Solved Problems booting into Win 7 after dual boot setup

[Fr3lncr]

I'm trying to configure my system to dual boot with Windows 7 and 8.1 installed (defaulting to 8.1).

I did this earlier in the week installing Windows 8.1 Enterprise first and when I installed Windows 7 second, Windows 7 wouldn't boot correctly. Then was told that you should install the older OS first.

So, starting fresh, I installed Windows 7 Enterprise and partitioned my Crucial 256GB SSD into two and the install went fine.

Then installed Windows 8.1 Enterprise on the unallocated partition and 8.1 installed fine.

Each time I booted, I would be greeted with the OS selection screen and if I choose 8.1 it boots fine.

Then decided to go back into Windows 7 and after selection Windows 7 it gives me a screen where it says 'Performing Repair' and then gives me an error about my Windows can't verify the digital signature for winload.efi.

Not sure what is going on as I've never had any problems doing a clean install, though I can't remember the last time I tried to do a dual boot setup. I'm not sure if is a BIOS thing as I personally find the ASUS BIOS pretty confusing for most of it so I could have a setting not set correctly.

Both Windows 7 and 8.1 are UEFI installs if that makes a difference.

Hoping there might be an easy way to fix it without having to start over. While not the end of the world, I've already wiped and reinstalled about 6 times in the last week due to a variety of reasons already so if I can not do it again, it would be nice.

Any help would be appreciated. Cheers.

 

[Wynona]

I'm trying to configure my system to dual boot with Windows 7 and 8.1 installed (defaulting to 8.1).

I did this earlier in the week installing Windows 8.1 Enterprise first and when I installed Windows 7 second, Windows 7 wouldn't boot correctly. Then was told that you should install the older OS first.

Yes, that was your first mistake. The second "may" be that you installed Win 7 on the partition that held Win 8 the first time around. This is just an educated guess.

I would suggest you go to Terabyte Unlimited and download Copywipe, which is free. There are versions for Windows, DOS and a PEBuilder plugin. Hard Drive Copy and Secure Wipe Software - CopyWipe

Copywipe will wipe your hard drive squeaky clean; Back when I was beta testing operating systems for Microsoft, if a newer version of Windows had been on a hard drive, the older version would no longer install at all, and sometimes would install but not properly. I don't have that experience with Windows 8, since all the "rank and file" volunteer beta testers were "fired by" Steven Sinofsky.

If I remember correctly, I used the DOS version because it's just easier. The instructions are written on the boot heel. If you can't understand the DOS one, use the Windows one. My memory has aged right along with my body, so I could be wrong about which version I used. I haven't had to use it in awhile.

 

[Ztruker]

Be careful with a disk wipe program. It will also wipe out your recovery partition if there is one.

 

[Wynona]

Be careful with a disk wipe program. It will also wipe out your recovery partition if there is one.

True, Ztrucker, but it's pretty obvious to me that since he's formatted and reinstalled "at least six times" there probably isn't an OEM/recovery partition that hasn't been obliterated already.

Also, there seems to have been a major upgrade to CopyWipe since I last used it so it may not be as dangerous as it looks.

 

[Fr3lncr]

Thanks for the answers so far. Just a note to say that between before my last install, I used diskpart to do the partitions with the clean command. However, I had to delete the partitions again during the first Windows 7 install since it didn't want to install to the partitions I made for some reason.

And my '6' installs weren't all on the same ssd. Was reinstalling to separate ssd's first before trying to take advantage of the 256gb ssd I had floating around. (Well that's two of the installs anyways).

Will look into the scrubbing program. Thanks.

 

[Wynona]

Thanks for the answers so far. Just a note to say that between before my last install, I used diskpart to do the partitions with the clean command. However, I had to delete the partitions again during the first Windows 7 install since it didn't want to install to the partitions I made for some reason.

Not to say it is the reason Windows 7 wouldn't install, but if you had installed Win 8 to that partition previously, that would be the "for some reason".

Oh, and since these are SSDs, before you use Copywipe, be sure it's safe to use on an SSD! Also, haven't I read somewhere that you don't want to format/reformat these little critters too much? I don't know all that much about them though.

Things, they are achangin' in the computer world! Who woulda thunk SSDs, UEFI, blah, blah, blah . . .

 

[Fr3lncr]

So, just to finish this up in case someone else does a search and finds the same thing, it turns out the reason for my issue was that 'Secure Boot' was enabled in my BIOS. Apparently, you can't have Secure Boot enabled if you want to dual boot with Windows 8 and Windows 7:
Using Secure Boot with Windows 7 and 8 dual boot.

So, you can disable Secure Boot and everything works as it should. Though you will get a little notice in the bottom right hand corner while running Windows 8.1 that states Secure Boot is disabled... something which an update to Windows 8.1 apparently fixes.

Since I'm not using Windows 7 that much as I only need it for a couple tasks, I'm keeping Secure Boot enabled and I'll just disable it before booting into Windows 7 (which I've already tried and works fine).

That took way too much time troubleshooting. I've probably killed my SSD now as I've reinstalled soo many time but at least now it all works.