit and another one with OEM stuff on it (SYSTEM_DRV). I use the BIOS boot menu to boot between the drives. I have removed the drive letters so that no partitions of drive 1 are mapped in windows 2 on drive 2 and wise-versa.
What I have observered however is that when I hibernate windows 1, boot windows 2 do some work and shutdown then resume windows 1 - the windows 2 partition will get corrupt quite often (on either hdds). On several occassions I have seen the win 1/2 partition become RAW instead of NTFS (that is - it's completely borked) in Disk Manager or chkdsk running and wiping out all security descriptors on the file system resulting in a completely broken system (black screen of dead - unbootable).
Why am I seeing these corruptions and what can I do to prevent them?

Hi Benoitm,
Assuming the M4700 can boot from an external eSATA port, this should be possible. And it should be possible to install onto an HDD then put that drive in an external case and boot from it. Your preferences and drive letters should be retained. You might want to verify your system can boot to an external HDD first.
The Dell license only covers the version of the OS that came with the system. In theory, dual boot requires two licenses.

X1Carbon Dual Boot Win7 and Win8

I've got both sets of OEM Windows disks for the X1 Carbon (which I love), and I'd like to get both operating systems loaded with dual boot functionality. Can't seem to figure out how to do it since these disks just load automatically and wipe out the drive. Any ideas?

BHruska wrote:
I've got both sets of OEM Windows disks for the X1 Carbon (which I love), and I'd like to get both operating systems loaded with dual boot functionality. Can't seem to figure out how to do it since these disks just load automatically and wipe out the drive. Any ideas?
Load Windows 7 first, then load Windows 8. You need separate partitions for each or you need to use dual boot from VHD.

Solved Dual Boot Win7 & Arch quick ?

Quick setup here. I have win7 installed on 1/2 of my 500GB HD. SDA: my 160GB storage drive.
I'm in cfdisk during Arch install
sdb1 Prim NTFS sys reserved. 100MB
sdb2 Prim NTFS 250GB
sdb3 Prim Linux "my /boot" 100MB
sdb4 Prim Linux. "/" 30GB
Can't' setup my /swap & /home partition it says unusable.
Thanks for the help.
Last edited by mr.marcus (2012-07-06 02:57:44)

You can't have more than 4 primary partitions. Try extended partitions.
Edit:
I don't have swap, home, boot partitions. I have just one root partition.
Last edited by hadrons123 (2012-07-06 02:01:16)

Windows 8 Pre-Load Dual Boot with Windows 7 (T430)

I ave created Recovery Media for WIndows 8 Preload using the following instructions:
http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloads/detail.page?DocID=HT076024
I have deleted GPT partition where Windows 8 Preload was installed leaving other partitions, including recovery partition, intact. Created smaller GPT partition for Windows 7 64-bit and after some drama with Windows 7 product key I was able to install anb boot into Windows 7.
The next step was to create partition for Windows 8 Preload.
After rebooting I followed steps at the link above:
- F12 and boot from USB (Recovery Media)
- Select Troubleshoot (Other options: Continue to Windows 7, Use a device (US Drive, network connection or Windows recovery DVD)
- Select Reset your PC (Other oprions: Refresh you PC and Advanced Options)
At this point on Resset your PC under "Choose a target OS" there's only Windows 7 option no choice for traget partition?
Just for fun I go Next and I'm presented with Do you want to repartition the drives on your PC or keep existing partitions? Now is the time to politely decline since I don't want Windows 7 wiped out.
What is the process to install Windows 7and then Windows 8 Preload?
Thanks,
Andre

Also, some people have claimed success with shrinking existing Windows 8 preload and installing Windows 7 second. Is is possible on GPT style partition? If so, would reset of preload wipeout Windows 7 or would there be option to install over shrunk Windows 8 preload?
Thank you,
Andre

Can't Dual-Boot Win7 from Bootable USB

I have a USB that's been formatted correctly by Bootcamp Assistant, and a mounted .iso of Windows 7 on it. I've downloaded all of the support programs that Bootcamp offered, and partitioned the hard drive the same way. I'm currently running OSX 10.7.5.
However, whenever I try to install Win7 onto the partition, I get a black screen with the message "No bootable device -- insert bootable disk and press any key".
I'm not sure what's wrong here, and I'd really appreciate any feedback.

I have a USB that's been formatted correctly by Bootcamp Assistant, and a mounted .iso of Windows 7 on it. I've downloaded all of the support programs that Bootcamp offered, and partitioned the hard drive the same way. I'm currently running OSX 10.7.5.
However, whenever I try to install Win7 onto the partition, I get a black screen with the message "No bootable device -- insert bootable disk and press any key".
I'm not sure what's wrong here, and I'd really appreciate any feedback.

Dual boot with Windows 7 and LINUX - Tecra A11 (PTSE1A-00L005)

Hi,
I bought a new Tecra A11 Laptop which runs WIN7 Pro. I want to install LINUX also. That means, I want to run my laptop in dual boot Win7 Pro/LINUX (any distributor). Please tell me how to do that.
There are 5 partitions on the HDD:
1. Active, Recovery partiton 1.46 Gb (no drive letter)
2. Active Primary C: Boot 145.04 Gb (NTFS)
3. Active Logical E: 78.13 Gb (NTFS)
4. Active Logical F: 64.25 Gb (NTFS)
5. Primary Partition 9.2 Gb (no drive letter, application unknown)
Hey, I need it badly, because I have admitted to a course of RHCE (Red Hat Certified Engineer)
Please help me

