Windows 7 prompting dual boot when there is no other OS

When I boot my machine I get prompted about which OS to boot, either "earlier version of Windows" or Win 7. I find this pretty strange as I formatted the HDD during the Win 7 RC1 installation. When I try to boot the "earlier version" I get an error message about some missing file naturally, as the OS doesn't exist. How does the boot sequence detect OSes and how can I edit them so I won't have to encounter this promt on every startup?

Try running Startup Repair from the installation DVD to repair this. To do it, boot from the DVD...select "Next" at the first screen...Select "Repair this computer" in the lower left of the next screen.- John

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HT4718 I have bought a used mac air 2 which is now running windows .Who ever installed it has given all of the drive capacity over to boot camp.I now want to restore lio but want to know if there isa way of keeping windows as a dual boot .

Hi. i have bought a two month old Mac air book 11.6 with 64 gb ssd .The previous owner installed windows and I want to reinstall Lion.Is there a way to do this and keep windows as a dual boot system.If so what size partition is best for windows..I am new to apples having always had PC,s .When the previos owner istalled windows he made the whole drive something called bootcamp.Help!! Roy

Before you do anything else, I would make a copy of the Windows system on to an external hard disk. Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) will help you do this.
Bootcamp partition needs to be set up using Bootcamp Assistant, from within Lion. There are sometimes problems using third party disk management apps, and the partition order is important too.
I suspect the previous owner should have re-installed his original OS before giving you the computer. Are you saying that there is no Lion on it at present? If so, you will need to get it, or if it was Snow Leopard, the installation disk, from him. In the latter case, with SL 10.6.8 installed, you can then access MAS to buy Lion.
Once you have Lion installed you can setup Bootcamp and restore your Windows system to it, from the external disk.

[Forum FAQ]How to customize Windows 7 & Windows 8.1 dual boot menu

Scenario 1:
When you install Windows 8.1 on Windows 7 based computer, the default boot option is Windows 8.1 boot options menu which is shown as Figure 1:
If you want to use the old Windows 7 boot menu, follow these steps:
Start the computer and then go into
Windows 8.1 boot options menu which is shown as Figure 1.
Click
Change defaults or choose other options, and Options menu appears which is shown as Figure 2.
Click
Choose a default operation system option.
Click
Windows 7 Enterprise option to set Windows 7 as the default operating system in the Choose a default operating system menu which is shown as Figure 3.
Restart, and it will be changed to
Windows 7 boot options menu which is as shown as Figure
Scenario 2:
If you have Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 dual-boot configuration, and the default boot menu is Windows 7 boot options menu which is shown as Figure 4.
If you want to get the GUI as Windows 8.1 style, follow these steps:
Boot into Windows 8.1 computer, open the
command Prompt (Admin).
Type the following command
bcdboot c:\Windows and press Enter.
Restart, and you'll see the Windows 8.1 boot options menu which is as shown Figure 1.
Scenario 3:
When you have dual-boot system, one of the system disappear from the boot menu. We could follow these steps to get it back:
Boot the computer from the installation media (Here my example is Windows 7) that works fine system.
Go into
System Recovery Options menu, which is as shown as Figure 6.
Click
Command Prompt link to open the command prompt window
Use the
diskpart and list volume commands to confirm the OS boot drive, the commands are shown as Figure 7.
Backup the bcd file, rename it.
Rebuild a new bcd file. It will scan all disk to confirm all Windows installation on your computer and ask if you want to add them to boot list.
Type
Y to agree with adding to boot list. In next boot, you will get all boot options back in the boot menu.
Please click to vote if the post helps you. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

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.

Wiki article finished: dual boot when SafeBoot encryption is present

Hi,
I just started a new article on how to dual boot when one receives a computer with SafeBoot drive encryption installed already. I posted for help on this HERE and HERE if you want some back-story. It wasn't easy, but I'm super excited about the setup now and wanted to write a HowTo. There is a decent amount of discussion about this on the web and I have not found many solutions that aren't a bit convoluted (making backups of the encrypted SafeBoot MBR, then trying to chainload to that file with grub) and I think where I ended up is the simplest, least risky, leaves company issued junk as untouched as possible, and yet provides a dual boot setup with shared file access.
Best of all, I've not found my setup elsewhere; if that's really the case, it happened on Arch first!
Check out the article where I've summarized what I did: LINK
I'm posting here as I wonder if it deserves its own page or if I should merge it with Windows and Arch Dual Boot, which already exists. I could see it either way, so I wanted to ask here. While it would make it easier to find being grouped with the general dual-boot with Win article, it's also fairly specialized so I could see leaving it top level so that it develops a page rank when someone searches for "safeboot linux" or "safeboot dual boot windows" or something like that.
Thoughts? I hope to finish the article tonight or tomorrow with specifics.
Last edited by jwhendy (2011-04-20 05:47:23)

