Win 8 fails to boot after booting into Win 7. Dual Boot

[musicianguy]

I have a Dell Inspiron 17, 5000 Series (1.7 GHz Intel Pentium 3558U, 4 GB Ram, 500 GB HDD). It came preloaded with Windows 8.1. I needed Windows 7 so I partitioned the main drive and installed Windows 7 in 100 GB of partitioned space. After swapping between the Windows 7 and 8 Boot manager. Ended up choosing the Windows 8 manager.

My problem comes in when I boot into Windows 7, then when I shut down and try and boot into Windows 8 it will hang prior to the boot manager (of Windows 8). I have to press and hold the power button to hard shut down. Once I do that and reboot, Windows 8 Boot manager and Windows 8 boot ok.

So Windows 8 will boot fine if I was last in Windows 8. However if I was last booted in Windows 7 then go to Windows 8 (or try and boot into 7 again, but using the 8 boot manager) it will hang at boot. I've used all the command checks with Windows 7 and 8. Found no errors. I can't reinstall Windows 8 as I don't have recovery disks, plus the computer came from Aarons Rent to Own (they had no issues me doing what I wish with it).

When I switch and use the Windows 7 boot manager I can boot back into Windows 7 even if Windows 7 was my last boot. But like when using the Windows 8 boot manager, I am unable to boot into Windows 8 if Windows 7 was booted last. But Can boot to Windows 8 if Windows 8 was booted last.

I'm not sure what to do to correct the issue. Any help would be welcomed. Thanks

 

[rmonroe36]

Since no replies yet, take a look at this link (EasyBCD):
https://neosmart.net/wiki/easybcd/dual-boot/bcd-based/

Rich

 

[musicianguy]

Since no replies yet, take a look at this link (EasyBCD):
https://neosmart.net/wiki/easybcd/dual-boot/bcd-based/

Rich

Thanks for posting. But I used it prior to making this post. Seemed to cause more harm than good.

 

[theog]

Try this from the Dell Repair CD/USB:
How to do a Auto Repair:
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2843-automatic-repair-run-windows-8-a.html
Note: You may need to do startup repair 3 to 4 times.
Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times - Windows 7 Help Forums

 

[Saltgrass]

Since you don't mention UEFI in your post, I would be interested if you installed Windows 7 in that configuration.

It might also be interesting to see a picture of your Disk Management Window.