Hi
I may not be able to give You a step-by-step explanation but most distros today offer a possibility to co-exist with Windows.
During the installation the unused free space will be taken by Linux (with the consent of the user of course!!)
What exact setup is needed by You is impossible for anyone else to say, but I would suggest to make the space occupied by the F drive available for Linux.
You seem to have space enough for Windows and the Linux OS does not need much.
Some thoughts concerning your partition setup:
I would NOT touch 1,2 and 5 no matter what. They are your system and some system internal partitions (recovery environment and data) and would not be fun to lose.
1. Active, Recovery partiton 1.46 Gb (no drive letter)
2. Active Primary C: Boot 145.04 Gb (NTFS)
3. Active Logical E: 78.13 Gb (NTFS)
4. Active Logical F: 64.25 Gb (NTFS)
5. Primary Partition 9.2 Gb (no drive letter, application unknown)
So pick a Distro (my suggestion Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, OpenSuse - Fedora will be the one closest related to RedHat) which will guide You through the steps to allocate space for Linux.
I would suggest however to remove the drive F in Windows so Linux does not start resizing all partitions.
I am sure that will work fine, but will just take time and the pretty unnecessary F drive will most surely be kept.
If You already have valuable data on your unit, make sure to back it up!! No software comes with warranties :)
Last but not least - make 100% sure to create a recovery set with the help of Toshiba Recovery media creator BEFORE you start installing Linux.
If something goes wrong You might want to have the possibility to put the unit back into factory state.
Good luck and keep asking if You need additional help!
Tom

Installing Rescue & Recovery on a dual-boot T60

Should I be surprised that the installation of Rescue and Recovery 4.5 fails on a dual-boot T60? It has had a recent upgrade from WinXP to Win 7 32-bit and I have since deleted the old SERVICEV0001 partition. Linux Mint 11 is on another partition and grub is launched in the C: partition. The error I get when the installer has unpacked the kit and starts to run the .msi is: "Error 25014.There was an error installing the Rescue and Recovery boot manager. Return code: 6."
I did have to do a repair job on grub as a result of deleting that service partition. Unbeknown to me, grub had been previously running on there.
The BIOS version is 2.23 from Sept 2008. I see that a v.2.34 is available. Could this be what is throwing this installation? Are there any known pitfalls with this BIOS update?
I do have a second hard-drive in the Ultrabay and I note that, since the OS upgrade, that drive is stealing the drive0 (sda) slot and forcing the boot drive to be drive1 (sdb). This doesn't bother grub; but does the R & R installer perhaps want the Ultrabay empty?
TIA
Thinkpad T60 2008 HK4 dual-boot Win7 Pro/Linux Mint 11 (Katya)
T43 2005 vintage 2668-84M, various Linuxen
T42 X 2 in the family network (2374-BX2, 2373 4WM) both WinXP

Hi prudhvi,
No, dual boot will not be the key points here.
"WE COULD NOT UPDATE THE SYSTEM RESERVED PARTITION" This error poped up might be caused by the low space on your system reserved partition, you may take a look at the partition usage through Disk management.
Further, in addition to upgrade your Windows 8.1 to Windows 10, you may also consider to install Windows 10 on another clean partition, which will make your system triple-boot. Or consider to take use of Hyper-V.
If you have spaces available.
Regards
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Uninstall Linux and Grub dual boot from Win7 HP dm4..

uninstall Linux and Grub dual boot from Win7 HP dm4. I only have recovery disks. I just want to do a Startup Repair not a full system recovery.
When I reboot with the recovery disk there is no choice for Startup Repair.
thank you for any help.
Blue Jacket

Hello bluecape. I understand you'd like to uninstall Grub/Linux. Is your recovery disc a Windows Recovery disc or the HP System Recovery disc?
You will need to begin by fixing the "Master Boot Record." This is where Grub is installed and what allows you to select your operating system. If you have a HP System Recovery disc the steps may be different--these steps are specifically for a Windows Recovery Disc. Try the following.
Boot the notebook with your Recovery Disc.
Select "Repair your Computer."
Select your Windows version once the dialog box populates.
Choose "Command Prompt" as your Recovery Tool.
From the command prompt type "bootrec /FixMbr" and press Enter.
Once this is finished type "exit" and press Enter.
Take the disc out and reboot the PC. It should boot straight into Windows without a boot loader prompting you.
The Linux files and partitions are still there but you can now remove those partitions from Windows. Simply format the partitions to "uninstall" Linux.
I hope this is helpful. If you have further questions just let me know. Have a great day!
Please click the white star under my name to give me Kudos as a way to say "Thanks!"
Click the "Accept as Solution" button if I resolve your issue.

Syslinux, dual boot with win7

I successfully removed Grub and got syslinux installed. I "can" get both Arch and Win7 to boot, BUT Win7 always initially starts up in Recovery mode, so I cancel, reboot and it starts right up. However, now in order to boot arch, I have to run a live Cd to change the boot flags back to the proper partition because windows has stolen the boot flag. Thoughts?

71GA wrote:
LinuxChick wrote:I successfully removed Grub and got syslinux installed. I "can" get both Arch and Win7 to boot
How did you make dual boot work using syslinux? In this topic:"https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=168819" guys are telling me right now me that it can't be done.
Please respond.
@71GA: We already gave you LinuxChick's solution in your original thread (specifically ssyslinux.cfg was generated correctly and I had to correct the changes that you made to a correct file). The problem is that you've done something completely unrelated to the bootloader, so LinuxChick's solution won't work for you.
@LinuxChick: Could you please mark your thread [Solved]?
Last edited by clfarron4 (2013-08-26 00:46:35)

Dual boot win7 & 8 on t430

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