Dual-boot drive letter requirements

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I wonder whether the following dual-boot environment is possible, and, if so, how:

Situation 1
C: Windows XP boot partition
D: user data partition
E: Windows 7 partition

Situation 2
C: Windows 7 boot partition
D: user data partition
E: Windows XP partition

In other words, the non-booted partition is always seen as E:, and the user data partition is always D:. At a pinch I would be happy if the non-booted operating partition was not visible at all!

Thanks.

BATcher

Plethora means a lot to me.

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I think there are third party “Boot Managers” that will do this. I have NOT used any boot manager except what has bee provide by Microsoft when installing a second OS.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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I think there are third party “Boot Managers” that will do this. I have NOT used any boot manager except what has bee provide by Microsoft when installing a second OS.

I’m triple booting XP, Vista and Win7 and used EASYBCD to arrange and tweak the various boot orders and timing, etc. Easy to use, as it’s name implies.

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I’m triple booting XP, Vista and Win7 and used EASYBCD to arrange and tweak the various boot orders and timing, etc. Easy to use, as it’s name implies.

Bob – EasyBCD looks interesting, but are you using v1.7.2 or the latest build (63) of the V2 beta? V2 seems to have been in beta for 3½ years (or have I got that wrong?)

BATcher

Plethora means a lot to me.

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Bob – EasyBCD looks interesting, but are you using v1.7.2 or the latest build (63) of the V2 beta? V2 seems to have been in beta for 3½ years (or have I got that wrong?)

I’m using version 1.72.

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Why not install both operating systems and then change the drive letters? So let XP and Win7 assign whatever they want and then adjust them to what you want.

You’d have to do that before you start installing anything, of course.

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Why not install both operating systems and then change the drive letters? So let XP and Win7 assign whatever they want and then adjust them to what you want.
You’d have to do that before you start installing anything, of course.

Why not indeed – and that is what I did, and it was very straightforward once I’d used GParted to repartition the single partition into the required three, and installed Windows 7 RC in the third partition.

Now in Windows 7 it’s just a matter of finding “where they have hidden this time round…”

Thanks to everyone for their comments, especially PaulB, whose post encouraged me to go ahead!

(I’ll ask my question about “software licencing in a dual-boot system” in another post!)

BATcher

Plethora means a lot to me.

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You can do exactly what you describe without having to resort to boot managers. I am assuming your question refers to drive letters assignments and not to how you set up a dual-boot environment.

When you set up the Windows 7 environment, the boot partition will always be C: by default. If the (presumably) common data partition is not D: in Windows 7, then use the Disk Management snap-in of the Computer Management tool to set it to D: and at the same time change the letter assignment for the WinXP boot partition to E:. If you do not wish to see the XP partition while you are in Windows 7, simply remove the letter assignment for that partition. See this TechNet article. You can use the same process when in XP to correct or remove any letter assignments.

The attached graphic shows my set-up (albeit Vista). I assigned the letter W to the Windows 7 partition. When seen from Windows 7, the Vista partition is seen as V.

Vista:

Windows 7:

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