How to Hide Two Operating Systems on different partitions from each other.

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A Wooden Fork

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Hello, all.

A few days ago, I installed the technical preview of Windows 10 on a new 120GB SSD just to try it out. I then created a partition of this drive, leaving 25GB for Windows 10, and the rest (excluding system files for the drive) as extra storage for my primary operating system (Windows 8.1) held on a different 120GB SSD. The partitioning went smoothly, with no catastrophic failures. However, whenever I boot to either operating system, I can see the partition that contains the other operating system, which I don't want. I found a number of sites that suggested unassigning the drive letter, so that the drive wouldn't be visible in Windows Explorer, but from what I've read, that only hides the drives on the surface, but under the hood, each drive still knows that the other exists.

Is there a way to make it such that when I boot to Windows 8.1, for example, it doesn't know the partition of the other drive containing Windows 10 exists at all?
 
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Tom Tancredi
No not really, as they are OPERATING SYSTEMS, meaning they need to see what 'exists' to 'operate it', so they have to see everything that exists so they know 'what' to do with it based on how you set things up.

Secondly the way you set this up will lead to CATASTROPHIC failure at some point. As the BIOS boots, it randomly asks all storage devices 'Do you have a OS to hand off too' and historically Windows generically states "I am the only OS here". The problem is you have TWO Windows saying the same thing, which leads to 'corruption' (aka there is no 2 in 1s and 0s, so ACK! CHOKE! Break!) and eventually the destruction / erroring of the boot table which DRIVE (not partition) is the boot drive, then further where the boot partition...
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COLGeek

COLGeek

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Why are you trying to isolate the OSes? There should be no interaction between them unless you do it yourself. Please explain.

When I have beta tested in the past, I always used a dedicated system for testing. Just something to consider for future reference. This method will minimize issues like yours.
 
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bliq

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Can you explain your use case of why you want to hide one OS from the other? Im curious. I actually can't think of a good way to accomplish that. I was going to suggest different file systems but I don't know if Windows will work with anything other than NTFS.

 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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I don't believe this can be done. If the physical drive/partition exists, the OS can see it.

I have 7 and 10 on my test laptop (2 partitions), and the 2 OS's can see the other. Just don't access that drive letter.
I had the same with 7 & 8/8.1.
 
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Tom Tancredi

Tom Tancredi

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No not really, as they are OPERATING SYSTEMS, meaning they need to see what 'exists' to 'operate it', so they have to see everything that exists so they know 'what' to do with it based on how you set things up.

Secondly the way you set this up will lead to CATASTROPHIC failure at some point. As the BIOS boots, it randomly asks all storage devices 'Do you have a OS to hand off too' and historically Windows generically states "I am the only OS here". The problem is you have TWO Windows saying the same thing, which leads to 'corruption' (aka there is no 2 in 1s and 0s, so ACK! CHOKE! Break!) and eventually the destruction / erroring of the boot table which DRIVE (not partition) is the boot drive, then further where the boot partition resides.

Your BEST way to 'TEST' OSes or deal with a 'second' OS has been for years to set it inside a SANDBOX, making it a VIRTUAL OS. https://www.virtualbox.org/ has worked flawlessly for years, as you 'install' the OS into the virtual box, then when you need to run it, you just run the virtual session and it acts just like your normal OS loaded natively. It will take a portion of the drive in a file that the Virtual OS runs out of, similiar to a partition, without the dangers you put your system into.

IMHO I believe your BEST course of action is A) Unplug 120GB #2 (W8.1) B) Wipe 120GB #1 with DBAN (this will ensure the drive never says "HEY I AM the boot drive NOT that other imposter!") C) Plug back in 120GB #2, format 120GB #1 NTFS as a full drive. D) install VirtualBox and configure it to use blank 120GB as the storage place for the virtual images. E) Create from the ISO the Virtual W10 OS - Safe, Sane and done.

Oh best part, while you 'mess' with W10, if something goes wrong, you just relaunch the last working 'time' of the Virtual image and your right back instantly to where you started at. No Muss, no BSOD, no reboots, no damage to the Boot Sectors, no RISKS!
 
