Windows 10: Dual Boot question

Hi,

I have set a dual boot config, on a laptop with W 7 x64 preinstalled.
Laptop has one disk drive, before dual boot, with 3 primary partitions, from left to right, in Computer Management:
1. Recovery OEM primary 15 GB
2. System Reserved 100 MB primary (70 MB free)
3. C: with 450 GB primary. (Windows 7 x64)

I shrinked C: 200GB, and on the unallocated space I created, via Diskpart, a 4th primary partition and formatted as NTFS.
I clean installed W 10 Pro x64 on that 4th primary partition and set W10 as default OS.
Everything runs fine but I've noticed that when I boot to W7 and open My Computer it only "sees" Local Disk C: where are W7 installed and when I boot to W10, My Computer "sees" Local Disc C: the W 10 partition which is ok, BUT it also "sees", as Local Disk D, the W7 partition so, if i'm not wrong, W 7 partition is also mounted.
Is that normal??
I know that I could probably remove the D: drive letter, so W 10 do not see the W 7 disk/partition but I do not know if this could create any issues with bootmgr or other.
Thank you in advance for any feedback/instructions.

:)

 

What happens when I upgrade to window pro 10 and lose my media center.

Thank you for your answer and have one last dumb question. Would it be possible to dual boot windows 8.1 and windows 10? (Like dual booting linux and windows)

 

Upgrading Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 on a dual-boot computer that also has Windows 7 as the primary OS.

Babu V ...that link is for how to create a dual boot system.

The question was about doing an upgrade of one opsys on an already existing dual boot system.

 

Windows 10 automatically enables FastStartup -- which is a new default hibernation mode that MS implemented, starting with Windows 8. In this mode, when you shutdown Win10, it keeps any open volumes still mounted. This would prevent you from mounting (and thus, seeing) the Win10 "C" volume when running Win7. If you disable FastStartup in Win10, you will then be able to see its "C" volume from Win7.

 

Hi,

Sorry, I forgot to mention, first thing I have done when finished W 10 setup was to DISABLE Fast StartUp & Sleep, & reboot, so it's not the root cause of the problem.
Hibernation is also disabled in both OS's.
When in W7 I onle see C: drive W7, when on W10 I see C: W10 and D: W7, strange...
Any new ideas??

 

One other possibility -- when you choose Restart to boot between the two OSs, it AUTOMATICALLY invokes FastStart, even if you've disabled it. I found that out the hard way when I was dual-booting and got CHKDSKs on every reboot. You have to choose Shut Down, not Restart. IF you are choosing Shut Down every time, I don't know what else to suggest.

 

The answer is simple. When a new partition is created on a disk already existing in Windows 7 a drive letter is not automatically assigned to it. Fast start-up has nothing to do with it. In disk management in Windows 7 right click on the Windows 10 partition and assign a drive letter to it. That will have no affect on booting or the drive letters assigned in Windows 10.

Unrelated question - is the Windows 10 that you did the clean install activated?

 

@ Mark Phelps,

FastStartup shows disabled in W 10 and when I shutdown pc I can understand it because laptop shutdowns normally.
Also, no CHKDSKs errors when booting to W7. I specifically disabled Fast StartUp for that reason because I was aware before installing W 10.

@NavyLCDR,

Windows 10 is activated because I entered W 10 DSP key while installing and in CP it shows activated.
Just to make a few things clear, I'd like NOT to see the W 7 partition in My Computer when using W 10 for various reasons but only and if only it does not affect functionality of both OS's and does not invoque boot configuration issues.
I'd like to know if that's possible, maybe remove drive letter for W 7 partition, via Diskpart, from W 10 admin cmd??
Thank you for your time.

Regards,

 

I would do it from Disk Management in Windows 10. Right click on the Windows 7 partition and remove the drive letter. It won't affect booting or operation of the operating system.

 

Please also note that when I created the primary partition, from W 7 cmd, in order to install W 10 on that, I did not assign, on purpose, a Drive letter to it.
Now, after dual boot set up while on W7 I only see C: (W7), which is good for me, but while on W 10, I see C: (W10), and D: (W7).
Hope this helps.

 

Hi NavyLCDR and thank you for the quick reply.
One question, if I may, if I remove W7 letter from W 10 Disk Management, when I will boot into W7, does the Local Disk C: drive, used for W7, while on W7, will be visible and also usable??
Do I need to take a new system image backup after that change, or it won't affect MBR & System Reserved config? (In case I want to restore from a system image backup made 3 days ago).
I'm using a third-party app to make my system backups. (always "cold" backups, for reasons that are not relevant to this thread). *Smile
Thanks again.

 

Hello Vaio,

While in Windows 10, did you also remove the D drive letter for the W7 drive in Disk Management?

 

Hello Brink,

No, I didn't touch anything, while in W 10, before taking specific instuctions from here...*Wink

Kind regards,

 

Should be. Glad you mentioned the image backup. You have a usable rescue disk/usb created by the backup software? If it goes wrong, just boot from the rescue disk/usb and restore the old image. I don't think it affects the MBR and System Reserved partition.

This is the way I understand it...the MBR and BCD refer to partitions by physical disk and partition IDs not by drive letters. It is not until the operating system loads that drive letters get assigned. Thus you can change or delete the non-running operating system's drive letter without affecting booting.

The drive letter gets assigned by the operating system after it boots, so the old image will revert back to the drive letters assigned when the image was made but I don't think the MBR or BCD are changed when the drive letters are changed.

 

This is why I mentionned "cold" backups, always taken from outside Windows, via Recovery cd.
"Hot" backups have some restrictions, by Microsoft, for FilesNotToBackup & FilesNotToSnapshot & KeysNotToRestore, keys in the registry, so it's a big NO for me.