Hi,
I just started a new article on how to dual boot when one receives a computer with SafeBoot drive encryption installed already. I posted for help on this HERE and HERE if you want some back-story. It wasn't easy, but I'm super excited about the setup now and wanted to write a HowTo. There is a decent amount of discussion about this on the web and I have not found many solutions that aren't a bit convoluted (making backups of the encrypted SafeBoot MBR, then trying to chainload to that file with grub) and I think where I ended up is the simplest, least risky, leaves company issued junk as untouched as possible, and yet provides a dual boot setup with shared file access.
Best of all, I've not found my setup elsewhere; if that's really the case, it happened on Arch first!
Check out the article where I've summarized what I did: LINK
I'm posting here as I wonder if it deserves its own page or if I should merge it with Windows and Arch Dual Boot, which already exists. I could see it either way, so I wanted to ask here. While it would make it easier to find being grouped with the general dual-boot with Win article, it's also fairly specialized so I could see leaving it top level so that it develops a page rank when someone searches for "safeboot linux" or "safeboot dual boot windows" or something like that.
Thoughts? I hope to finish the article tonight or tomorrow with specifics.
Last edited by jwhendy (2011-04-20 05:47:23)

While i installed windows 8.1 by boot camp there is message no bootable device

while i installed windows 8.1 by boot camp there is message no bootable device and that was after i entered the code no of windows

Is the current nVidia driver the one that came with Bootcamp?

Has Apple acknowledged the problem yet with itunes aborting preview of songs after about 10 seconds on windows 7 and if so is there an answer other than ipconfig?

Has Apple acknowledged the problem yet with itunes aborting preview of songs after about 10 seconds on windows 7 and if so is there an answer other than ipconfig? IPConfig /flushdns doesn't help at all. Until they fix it I will be previewing and buying my songs thru Amazon.

Doublechecking ... do you still get that if you update to iTunes 10.6.3.25 (just released today)?
http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

About:config settings change by themselves when switching between windows/linux on dual-boot machine with profile shared between OSs

I dual-boot ubuntu and windows7, and have set up firefox to use the same profile data when running under either OS. This works great, except:
(1) each time I switch OSs and start firefox, it runs the "checking add-on compatibility" test (which is a minor annoyance)
(2) each time I start firefox in ubuntu after recently using it under windows, the about:config setting "browser.backspace.action" gets reset from my preferred setting (0) to the default setting (2).
How can I prevent these two things from happening?

Maybe it is better to use separate profiles for each OS and create symlinks or hard links to the sqlite databases that you want to share.
Your Linux profile may be using extensions (e.g. Ubuntu Firefox Modifications) that modify specific settings and in such a case you can't really prevent this.<br />
You can use a user.js file to initialize specific prefs on each start, but that makes it impossible to make changes on the about:config page that last the current session and you need to remember which prefs are affected.

Windows 8.1 dual boot after image

Hey guys
I'm having a little weird thingy with my dual boot systems at work... I've been Google-ing a while, but can't find anything about it. Allow me to explain.
I have a classroom with 16 computers running Windows 7 Professional. Because a course of Windows 8.1 will start next month, I have to install a dual boot system in that classroom. So, like normally, I take one PC to my office, create an extra partition,
install Windows 8.1 on it, do the necessary configurations and place the Win 7 partition as default. No problems there.
After the install and configuration, I create an image of the Windows 8 partition, the system state and MBR. So actually, I have an image of all the available partitions, except the Win 7 partition. After creating an image, I'm going back to the classroom
and install it on the PC's. After putting the image of the partitions, one problem arrives and that's the MBR. But after a few commands (bootrec /fixmbr, bootrec /fixboot, bootrec /scanos, bootrec /rebuildbcd), that problem is solved.
So, everything is ready to rock! Or so I thought... Here's my real problem now. When you boot the PC, you get the new blue boot option of Win 8 where you can choose which OS to boot. Well, when I select the Win 7 partition as default, I get the old DOS screen
for that. Ok fine, not a big problem, but the problem goes deeper.
With Win 8.1 you have two ways of shutting down a PC: either via right mousse click on the start button followed with 'shut down', or use the charms bar. If I do it the way with the start button, the PC boots in the Win 7 OS by default (just as I want it to
be). BUT when I shutdown the PC via the charms bar, the PC skips the "select OS to boot" menu and immediately starts Win 8!
I hope my entire explanation is clear to understand... So, anyone advice?
NOTE: On the source PC (created with the DVD and pulled the image from) is this problem not happening.