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Solution
USAFRet

USAFRet

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Dual booting on 2 partitions is not a problem. Especially with the Win 8 and beyond boot manager.
It simply asks what OS you want to boot from. If you don't choose, it defaults after x seconds to whatever the default is. I have mine set to 5 seconds, then boot into Win10.

Whichever OS and partition you boot into sees itself as the C drive. The other is D.

But yes....for testing a new beta OS (Windows 10), be prepared to suffer major issues.
 
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menetlaus

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It can be done. Almost any retail PC/laptop you buy does not come with a recovery disk. You press a button at boot and the system knows to boot from the recovery partition and not the primary OS. Though if only in the primary OS you cannot see the recovery partition (except with a disk management utility).

But, as far as I know, there are no retail/free tools out there on the open market to setup a dual boot setup like OP is looking for.

So from a technical sense it can be done, from a practical (general end user) perspective the tools to do so easily are not available.

Yes, Dell/HP/etc probably bought the knowledge to make recovery partitions from someone. But I'd bet they have paid $100's of thousands or more before they had it working.
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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And in Disk Management, you can see that recovery partition. So it is not really 'hidden' from the parent OS.
 
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A Wooden Fork

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Thanks! This is exactly what I was looking for. I wasn't sure what the interaction would be between the drives, and thus - the reason I didn't want each one to know the other existed, but I think I understand now. And the catostrophic failure that you mentioned may have already happened, though it wasn't quite as painful as you describe it. The first time I booted with both drives, the system defaulted to Windows 10, so to get to 8.1, I went to the BIOS and manually selected the boot drive. Notably, in the setting for boot order/preference, the drive with Windows 8.1 was completely absent. Luckily, I was able to access it directly by selecting it from a list of all drives in the machine. When the computer booted to 8.1, there was an error on the disk, which I'm assuming was the "corruption" of the boot table, which you mentioned. Windows did its thing and repaired the disk, and there have been no lasting effects (as far as I can tell).

To me, your recommendation of exploring Windows 10 in a sandbox environment seems like the only safe course of action, especially considering my inexperience in meddling around with things of this nature.

As a side question, how do two completely different OSes, e.g. an arbitrary version of Windows and an arbitrary Linux Distribution handle this issue? That is, how do they respond to the BIOS' question to each drive, "Do you have an OS to hand off to?" if Window's response is always, "I'm the only one here."?
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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The Linux boot manager, GRUB, handles this. It asks which OS you want to boot from. Don't select, and it boots from whatever you have designated as the default.

A lot like the Win8/8.1/10 boot manager.
 
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Tom Tancredi

Tom Tancredi

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BOOTLoaders. Normally Linux has one inclusive (all depending on the distribution) that talks to the BIOS first, then provides (as USAFRet mentioned) a 'selection table' you can choose to boot from OR after a set time autoloads the first one on the list. This prevents the conflict in booting. This of course disregards that LINUX writes the HDD space it occupies in a totally different and unusable format for Windows, but has and sees NTSF perfectly fine when it 'sees' Window's partitions. This also is the FAIL point for someone with no experiance, as they go with the defaults which then eats the space Windows 'expects' to be available for Temp Files, File Swap, etc. or worse accidentally formatting the entire drive for LINUX and wiping out Windows (can't count how often that happened!!!).

Again vOS is usually the best solution for any and all 'mucking about' if you don't have a spare PC to just 'smash the hell out of it' (ooohh look I make a Linux pun!).
 
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Ijack

Ijack

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There seems to be a lot of misinformation in this thread.

There is no problem in running multiple operating systems on the same PC. (I run 6 on my main computer.) Boot managers, either Grub or the Windows one, can handle this without any danger of the OSs corrupting each other. If you have more than one Windows installation and don't want each to interact with the other's partition then simply unassign the drive letters - Windows will not magically access the partitions that do not have a drive letter assigned.

Having said that, you do have to be careful when installing a new OS not to accidently overwrite the wrong partition. And it can be a pain resizing partitions or creating new ones so a VM solution is the simplest way of trying out a new OS. Ofbcourse, a VM doesn't offer any more protection than unassigning drive letters - VMs can access physical partitions too.
 
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