Windows 8 missing on dual boot start up

Hi

I bought a new laptop 350gb HDD with Win8 64bit preinstalled (no disc came with it) however I needed win7 32bit for my job since the softwares used are only compatible with old win version. I managed to back up my win8 before I partitioned my HDD into 3 drives and installed win7 ultimate 32 bit on a different partition. I remember that my win8 was installed in Drive C (100GB) while I have 80+GB for Shared files on Drive E and the rest of the memory are for Drive D where I installed win 7 and I labeled each drives accordingly. At first everything was working fine on both O.S, it was giving me the dual boot option at start up but I forgot if I really have tested running both O.S. before I gave my laptop to my supervisor and asked him a favor to intall the softwares for work purposes.

My supervisor then approached me and said that there might be some incompatibility issue with the updates I have on my win7 coz some applications don't install so he asked me if its ok if he reinstalls a new win7 so I said yes since Im confident that its will work fine and I have backed up my win8 anyway, in short, I left everything into his hands. Later, he then got back to me and told me every job related softwares now work except that my win8 now doesnt show and yes, dual boot option is not there anymore and it boots automatically to win7 like win8 is not there.

I've read some forums how to check if your O.S are still there and it could just be a boot up issue and use of Easy BCD might help. I have attached images below for your reference. Now what I'm confused of is that my Win8 appears to be in Drive D and win7 could be in Drive C, which I'm thinking if they were exchanged when my sup reinstalled win7 or he may have overlapped my win8. Im pretty sure he knows which drive is for which O.S since I labeled them. Now Im afraid to use EasyBCD on the wrong drive and I cant approach my supervisor anymore to bother him again since he worked on my laptop for almost the whole day at work. I apologise for the long story but I'd really love to have my win8 back and please someone advise me on the following:

- if both o.s. are still intact and recognized
- why the Drive letters got mixed up and how to check which drive has which o.s coz it seems like both drives has a part of my work related applications (didn't put personal files yet on win 8 when I had both o.s installed)
- is Drive D really is my win8 now?
- does Easy BCD really work
- how to use Easy BCD to get my win8 to boot up to or both of them to show at start up without corrupting my work related softwares


View attachment 20900

From Windows 7, run Easy BCD and add Windows 8 as a bootable partition. That should work.

Also, when you boot Win 7, it's partition will be C: and Win 8 will be D:
When you boot Win 8, it's partition will be C: and Win 7 will be D:

Ztruker said:

From Windows 7, run Easy BCD and add Windows 8 as a bootable partition. That should work.

Also, when you boot Win 7, it's partition will be C: and Win 8 will be D:
When you boot Win 8, it's partition will be C: and Win 7 will be D:

Click to expand...

Hi Ztruker

thanks for the clarification. Can you also please advise how do I make win 8 as a bootable partition through Easy BCD. Do I go to
"Add New Entry"

Please let me know what Drive letter to choose under the following if I am using win7 now:

Type:
Name:
Drive:

TIA

You don't need to use Easy BCD. Just do the steps below:

1. From Windows 7. Open the elevated command prompt and type:
   bcdboot D:\Windows
2. Run Msconfig and under boot tab, you should see 2 entries in there: 1 for Windows 7, the other is for Windows 8
3. Reboot, you should see a menu to select which one to boot.

Repair dual-boot Windows 8/7

You can fix dual boot using "Dual-boot Repair" tool from Visual BCD package.

1. Run Dual-boot Repair. Click "Automatic Repair". This will make system boot to Windows 8 by default.
2. Reboot.

[3. If Windows 7 missing from boot menu:]
Run Visual BCD Editor, right-click and select "Create missing Windows loaders". This will add Windows 7 to boot menu.

topgundcp said:

You don't need to use Easy BCD. Just do the steps below:

1. From Windows 7. Open the elevated command prompt and type:
   bcdboot D:\Windows
2. Run Msconfig and under boot tab, you should see 2 entries in there: 1 for Windows 7, the other is for Windows 8
3. Reboot, you should see a menu to select which one to boot.

Click to expand...

Hi topgundcp

Thanks for the great tip. it worked for me. unfortunately, I found out that I have 2 win7 ultimate in my system, hence, my work related softwares were installed in a win7 that overlapped with my win 8. I cant lose both of them.

Please advise if I can install a fresh win 8 without issue to overlap on the win 7 that is empty? and how not to jeopardize the win7 that Im currently using. Can I use my win8 back up and restore it to the drive that previously had win7? or it only works for the system where the back up was made.

I have the key to my win8 however I dont know which version it was, can a back up file tell me what version it was & how?

Is it true that if you have dual boot o.s that when you assign drive C to the first and drive D to the next o.s, that they will interchange drive letters when you access the other? coz I think this could be how the problem started. I labeled my drives while i was using win 7 and labeled Drive C as win 8 and Drive D as win 7 coz thats how I configured it when I installed win 7. maybe thats why my supervisor cant install the softwares coz the drive was for win 8

IM sorry if I have too many questions or maybe confusing you... Im also so confused with whats going on with my drives and all i want is to have win8 back.


Any advise is welcome...

Thank you in advance

First thing is windows does not look at the drives as C D E or whatever we see..

It sees it as Disk 0 partition 1 Disk 0 Partition 2, etc....

The letters are for us humans to get a grasp of where things are, from our persepective..

What you need to do now is label each windows drive to something you will recognize when you install win8.

Win 8 will not say drive C or Drive D, it will say Disk x Partition y

So if you label the drives as Win 7 work and the other that you want to replace as Win 8

Then when you install win 8 it will ask you which partition to use

Disk 0 Part 1 (win 7 work)

Disk 0 Part 2 (win 8)

((the actual numeration may be different in your case))

you can choose to upgrade that win 7, if it doesnt let you upgrade, then its faster to delete that partition and re-create it through the same setup than it is for windows to backup all that data into a windows.old folder unless you need that data..

I would use the other windows to save that data so you can do a complete clean and fast install..

If you have any question or problems, just post..

Brooklyn