Dual boot to two drives, win7 and Win10

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kmw350

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Dec 13, 2013
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I have two original Windows 7s. Can I install both (on two different hard drives), then do the free Win 10 upgrade on just one of them, thereby creating a dual boot setup?
I want to keep my Win 7 a while longer, but I do want to run 10 as well to see if I can live with it eventually.

Thanks for any advice. :)
 
Solution
USAFRet


It will not affect other drives.
When you boot into either drive and OS, it thinks it is the only OS in the system.

And when you install these, remove ALL other drives during the process.
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thx1138v2

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Jun 18, 2011
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Yes, you can do that but you'll need two of these:
http://www.amazon.com/Vantec-3-5-Inch-Aluminum-Removable-MRK-401ST-BK/dp/B003DVTWQ6
Then just plug in the one you want to boot and unplug the other one.

The machine will boot from the first hard drive it finds which will be the one on the lowest numbered motherboard port. So they can't both be connected to the motherboard at the same time because it will always boot from just the one drive.

 
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C

CBender

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Dec 30, 2015
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There are far easier ways to dual boot than that ^^. If you install on two different drives you could simply change the boot drive through the bios or could use something like GRUB (linux) and create a boot screen.
 
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kmw350

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Dec 13, 2013
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That's what I was hoping thanks. I can hit F8 and a boot menu comes up, which is good enough for my purposes for the moment,

So how do I go about this please?

I mean, the first install on drive C is straightforward enough. But then, how do I install the second OS on drive D? Is it enough to change the boot drive in bios before installing? Will the second OS then install without getting confused by what is on Drive C?

Thanks for all the help :)


 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Mar 16, 2013
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For the install, you do it with only that target drive connected.
Install Win 7 on one drive. Get it all working and activated
Take that drive out, and install the other one.
Install the OS on that, and Upgrade it to Win 10. Activation, all the current updates, etc etc.

Now....
Connect back in the first drive
At boot time, F8 and choose which one to boot into.
That drive and OS will see itself as the C, and the 'other drive' will be D or something else.

You will see only one C drive at a time, but it will change depending on which drive you boot into.
 
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K

kmw350

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Dec 13, 2013
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That's great, thanks for the clear explanation.

Just one final question (hopefully). What effect does this have on further drives? For example, I use Drive E for my steam games. Will this drive letter remain the same or will it upset all drive letters after C ?

Thanks again, I appreciate the help.

 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Mar 16, 2013
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It will not affect other drives.
When you boot into either drive and OS, it thinks it is the only OS in the system.

And when you install these, remove ALL other drives during the process.
 
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Solution
K

kmw350

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Dec 13, 2013
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Will do, thanks so much for the answers, it's a big help :)
 
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K

kmw350

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Job done!
Following your instructions I got a new Windows 10 system up and running, and then reconnected my 'old' drives, and Windows 7 ran just as before. I did get a couple of disk inconsistency notifications at boot up, but that was because I had moved the disks around & swapped/tidied up the cables on the motherboard, but once the system had checked them, it all booted up fine. (I also swapped the disk letters around so that they match in both OS's - just to avoid any confusion between installed programs).
It now seems to boot nicely into Windows 7 automatically, unless I hit F8 and select the Win10 drive.

Thank you USAFRet & others for answering, it's great to be able to run/test Windows 10 for now without losing W7 for now.




 
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