Advice on dual boot

[jeremydt]

Hi All,

Just looking for some dual boot advice.

I've had my CustoMac 2010 (see signature) running for a few days now and everything is running really well.

I followed some advice and installed Windows 7 on a seperate drive; this was also necessary due to the SSD for OSX being 60GB. The advice was to unplug the Primary OS X drive whilst installing Windows.

Unfortunately, after plugging it back in after a successful Windows 7 install on the secondary drive, windows gave off blue screens everywhere and wanted checkdisks to be completed at each startup.

My question, does the OS X (primary SSD for me) need to be unplugged in order to do a windows 7 install. Will keeping it plugged in mess up my OS X install?

As a side note, I'm considering by a third drive, another SSD to install windows on. So both OS drives run on SSD and the storage is the samsung spinmaster.

 

[MacMan]

Hi All,

Just looking for some dual boot advice.

I've had my CustoMac 2010 (see signature) running for a few days now and everything is running really well.

I followed some advice and installed Windows 7 on a seperate drive; this was also necessary due to the SSD for OSX being 60GB. The advice was to unplug the Primary OS X drive whilst installing Windows.

Unfortunately, after plugging it back in after a successful Windows 7 install on the secondary drive, windows gave off blue screens everywhere and wanted checkdisks to be completed at each startup.

My question, does the OS X (primary SSD for me) need to be unplugged in order to do a windows 7 install. Will keeping it plugged in mess up my OS X install?

As a side note, I'm considering by a third drive, another SSD to install windows on. So both OS drives run on SSD and the storage is the samsung spinmaster.

Did you have the SATA controller configured as AHCI when you installed Windows?

 

[jeremydt]

yes; I left it in the same configuration. Is this a no-no?

 

[MacMan]

yes; I left it in the same configuration. Is this a no-no?

No, when dual booting Windows must be configured to use AHCI. That way you don't have to reconfigure the BIOS every time you boot.

 

[jeremydt]

yes; I left it in the same configuration. Is this a no-no?

No, when dual booting Windows must be configured to use AHCI. That way you don't have to reconfigure the BIOS every time you boot.

Thanks, I did some googling and found the reghacks I need to sort it out I think.

Just the other question, do I need to remove the OS X drive when installing windows 7?

Appreciate the advice and help.

 

[MacMan]

yes; I left it in the same configuration. Is this a no-no?

No, when dual booting Windows must be configured to use AHCI. That way you don't have to reconfigure the BIOS every time you boot.

Thanks, I did some googling and found the reghacks I need to sort it out I think.

Just the other question, do I need to remove the OS X drive when installing windows 7?

Appreciate the advice and help.

The safest way to install a dual boot is to only have a single drive installed for the appropriate OS. This will eliminate any possibility of an installer touching the wrong disk.