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bhorv67 · ‎11-11-2013

I have 3 system hard drives. 2 are Win 7 64 which are working fine. I'm trying to setup a third to run 32 bit Win7 because of some external audio hardware I have. I was able to get Windows installed completely if I changed the SATA settings to IDE. But at my last bootup of 32bit win 7, the mouse and keyboard aren't working - or windows is freezing. I thought maybe something in the overclock I've had set is making 32bit win7 not happy, so I put all the CPU settings back to Auto. That did nothing. 32 bit windows is still locked up when it gets to the desktop. I'm considering just starting over with that install.

I have a Z87-a with the latest firmware. I can only access the 32 bit Windows drive when the SATA settings are in IDE. But when it's in IDE, the 2 64 bit boot drives won't come up.

During the setup of the 32 bit Win 7 drive, somehow the boot order in the bios got really hosed. On the main UEFI page that first comes up, I would normally see all my hard drives on the bottom, and I could move them around. Now there is only one drive available.

Nothing has been physically unplugged. If I go to the boot menu in the bios, the boot order only senses one hard drive is available. But for some reason, I can manually force boot to either of the WIn 7 64 bit drives only when SATA is in AHCI. Of course, the 32 bit Win 7 won't start up in AHCI.

My questions are:

1. What do I have to do to set the SATA settings in the bios and Windows to make both 64 and 32bit systems working?

2. Why is the 32bit system locking up - can't figure this out. Was in the middle of installing the hardware drivers when it did a restart and would lock up once the desktop comes up.

3. How can I get the boot order fixed in the bios? In the SATA settings (in advanced), all the drives are enabled in AHCI mdoe. but the boot order on the boot screen shows only one drive available.

Appreciate the help.

Henkenator68NL · ‎11-12-2013

Hi, I am not sure what motherboard you have, but some have 2 bios versions. That is what I usually don't to run a different OS running other than AHCI or RAID0. By doing so you can set I bios to ide and the other to AHCI or RAID0. What usually also helps is to shut down the system. Disconnect al Hdd that you don't not need. And leave only the boot drive on. Then restart, go to bios, hit F5 load optimized defaults and reboot, than set your sata as needed for the boot drive. Set boot sequence and reboot, try to get into the OS. If it works you could try to connect the other drives as well. Check the bios again for the right boot sequence. I hope you get it fixed.

Poco_OM · ‎11-12-2013

A Windows 7 64bit can run anything windows 7 32bit can. Some things may require a tweak or two, but most unless it is really old hardware/drivers can be resolved easily enough.

B Can you list the drives make and size please.

C Why is it essential you run a 64bit and a 32bit version, and have you considered running both OS on the same drive rather than having an OS nightmare where every drive contains drivers for hardware, windows and software that inevitably could conflict and cause such lock ups?

1 Your Bios setting has no say over windows, it simply prioritises the boot order of your drives, it really does not care what OS is on that drive.

1a If you have more than 4gb of memory you will need to run *64 as *32 is limited below this for ram. 2gb I think.

2 I strongly suspect it is either a driver conflict or an issue detecting your ram under a 32bit OS.

3 Depending on the drives will dictate the best set up, however justifying 3 OS's on 3 different drives is hard to do.

When you let me know the drives I can tell you your set-up options and why.

bhorv67 · ‎11-12-2013

Thanks Poco OM -

B Can you list the drives make and size please.
There are 3 physical drives in all. My thought was to just keep these install separated to make it easier. 1- WD 1TB 7200rpm, 1 WD 500G 7200rpm, 1 WD 250g 7200rpm. I have an install of 64bit win7 on the 2 larger drives. Because my daughter uses the system for school/games, I thought it just be better to give her her own system, which is on the 500g drive. The 250g has Win 7 32 bit. The only reason I'm using 32bit Win 7 is I have some older audio interfaces that I just haven't replaced yet. There aren't 64bit drivers for them so I'm stuck until I can afford to replace.

1 Your Bios setting has no say over windows, it simply prioritises the boot order of your drives, it really does not care what OS is on that drive.
I understand that. The issue is the bios somehow is not recognizing the boot drives they way it did. On the EZBios screen, I used to be able to see the boot drives on the bottom and move them around if I wanted to. Now only one of the drives appears here. Not a huge issue, but something has changed.

1a If you have more than 4gb of memory you will need to run *64 as *32 is limited below this for ram. 2gb I think.
I do have 8g installed, but I'm noticing that 32bit will only use 3.5g

As an update to the issue I reported yesterday, I reinstalled win7 32bit on the drive I was having an issue with. For whatever reason, when I first installed the 32bit version it was behaving very odd. I could only get that drive to boot when the SATA settings were in IDE. That screwed up the other 2 64 bit drives. After having lockup issues just getting win7 32 to install, I decided to just start over. Went back into Disk Management and formatted that drive. Strangely enough, when I did that while the machine was running in 64bit mode and then I installed 32 bit win7 again, this time there were no issues. Go figure. I think there are too many variables to figure out what really was going on.

Here's my system:
ASUS Z-87a 1504 bios
ThermalTake Nic F3 Cooler
i5 4670k - stable at 4.3/1.32v temps >55c
8g 1333 DDR3 RAM
MSI Twin Frozr GTX660OC
1TB WD 7200rpm - running 64bit Win7
500g WD 7200rpm - running 64bit Win7
250g WD 7200rpm - running 32bit Win7
Coolermaster Haf912 case

Poco_OM · ‎11-12-2013

I can see the logic of 3 OS's on three drives given what you say.
Personally I would still look into a fix, but that is because my PC gave me OCD. 🙂
Running VMware or similar may allow you to access this still using your 64bit OS.

AS for your Bios, well I suspect it could be to do with the boot priority setting, or the controller driver installed with windows. Probably a case of overwriting the older ones when installing windows 32bit. Which drive is showing in the bios?

Is any of your drives the old 1.5bps standard?
If so it will probably not be ahci compliant. Hence the need to use it as IDE when installing windows 32bit.

" I think there are too many variables to figure out what really was going on."

Nah, just a question of it is really worth the time finding out.

You state there was no issues, for clarification on my part does that mean everything has been resolved now, or that you can live with the other things mentioned?

If all is working feel free to ignore this.

bhorv67 · ‎11-12-2013

Is any of your drives the old 1.5bps standard?
I have no clue. They are from almost 8 years ago.

You state there was no issues, for clarification on my part does that mean everything has been resolved now, or that you can live with the other things mentioned?
Where I left off last night was I succesfully formatted and reinstalled Win 7 32bit without changing the SATA settings IDE. Somehow it's working in AHCI. I still have some updates to install and get my audio software going with the hardware. One thing peculiar, is Windows Boot manager is showing 4 installations of Windows to choose from. There should only be 3. I have them all uniquely named, but the one I can't find doesn't boot - just errors out. If that's the only issue I have then I'm ok with it. I'll know more tonight. Appreciate the help very much.

HiVizMan · ‎11-18-2013

There is no need what so ever to have different bios settings for 32bit or 64bit OS. I use three different OS on my one benching hard drive and the BIOS settings are exactly the same.

To help us help you - please provide as much information about your system and the problem as possible.

How to set SATA setting to have both 64 and 32 Win7 boot drives