I need to know, how can I dual-boot Win7 with Win Neptune build 5111? Hopefully this doesn't go into the River of Dumb. If you can help me, thanks :colors:
I already have Win 7 installed! But there is a way to dual-boot it without upsetting your current Win 7 installation. For that I'll need a custom-burned Neptune CD, and a custom partition for it. I have the partition, just trying to run the setup off USB and it hangs at "Starting Windows Neptune".
Windows needs to be installed in chronological order, otherwise it can easily get mangled.
What machine would run an old beta from 2000 and Windows 7 anyways? if it's a modern machine, Neptune is unlikely to run on the metal - use a virtual machine.
I already have Win 7 installed! But there is a way to dual-boot it without upsetting your current Win 7 installation. For that I'll need a custom-burned Neptune CD, and a custom partition for it. I have the partition, just trying to run the setup off USB and it hangs at "Starting Windows Neptune".
It's inadvisable to install an older version of Windows alongside a newer version already installed. Technically you can, and if you have a Linux distro also installed, you can configure GRUB and add both copies of Windows to its boot menu (it's a matter of creating new entry in grub.conf), but that's a few extra steps you likely don't want to do. Now, you could possibly go ahead and install Neptune in that separate partition then after the 7 install is hosed from it, boot up from a 7 install cd and do a repair install to your Windows 7 install, but I can't guarantee that would be of much success. I never tried either so I can't say for sure any would work.
Some older versions of Windows seem to hiccup on SATA controllers from what I've seen. If you have the option in your bios, you can set the SATA controller to act in legacy mode, which will make most OSes see your drives as IDE drives. Also, if you have a much newer machine, you'll get screwed if it uses UEFI. (Some models allow BIOS emulation also.)
It should work fine to install Neptune after 7, but you'll have to manually repair the MBR, then in 7 use something like EasyBCD to add a boot entry for Neptune.
Noone brings up a good point about the SATA controller though. If it's currently set to AHCI mode, you'll definitely need some third party drivers to get Neptune going. I know 7 will BSOD if you change it to AHCI if it was installed using Legacy / IDE mode. There's a registry change to fix that, but I'm not sure about going the other way around, I've never had a reason to do that before.
Honestly, as others have stated, save yourself a lot of time and grief and just virtualize. Either that, or try and get your hands on some older hardware to install it on.
I would not recommend dropping AHCI just to get Neptune to read your disk, either. AHCI is key in getting the high performance out of modern drives; you *will* see a drop if you disable it.
:colors:
Comments
Virtualization is your better bet.
What machine would run an old beta from 2000 and Windows 7 anyways? if it's a modern machine, Neptune is unlikely to run on the metal - use a virtual machine.
Some older versions of Windows seem to hiccup on SATA controllers from what I've seen. If you have the option in your bios, you can set the SATA controller to act in legacy mode, which will make most OSes see your drives as IDE drives. Also, if you have a much newer machine, you'll get screwed if it uses UEFI. (Some models allow BIOS emulation also.)
Noone brings up a good point about the SATA controller though. If it's currently set to AHCI mode, you'll definitely need some third party drivers to get Neptune going. I know 7 will BSOD if you change it to AHCI if it was installed using Legacy / IDE mode. There's a registry change to fix that, but I'm not sure about going the other way around, I've never had a reason to do that before.
Honestly, as others have stated, save yourself a lot of time and grief and just virtualize. Either that, or try and get your hands on some older hardware to install it on.
Nothing really. He probably won't have a good chunk of his hardware drivers due to it being too new.