Hi,
You can follow the steps below to check your default boot system:
Press Win+R, open Run, use msconfig
command to open System Configuration.
After that, switch to Boot tab. Then check which system was default.
Roger Lu
TechNet Community Support
Like I said in my original post, the Windows 7 was default. But thanks to Brandon, the problem is solved now.

Windows 7 instal dual boot

I'm trying to install windows 7 as a dual boot. I downloaded easybcd to take care of the dual boot start selection. Then proceeded with usb instal which didn't work. So I then downloaded the iso and burned to disk. Which wouldn't load (yes bios had dvd as first boot), but I then just went into windows 8, found the setup, which started. When I clicked update and instal it hung and crashed. But when I hit don't update and install. It did just fine. Went through the whole install and down the list of like 5 items 0-100%.
But now, after rebooting after installing, it just sits at the starting windows screen, with the red green blue yellow windows 'flag' flashing brighter/softer. Its been there for like 20 min. After rebooting, I get options for windows 7, windows 8, or windows installer. If I try 7 I get error right away and it restarts me, if I choose 8 it loads me into my normal windows 8. IF I choose installer, it brings me back to the starting windows screen.
I don't know if its still installing things, as the windows flag is flashing brighter and then softer over and over, but its been again another 30 min and its still there. No % marker or anything.
I haven't installed any drivers (which I have saved on d:/ and on a usb as well) as I haven't had the opportunity nor know when to install them other than after windows starts.
Any help much appreciated.

I tried that, but when I get to the select a drive/partition screen, it that's where it says cannot install on that drive/partition. No option to continue. But, once I get my super raid daughter board and my 3x 480gb crucial m550 msata drives, I will just have one msata set up gpt for windows 8, one set for ntfs and for windows 7, and then the third will have to be my scratch disk. I'll then use my 2.5" 1tb Samsung evo for all data, source files, and use my external enclosure with 1tb Samsung evo for my export. Wish there was a way to get the new gt72 4x m.2 sata daughter board.

How to re-enable Beats speakers and sub woofer after configured Windows 8/Ubuntu dual boot?

HP ENvy DV7-7240us
Windows 8 / Linux Ubuntu Dual Boot
No Sound through two front Beats speakers or sub woofer both operating systems after installed Ubuntu 12.10 as dual boot.
Is there a way to at least re-enable the Beats speakers and sub woofer in Windows 8 when I boot on that OS? I am using the UEFI as the boot manager by hitting ESC / F9, and not GRUB2 (Linux).
I did update to "BIOS" (UEFI) F.22 concurrently with the dual boot...possibly this has something to do with it?
I would like to keep the dual boot, but the loss of the Beats speakers is kind of a deal breaker, and virtualization of Linux seems to be buggy in its own right.
I tried re-enabling the sound through right clicking on the speaker icon in the tray, and configuring Playback devices. The only option available is IDT High Definition Audio Codec. Is there another device listing for the Beats speakers that I am missing?
Only other minor issue with the hardware I am aware of is only on the Linux side, that being no pinch to zoom on track pad, which I try not to use anyway.
Thank you.

Have you tried resetting BIOS settings to default? Enter BIOS by tapping/holding F10 key immediately after powering on.Reset to Default settings, usually tap F9,check bottom of screen for correct key.Save & Exit.
******Clicking the Thumbs-Up button is a way to say -Thanks!.******
**Click Accept as Solution on a Reply that solves your issue to help others**

Question about the "Windows and Arch Dual Boot" wiki

I've been reading this wiki http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Win … _Dual_Boot to get a better understanding of what I need to do to install Arch along side of my XP installation and there's one point that I don't understand. Here it is
It is important to note that there is a 1024 cylinder limit with some older BIOSs. This means that the BIOS cannot access things beyond the 1024th cylinder (about 8.5GB), so the /boot partition should be in the first 8.5GB (space before Windows partition).
How does one go about getting the /boot partition created during the installation of Arch to install in the first 8.5g? I have installed Arch in Virtualbox twice so far just so that I'm familiar with the procedure and I can't see anything in the installation where I can do this.
There's one other item that is not clear to me as I've seen conflicting information on it. If I do create a seperate "/boot" partition for Arch, do I need to make it "bootable"during the installation? At this point I don't think that I do.
My understanding of installing to be able to dual boot is that I only need to install Grub to "Sda" and of course edit the grub menu to add the information needed for XP. Is this enough?
Thanks for any help.

