{"id":5579,"date":"2011-10-30T03:19:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-30T01:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.borncity.com\/blog\/2011\/10\/29\/windows-8-to-go-with-dual-boot\/"},"modified":"2021-01-25T11:02:07","modified_gmt":"2021-01-25T10:02:07","slug":"windows-8-to-go-with-dual-boot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/blog\/2011\/10\/30\/windows-8-to-go-with-dual-boot\/","title":{"rendered":"Windows 8 To Go with Dual-Boot"},"content":{"rendered":"

[German version<\/a>] Here<\/a> and here<\/a> I have blogged, how to create a booteable Windows 8 To Go version, using Windows 8 Developer Preview, on USB media. First I failed to create a dual boot USB device, containing two Windows 8 To Go variants. But at least I was successful.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"After installing Windows 8 To Go (32 Bit Developer Preview) on a USB 2.0 hard disk, I have had a lot of free space on that 300 MB drive. My idea was, to pack a 2nd 64 Bit Windows 8 To Go on that disk. So I shrinked the NTFS partition und added a 2nd primary NTFS partition. Then I used the steps described here<\/a> to create\u00a0 the 2nd Windows 8 To Go instance (64 Bit Developer Preview with Visual Studio 2011) on this partition.<\/p>\n

… and how to get dual boot?<\/strong><\/p>\n

After copying the 2nd Windows 8 instance to the USB 2.0 hard disk, the disk was still booteable. But I could only use the 64 Bit version of Windows 8 To Go. My first idea was, to install EasyBCD 2.1 on the booted Windows 8 To Go and edit the boot menu entries. During Easy BCD install I got a few warnings concerning some .NET components. But at least I was able to launch EasyBCD and extend my boot menu.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately my approach didn't work well. First of all, a metro style \"boot menu\" with two entries was shown. Not an optimal thing in my view, because the old windows 7 style boot menu fits much better. But this was more or less a \"cosmetical issue\". The bigger issue: During first boot, Windows 8 To Go (64 bit version) reported a serious problem. I let the computer repair fix the problem. After next boot, I have had a metro style boot menu with one entry. My attempt, using Windows 8 function, to inspect the boot menu settings indicates two valid entries. How odd \u2013 something went terrible wrong.<\/p>\n

A multiple step cure: 1. show partitions<\/strong><\/p>\n

After thinking about the issue, I decided to use a radical approach and bootet my computer with Windows 7. Then I connected the USB 2.0 hard disk containing the two Windows 8 To Go installations \u2013 and I invoked computer management on Windows 7. Here is the computer management windows on my German system.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We will see the partitioning scheme of my USB 2.0 hard disk: There is a 350 MB hidden partition (\"system-reserved\") for start files. And we have two additional partitions containing Windows 8 To Go (32 & 64 Bit) installations. I've created also a secondary partition, containing a FAT32-drive for test purposes.<\/p>\n

After right clicking on a partition, a context menu provides an entry to assign a drive letter. After assigning drive letters to the first 3 primary partitions, thouse drives are accessible in Windows 7.<\/p>\n

2nd step: Showing and cleaning start files<\/strong><\/p>\n

Finishing the steps above allowed me to inspect the contend of all logical disks. First of all, I need to inspect the (hidden) start files on the system-reserved<\/em> partition. To show hidden and system files, click the button Organize <\/em>within a folder window. Then select the menu entry Folder<\/em> and then search options<\/em> (Ordner- und Suchoptionen<\/em>). On the View tab (tab Ansicht <\/em>in my German windows), unselectthe option to hide protected system files.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It is also mandatory to selected the option to show hidden files. In an additional step I then renamed all start files (Bootmgr, BCD) on all 3 partitions (an other approach could be to delete thouse start files).<\/p>\n

3td step: Create new boot files and configuration<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a third step I launched EasyBCD (now under Windows 7) to update the boot menu and re-write the boot files. Unfortunately there is one problem: BCDEasy maintains default the boot entries in the BCD store of the currently booted OS (in my case this was Windows 7 on the host computer).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The solution: open menu File <\/em>and select the entry Select BCD Store<\/em>. After confirming a security dialog, a dialog window \"Browse for File\" will be shown. Within the dialog windows we can select the file BCD<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

There is only one pitfall: The dialog box shows no BCD store, although I have enabled viewing system files. My solution to overcome this issue: I clicked the address box and entered the path (in my case O:\\Boot\\<\/em>) into the adress line. After pressing the enter button, I was able to select the file BCD <\/em>and click the Open<\/em> button.<\/p>\n

Now I have had access to the BCD-Store located on the USB 2.0 hard disk. In additional steps I added in EasyBCD the two drives containing my Windows 8 to Go installations to boot menu. And I used the EasyBCD option to re-write a new Master-Boot-Record (MBR) \u2013 which overwrite the old Windows 8 start files.<\/p>\n

Voila, a new text style boot menu<\/strong><\/p>\n

After closing EasyBCD I shut down Windows 7, removed the USB 2.0 hard disk and used this device to boot a netbook from this media. The metro boot menu was gone, and I have had the old Windows 7 text enabled boot menu. And I was now able to select either my 32 or my 64 bit Windows 8 To Go version.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n(Windows 8 To Go boot menu on a slate)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[German version] Here and here I have blogged, how to create a booteable Windows 8 To Go version, using Windows 8 Developer Preview, on USB media. First I failed to create a dual boot USB device, containing two Windows 8 … Weiterlesen →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1604,1509],"class_list":["post-5579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allgemein","tag-dual-boot-menu","tag-windows-8-to-go"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5579\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}