How-to dual-boot Win7 and Win8 with rEFInd

[Chris]

On my (rather new) laptop I want both Win7 and Win8 (to be updated later to 10), but for some reasons I don’t like a dual-boot system with Microsoft Windows Boot Managers. Last week I tried a lot with rEFInd, but could not realize what I want. That is both Win7 and Win8 installed, but isolated from each other.

= = = = = Summary of all my experiments (for details, see below) = = = = =

A system with more than one Windows version and using rEFInd i.s.o. Windows Boot Managers, can probably only be realized by renaming the EFI\Microsoft\Boot folder before bootx64.efi is started.

Maybe this can be done by a script. In “Basic style” it should do something like (for starting Win7):
If exist \EFI\Microsoft\Boot8 goto End
Rename \EFI\Microsoft\Boot to \EFI\Microsoft\Boot8
Rename \EFI\Microsoft\Boot7 to \EFI\Microsoft\Boot
End (start \EFI\Boot\bootx64W7.efi)

Unfortunately, UEFI Shell and programming (syntax) are black spots for me. However, modifying e.g. ‘stanzas’ is no problem at all. But I need help for trying something in my black spot area.
So, I’m very interested in information if this is possible and, if yes, in How-to instructions.

Note. After learning much and spending a lot of time, realizing “single-boot” of more than one Windows version with rEFInd has become a challenge for me.

= = = = = Introduction, remarks and How-to details = = = = =

Shortcuts: ATIback is ‘Acronis True Image backup’ (result or the handling) and ATIrest is restoring a backup.

My Asus N550JK laptop had (as usual) Win 8.1 pre-installed and both the Windows version and the installed garbage were very annoying. And the SSD drive is very strange configured. The OS partition holds 10 to 15 GB, but an ATIback is only about 300 MB while a size of 5 GB would be normal. So, I replaced the SSD by another one and will use it as an external drive (in the far future).
I started with a MBR-based partitioned drive and installed Win7 Pro and Win 8.1. There were (as usual) some problems and I did not like the mixed situation of the Win7 and Win8 Boot Manager. However, catastrophic was that I discovered that an ATIrest of the second partition was not exactly sector-by-sector. So, a diff(erential) ATIback was as large as a full one. My preferred and regular used version of ATI is still v2010, but v2013 and v2015 have the same problem. I never noticed this before (unless it was explainable) and probably this problem occurs only on SSD’s when the target is not the first partition.
Next was looking for another (advanced) image backup program or trying ATI with a GPT-based SSD. And, of course, I tried GPT-based partitioning first and a “little” later I noticed that an ATIrest was OK now.

So, I have to use GPT-based partitioning and (U)EFI. But I’m not enthusiastic about the new hardware and firmware. A major drawback is that it is difficult and very annoying to get a correct listing of devices in the boot menu (pressing ESC very long). Setting Boot options and priorities in the BIOS are useless and very often I had to use Ctrl-Alt-Del (a few times) or restart after an unwanted Windows start.

= = Preparing the drive and installing Windows = =
I use MTPW9 (MiniTool Partition Wizard v9.1 Free), but could not create an ESP (EFI System Partition). The easiest way is starting a Windows installation on a clean drive and after choosing the right options, you can create a partition with the ESP and Reserved partitions as a free Microsoft gift. Then I aborted the installation and create 3 partitions with MTPW9. Next was an ATIback of the empty ESP, followed by installing Win7. Then ATIback’s of the OS partition and the ESP. After cleaning the ESP by an ATIrest of the empty ESP backup, I installed Win 8.1 (of course at another partition) and made ATIback’s of the OS partition and the ESP.

= = Experiments = =
With this ATIback’s of the OS partitions and the ESP’s (and Rod’s very extensive documentation), I started trying to realize what I wanted. Modifying the ESP was rather easy for me: I mounted on my desktop the Win8 ESP ATIback and after looking at the content, I started adding rEFInd folder, (renamed) bootx64.efi files, renamed EFI\Microsoft\Boot folder, etc. At my laptop I restored this modified ATIback’s and could test a lot of different configurations and situations. Some remarks, results and conclusions:

1. bootx64.efi is probably the only file that should be used in a stanzas. Renaming that file (in EFI\Boot) and using that name, is “allowed”.

2. Mixing EFI\Microsoft\Boot with the “other” bootx64.efi file, starts the Win version of the Boot folder.

3. Using e.g. EFI\Microsoft\Boot7 don’t work.

4. File bootx64.efi contains 3x that path EFI\Microsoft\Boot. Renaming the folder to Boot7 or Boo7 and hex editing that path in bootx64.efi was not successful.