Yes, you install grub to sda (master boot record), and add the entry for Windows. In the step where you partition the harddrive, you can choose where to create it. Actually it may not be that much of a problem anymore, my boot is on the third partition, after ~15 GB. You can forget about the bootable flag when using grub, it does not care.

Attempted to install windows 7 for dual boot but OSX installation now missing???

I've tried to install Wndows 7 on my macbook air for dual boot but got the kernal error on boot.
I loaded from the CD again and it sucessfully installed win 7 but when I start the macbook air up it only appears to have windows installed?
How can I get my OSX back?

For some odd reason when you use bootcamp to install the second OS bootcamp is defaulted as the primary OS you will need to hold option key to select the apple OS then in the sys preference under startup disk select apple as primary.

YOGA 2 - 1051F Windows 8.1 Dual boot Android

Hello,
I have a YOGA 2 Tablet 1051-F under Windows 8.1 and I want to install Android in dual boot mode.
I made an USB stick bootable with Android IMG but the tablet don't want to boot on it. I checked the UEFI and Secure is OFF --> no succes.
I also download on this site the UEFI Tools & Diagnostic, I can see it in the BIOS option but when I want to but on it, nothing append.
Any idea to help me ?
Many thanks

Salut Misterwood .
a tu trouvé quelque chose ?

Arch and preinstalled windows 7 UEFI dual boot troubles

Hi guys, I have a UEFI pc already with windows 7 on and want to dual boot arch. Problem is the current uefi partition is only 100mb and whenever i try to install a bootloader in the arch install it gives the message 'not enough room on partition'. is there a way i can increase the current uefi partition size without effecting the windows install?

Try checking how much free space you actually have on the ESP. 100MB is smaller than most people here recommend, but it should be big enough to hold the Windows boot loader, a Linux boot loader or boot manager, and at least two or three (probably more like ten or fifteen) Linux kernels and initrd files. If the 100MiB is nearly used up, then that suggests that something unusual is chewing up a bunch of space, and you can probably delete those files. This is just a task of routine file management -- identify what's consuming the space and delete anything that you don't need. The trick is figuring out what you don't need, so if you're uncertain of something, post back with details (for instance, "I've found 70 1MiB .png files in the Foo/Bar directory; do I need them?").
If something is legitimately consuming that much space, you can either create a second ESP (although that could cause problems down the road if you need to re-install Windows) or resize your partitions. Chances are you've got a Windows partition that immediately follows the ESP. Resizing it so you can increase the ESP's size is possible, but will require resizing the Windows partition from the front. This is risky and is likely to be time-consuming, so be sure to back up before you do it. Another possibility would be to create a larger ESP elsewhere on the disk, copy the contents of the first ESP to the new one, and delete the original. The 100MB of unused space would be wasted, or maybe you could find a way to use it (swap space comes to mind, although 100MB is tiny by modern swap space standards). On a modern disk, 100MB of wasted space is likely to be trivial -- for instance, on a 1TB disk, 100MB is just 0.01% of the total disk space.
As cfr says, some boot loaders/managers, such as rEFInd and GRUB, enable you to load your kernels from something other than the ESP. Thus, if you're running out of space because you've got big kernels or initrd files, you could put them elsewhere and use just a small amount of space on the ESP for the boot loader/manager.

Installing Arch Linux after Windows 7 64bit dual boot

Total noob here ^^
Im trying to install Arch Linux after my installation of Windows 7, without fucking up that one...
I freed up 50GB and removed it from my Windows boot partition, so Arch can be installed there, I have almost absolutely no experience with this kind of stuff since I've only used Ubuntu and Kali Linux before.
I've got a working arch image on my usb stick and i somehow can't figure out, how to install it without touching the existing partitions.
Is it possible to create a working dual boot, without changing my windows configuration?

yes its possible. What research have you done in order to install Arch. We do not hand hold here in this community. Go read up the appropriate wiki pages and ask specific questions with details in case you get stuck.
Start with the Beginners Guide.

Windows 7 prompting dual boot when there is no other OS

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