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+--- Thread: Dual booting VHD with Win7 - winload.exe error (/showthread.php?tid=504)
Dual booting VHD with Win7 - winload.exe error - gggirlgeek - 07-13-2018
Hello,
I created a Windows 10(x64) To Go VHD and it boots fine on my USB and HDD but won't boot on my SSD that has Win7x64 installed. I get the error about winload.exe not passing integrity check, or a disk read error. The strange thing is that it will boot from the boot entry on my other HDD. I just can't get it to boot from bootmgr on the drive it's actually on. (So the VHD file runs fine.)
When I boot from the Windows 7 partition, and choose Win10-to-go, I get the winload.exe error. When I mark the partition with the VHD as active and boot to it I get a disk read error. When I boot from a bootmgr partition on another HDD with WinToGo.vhd in the BCD it boots fine.
All my disks are MBR NT 6.x. All partitions boot with bootmgr. I have no GPT disks and my ASUS UEFI Bios boots in legacy mode. I have no separate boot partitions. Each partition has it's own bootmgr and BCD. Win7x64 is on first SSD partition, Win10 to go VHD is on second partition.
What am I doing wrong on the SSD?
Images attached: BootIce BCD information, and Disk configuration
Update: I tried booting with VHD mounted (shown in attached image as drive F) and unmounted. No difference.
RE: Dual booting VHD with Win7 - winload.exe error - gggirlgeek - 07-19-2018
I figured out one solution:
I made a new Primary boot partition, in front of C:/, on the SSD and copied my Windows 7 C:\Boot folder to it then set it as Active. I made sure the partition was formatted to boot with bootmgr using BootICE. (This can be done with EasyBCD as well or in command line. I find BootICE easiest.) I edited my BCD (using BootICE) to boot the appropriate partitions and the VHD booted right up. Win7 on C boots fine too.
I guess Windows doesn't like it when there are other bootable partitions on the same drive. You have to boot Window from a separate partition if you want to multiboot from the same disk.
Strange that my 3rd disk will boot fine without a separate boot partition even though I have Windows, and the Win to go VHD on that disk. Oh, well. I found a workaround for the SSD.