5. If renaming EFI\Microsoft\Boot would have been successful, I expect troubles later on. When modifying something in the BCD properties, they would be saved in EFI\Microsoft\Boot (the directory of the other OS).

[Roderick W. Smith]

You're on the right track, but it's likely to be better to take it to the next higher level: Instead of renaming files on a single ESP, use two ESPs and juggle partition type codes during Windows installation. Specifically:

1. Install one Windows (say, Windows 7) normally, leaving some unallocated space on the hard disk for your subsequent Windows installation. You can optionally create a small (~200-600MiB) FAT partition just after the ESP; this will become your second ESP, but must not be marked as such at this point; it should be a plain FAT32 partition that's not used by Windows 7. If you don't create this partition, you (or the second Windows installer) will need to create it later, which means it will go in the middle or at the end of the disk.
2. Using gdisk (http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/) or some other partitioning tool that enables you to change partition type codes, modify the type code of the Windows 7 ESP so that it's a normal FAT partition, and change the extra FAT partition so that it's an ESP. (If you created no such partition, you can ignore it; the second Windows installer will create a new ESP.) In gdisk, an ESP has a type code of EF00 and a normal FAT partition has a type code of 0700, so you'd switch between those values. Other tools have other ways of identifying ESPs. You may also want to identify each ESP's affiliation in the partition name field, as in "Win7 ESP" and "Win8 ESP." (Some partitioning tools don't let you change partitions' names, though.)
3. Install your second Windows (say, Windows 8). After you do this, Windows 8 should boot normally. Its boot loader might give you an option to boot Windows 7, too. You can later remove this option with Windows-specific tools like bcdedit or EasyBCD. (I'm not an expert on such programs, so I can't be more specific.)
4. Install rEFInd. When you reboot, rEFInd should appear and give you options to boot both Windows 7 and Windows 8.

If you want to triple-boot with Linux, FreeBSD, or some other OS, you can install that OS at any point you like in this process -- although if you do so after step #4, the new OS's boot loader is likely to take over from rEFInd. If you need to make subsequent updates to one of the Windows installations (like that update to Windows 10 you mention), you must ensure that the matching ESP is marked as an ESP in the partition table (by using gdisk or some other tool to set the correct type code), and that the other Windows' ESP is marked as an ordinary FAT partition. Also, a Windows8-to-Windows10 update is likely to set its own boot manager as the default, so you'll need to re-install rEFInd, or at least reset your NVRAM settings so that rEFInd is the default again.

I strongly recommend backing up the files on both ESPs after each OS's installation and after everything's working correctly. That way, if some tool modifies your ESPs' contents, you can wipe it and restore the files from your backups.

[Chris]

Thanks Rod for your extensive instructions, but I’m not very happy that I have to repartitioning the drive and re-install (at least) Win8. I was hoping that I finally was reaching the situation that I could start with installing software.

Another disappointment (a little “off topic”) is that I noticed that my external Seagate 2TB USB drive cannot be connected during booting. I was hoping that using rEFInd should avoid this problem, but it is still there when I start Windows from the rEFInd menu. Then I see a few seconds “loading files” and back is the menu. Starting Windows after removing the drive gives the ‘Windows Error Recovery’ screen, but choosing the normal start is OK. I have also used EasyUEFI and disabled that entry, but still that problem. I have no idea why I have so many troubles and annoying things with this laptop. I’m very glad that my desktop is much better.
Note. The USB drive is MBR-based, has 2 logical partitions and is not bootable. But in the “ESC menu” (long pressing ESC during system start) this drive has a normal and a UEFI entry. What I don’t understand is why a MBR-based bootable USB-stick (with WinPE and tools) has only the normal entry and don’t disturb booting.
Summary: this problem was a major reason for starting with rEFInd, but probably I did not know at that moment that the USB drive was part of that issue.

After using EasyUEFI your ‘BCDedit rEFInd command’ did not work anymore and I used EasyUEFI to make rEFInd the active (first) Boot Manager. Is that info stored at NVRAM or in sector 0?

A question related to the restore problem of Acronis TI. I’ve seen at the MBR-based partitioned drive, that there are gaps between the partitions (perhaps caused by the 1 MB “steps”). Is that normal?
With GPT-based partitioning, the First Physical Sector is always the previous Last+1 and that is very likely the reason that ATIrest is OK (or better to say, the bug has no influence?).

