How can I combine two drives, each with a differnt OS, into one bigger, dual OS bootable drive, keeping both OS +apps

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bionicwellness

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Jan 28, 2018
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I used clonezilla to move all contents of a 259GB OS windows 7 drive onto a new 1.8TB drive. I want to now move all contents of a second 250GB OS windows 10 drive (I have at other times used on the same computer) onto the 1.8TB drive. I want to ultimately have both OS and all programs available to me on the new 1.8TB drive, and be able to boot into either OS and use all the apps and functions, without having to change out my drives from one 250GB original drive to the other 250GB drive. Thus I want to place now, the full content of my second 250GB OS windows 10 drive onto the 1.8TB drive, so I can boot into either drives original content and OS, and apps, from the one new 1.8TB drive. Is this possible? I believe I will have to change some of the partitions on each drive from primary partitions to logical partitions, so as to not exceed placing more than 4 primary partitions on the new 1.8 Hard drive. I think I know how to do that. But otherwise, will this work, and dual book OK, OR how can I proceed to accomplish my goals.
 
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1. Philip's comment is on the mark based on our experience, however, your objective is achievable if it's practical for you to undertake.

2. First of all we don't use Clonezilla since it's never been a favorite disk-cloning program for us. The program we do use is Casper, a commercial d-c program, however there are other freely-available d-c programs that we also use from time-to-time. But if you're comfortable with the Clonezilla program I'll assume it can do the job I'll outline.

3. You would, of course, clone the contents of the Win 7 OS to the initial partition on the 1.8 TB drive. Cloning the contents of the Win 10 OS to the final partition on the drive will not result in a dual-boot situation. At least it never has for us.

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ArtPog

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1. Philip's comment is on the mark based on our experience, however, your objective is achievable if it's practical for you to undertake.

2. First of all we don't use Clonezilla since it's never been a favorite disk-cloning program for us. The program we do use is Casper, a commercial d-c program, however there are other freely-available d-c programs that we also use from time-to-time. But if you're comfortable with the Clonezilla program I'll assume it can do the job I'll outline.

3. You would, of course, clone the contents of the Win 7 OS to the initial partition on the 1.8 TB drive. Cloning the contents of the Win 10 OS to the final partition on the drive will not result in a dual-boot situation. At least it never has for us.

4. If you're willing to fresh-install the Win 10 OS on the second partition, that should result in a dual-boot configuration. When you boot the PC a Windows screen will appear providing an menu to boot to either the Win 7 or Win 10 installation.

5. Naturally you will have to move/copy your programs & other data from the current Win 10 drive to the new Win 10 installation.

6. The preceding does not take into account any activation/licensing issues; that could be another issue.
 
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bionicwellness

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Jan 28, 2018
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Thank you so much for your help. At least this approach could take me part of the way to my hoped for goal, and would be fine if I had fewer programs, and most of the original media still, but unfortunately much of that I no longer have after a move, thus my desire to pursue a way to keep the apps too. Perhaps a way to do this too, will become apparent. I appreciate the help!
 
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