Problem with Windows 8, adding an old drive with Windows 7

Let me explain my situation... Recently, my parents purchased a dell xps computer over black friday, which came pre-loaded with Windows 8.. I hate windows 8.. but that's besides the point. This dell was supposed to replace an older inspiron that had Windows 7 installed on it...

So, what I wanted to do was basically take the hard drive out of the older inspiron with windows 7 and connect it to my newer dell xps that has windows 8 already installed.

So after plugging the hard drive in, windows 8 goes into a "Preparing Windows Repair" or something like that and gets stuck there for hours. I unplug the Win 7 hard drive and it boots normally. So I did some research and I found out it has somethign to do with the UEFI boot thing..

I'm not trying to dualboot, although that would be nice.. The main objective is to just be able to have both hard drives working in the computer so that I can access files on both drives without any hassle.

Sometimes if I reset the computer enough times, the computer actually lets me bypas the repair screen and it boots up like normal, but then it messes up when I reboot the computer.

Any help would be appreciated.. This is so annoying.

A UEFI install, and your new system may be configured that way, does not like logical partitions on one of the drives, either internal or external. If that is your situation, you might be able to use the drive by using an external enclosure you can plug in after your boot, or converting or removing the logical/extended partition from the drive.

If it isn't that, you may need to check the bios or see if you can get into a boot device menu. If you see a "Windows Boot Manager", boot to that. If not, make sure the correct drive is selected as the boot device in the bios or at lease the boot device menu to get it to boot. Sometimes, adding another drive that is boot capable, confuses the system.

Once you've managed to boot up, type msconfig.exe into the search and you should get this (it'll start up in the general tab):



If you can see both OSes, highlight Windows 7 and select 'Set as default' and re-boot to see if it works.

You can install Windows 7 x64 in dual boot first or second.

Follow Step one to five in this tutorial:
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/13326-downgrade-windows-8-windows-7-a.html

Than follow this tutorial: (installing in uEFI mode.)
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2344-dual-boot-installation-windows-8-windows-7-vista.html



You will need to buy a Windows 7 license, as you can not tranfer the Dell OEM license to your new PC.

Why would he want to do that?

Sounds like the HD he has win7 on is mbr style.

what I wanted to do was basically take the hard drive out of the older inspiron with windows 7 and connect it to my newer dell xps

Click to expand...

So after plugging the hard drive in, windows 8 goes into a "Preparing Windows Repair" or something like that and gets stuck there for hours. I unplug the Win 7 hard drive and it boots normally. So I did some research and I found out it has somethign to do with the UEFI boot thing..

Click to expand...

The problems rdsport323 has is down to

uEFI/BIOS Firmware

Hardware Drives

Product key.