How to install Win 7 alongside Win 8?

[ther00kie16]

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?

 

[ViRGE]

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.

 

[ther00kie16]

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]

Did you turn off SecureBoot first?

 

[ther00kie16]

Did you turn off SecureBoot first?

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.

 

[ViRGE]

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.

 

[ther00kie16]

Ahh... finally found my own answer. I knew it was something to do with UEFI. And yes, unetbootin should be able to create any bootable USB.

I had found a thread with details about the EFI\Boot files but this is the first time I've seen the part about dismounting the wimfile. For any that run into a similar problem, the link below has the steps:

http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1039094616&postcount=246

 

[FalseChristian]

Is it possible to dual-boot Windows XP Pro and Windows7/8? I'd like to do this on my 3TB hard-drive.

 

[ther00kie16]

Is it possible to dual-boot Windows XP Pro and Windows7/8? I'd like to do this on my 3TB hard-drive.

Should be. UEFI is what causes problems. EasyBCD should help you multi-boot whatever and however many operating systems you want.

 

[Bat123Man]

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.

 

[ther00kie16]

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.

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.

 

[Bat123Man]

It's called Classic Shell. It gives you the choice of picking the style of start menu you most liked from classic all the way up to Win7 :

http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/

Works really well.