Well, I have certainly to spend some (or maybe a lot of) time to look at all the info in your ‘GPT fdisk Tutorial’. Special interest will go to the advantages of GPT and (U)EFI over the (good) old and familiar MBR. Till now, the ATIrest problem was the only reason for switching and I’m not very pleased with all the results of this renewal (of hardware and firmware).
And is there perhaps someone using the double ESP method for this “single-boot” situation with 2 (or more) Windows versions?

Summary or conclusion. When renaming the EFI\Microsoft\Boot directory was (rather simply) possible, it was easy for me how to continue. But now I’m going to think about what would be the best solution. Unfortunately, each possibility seems to have drawbacks or problems.

Note. Rod, your last paragraph is a superfluously advice. :-)

[Roderick W. Smith]

It may be possible to get it configured as I've suggested without re-installing Windows, but if so I don't have precise instructions. My guess is you'd need to create a second ESP, juggle partition type codes, and run a Windows recovery tool to install a fresh copy of the Windows boot loader (for one installation) on the new ESP. It's also conceivable you could get it working with your directory-renaming approach, but I've never heard of anybody succeeding with that. (The sticking point I anticipate is that Windows or its boot loader may use hard-coded directory names, in which case whatever boots from the renamed directory would end up reading from the other version's directory. Much wackiness would then ensue.) I have corresponded with one or two people who've done it with multiple ESPs.

Concerning your external disk, can you show me the partition table on the disk? The output of a text-mode tool like Linux's fdisk or parted (or something similar in Windows; I don't recall the name of its tool) would be preferable to a GUI tool's screen shot. It's conceivable that you can get the system booting with that disk attached by adjusting the partitions or the contents of one of the disk's partitions.

EFI boot order information is stored in NVRAM; both bcdedit and EasyUEFI modify NVRAM (at least on EFI-based systems; bcdedit works differently on BIOS-based computers). Various EFI utilities and tools in other OSes do the same thing.

I have no experience with Acronis's TrueImage tool, so I can't comment on what it's doing. Gaps between partitions are common and exist for various reasons. If the gap is small (definitely 1MiB or smaller, and often even a few times bigger than that), I wouldn't bother doing anything about it; 1MiB is such a tiny amount of space by today's measures that the risk of damage when resizing partitions far outweighs the benefits of regaining such a tiny amount of space. Note that some tools, like Apple's Disk Utility, deliberately leave gaps between partitions (128MiB in the case of Apple's tool, IIRC).

[Chris]

Recently I discovered that on the GPT-based drive there were problems with Acronis sector-by-sector restoring too. So, I started (after all) with looking for other backup software and ‘Comparing 20 Drive Imaging Software Backup/Restore Speed and Image Size’ (at 'raymond.cc') was very helpful.
I selected AOMEI Backupper as the first one to try. The screenshots at the website looks good to me and indeed, this program is certainly more clearly and user friendly than the Windows versions of Acronis TI v2013 and v2015. But much more important, this program seems to restore correctly the second partition of my SSD drive (when MBR-based partitioned).

A short description of what I did. I made full backups of the second partition (with Win7 installed) with Acronis True Image and with AOMEI Backupper’ I used 3 program versions: ATI2010 on WinPE USB, ATI2015 on Linux CD and ABU WinPE USB. Then I restored with one of them the backup (of course, his own) and made a diff backup. If OK, then also diff back-ups with the other 2.
After restoring with ABU, all 3 diff backups were OK (file sizes very small). Restoring with the 2 ATI versions failed (as expected), the diff files are as large as the full ones.

I think that I have hard-proven that Acronis True Image is a lousy and unreliable program.

Note. The reason that I have used and still use ATI at my desktop(s), is that (of course) the hardware is different. But perhaps (very) important too is, that the OS partitions are/were always the first (and primary) partition of the drive (a rather usual situation). However, dual-boot at a laptop with one drive is another situation.

In my first post I wrote: Next was looking for another (advanced) image backup program or trying ATI with a GPT-based SSD. And, of course, I tried GPT-based partitioning first ….
Well, 8 days later and working many hours a day on this problem, I must conclude that it was the wrong choice. Selecting a replacement for ATI, get (rather) familiar with it, making a WinPE USB-stick (was extremely easy) and testing the program, took hardly one day.
Very frustrating is that I paid a lot during the last 6 years for this program and its updates and now I’m going to use a free program that works well at my ASUS laptop.

Of course, I'm very glad with this result and thus I'm no longer "forced" to use GPT-based partitioning and (U)EFI. So, I have decided to go back to the MBR-based situation where I can e.g. leave the USB drive connected during a restart. And because I want/need only the 2 Windows versions at my laptop, I'm no longer interested in a dual-boot situation with rEFInd (or other Boot Manager).