Triple Boot Win7/Win7/OSX - Problem loading Win7 2nd copy
An EFI boot manager utility
Status: Beta
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Bottom Line up Front: When attempting to boot into a "second" installation of Win7 from rEFInd, the "first" copy of Win7 boots.
Hoping someone can lead me in the right direction. After several days and trial/error, I was able to get 3 partitions on my Macbook Pro. I have Yosemite on one partition and was able to successfully install Win7 Home Starter x64 on each of the other 2 partitions. I then was able to get rEFInd installed and when booting, everything works as expected. rEFInd boots quickly and displays the MAC partition as well as both Win bootable partitions. One of the Win7 partitions is "Windows71" and the other "Windows72". When I select Windows71, Win7 boots beautifully to my designated username of PC1. When I select Windows72 from rEFInd, it boots as well...but to Win7 username PC1 again....So Im at kind of a loss as to what is happening. It seems as if the second installation of Win7 is not bootable.
Single hard drive? BIOS or EFI? MacBook model?
If you're using rEFInd to boot Windows using BIOS, then you should notice that the active flag in the MBR changes to match the last Windows partition you selected.
Compare the partition table of the MBR with the GPT. The Windows partitions should be the same in both tables.
BIOS requires boot code in the MBR. Windows should have created the boot code for you.
The boot code in the MBR runs the boot code of the Windows partition.
The boot code of the Windows partition runs the Windows BOOTMGR which uses the settings of the BCD.
Maybe the BCD is not set correctly on one of the Windows partitions. Use EasyBCD to create or edit the BCDs. Each partition should have a default entry in it's BCD that points to its partition. You could add a second entry to point to the other partition.