Dual Boot on 2 SSD`s

I currently have Windows 8.1 installed on my boot SSD and I have a spare SSD doing nothing. If I install Windows 10 on the spare SSD, will it become the boot SSD? And can I just unplug the Windows 10 SSD and boot from Windows
8.1 SSD or will a dual boot option be given when I boot my PC?

may just say that if you install any windows configuration under bios (legacy mode) you will get very few problems .its only when we start to use UEFI bios it goes pear shaped. when using uefi mode it changes the bios boot options to the latest installation
and that's were the problem arises it wont see the windows 8 installation as the valid boot option, I have gone into bios and re-selected my first ssd as the master boot snd windows 8.1 boots up ok but a reboot ignores my last selection and gives me no boot
mgr. my only option was to disconnect ssd2 (now formatted ) and reinstall windows 8.1 po from scratch . so that the uefi bios gets it instruction that ssd 1 is the main boot dirve .all goes as expected relly well. I am present trying to get all info about
installing in uefi mode and all about uefi from intel. it might be I am not following correct procedures ,but I will find out. so now I hve NO windows 10 and running on all cylinders on window 8.1 pro

Similar Messages

Dual-boot on MBP Retina SSD

Hi!
I've just started university and have been wondering whether to get a Mac or PC (I already own a desktop Windows PC). After much thought, I've decided to go the Mac "ultrabook" way, namely the MBP 13'' Retina (I might still choose the MB Air...).
I know that there are many alternatives to OneNote 2013 (whether special Mac ones or multiplatform like Evernote) but none has been as compelling as OneNote (especially because I have my desktop PC which I would also like to use to edit notes).
So I see two solutions :
1) Use the OneNote web app during lectures
2) Set up a OS X/Windows 8(.1) dual-boot
My question is, regarding option 2 : does a dual-boot "hurt" the SSD in some way like reducing it's lifespan? Furthermore, is it worth the effort? Does it work well?
Thanks in advance!
Jonas

Don't forget that you don't have to choose to "dual boot" only. You have the option of runnign Windows in a virtual machine environment like Parallels Desktop, VMWare Fusion, or Virtual Box. Each of those allows you to create a virtual PC within your Mac, then boot that virtual PC just as if it were a real PC. At that point, you are then running Windows and can install and run your Windows software on that virtual machine. I have gone this route with my latest MacBook Pro, which is a Late 2011 model, and it is older and slower than the MacBook Pro with Retina that you are looking to buy...

Dual boot two oems on new build

Have built a new desktop. Asus Z97 pro mb, intel 4790k cpu, 16gb ddr3 1333 memory. 1ssd 120gb, 1ssd 240gb, 1 WD 1Tb hard drive for data
Purchased two windows 7 oems. Home Premium 32bit and professional 64bit with the components all from the same supplier.
Purpose to dual boot on separate ssds, within the one desktop.
Installed HP 32bit first on 120gb ssd but system refuses to accept Pro 64bit and will not install.
Computer properties indicates system is 32 bit. No indication that it is 64 bit capable.
Is this usual or is it not possible to install two oems on the same new build?

Windows should not care about this. I'd ask the hardware manufacturer or try them over here.
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7?tab=Threads
Regards, Dave Patrick ....
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
Disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees , and confers no rights.

Dual Boot install Fails

During installation of Windows 10 (dual booting) on same SSD (main) Windows 7 Ultimate, Install fails at 58%, retry 59%, just hangs for hours. Process- created partition, run install ISO from working DVD copy, freezes at approx 58%- Getting files ready for
installation.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

Did you use any download manager to install Windows 10 TP ISO file?
What software did you used to create Windows installer file from ISO?
Usually such a problems are due to issue with installation file is corrupted.

W8.1/W7-64 dual boot, dual drive (SSD & SATA) GPT/MBR problems

I'm posting in both the W8 and W7 forums because I'm not sure which is more appropriate.
Setup:
New Dell XPS8700 with Windows 8.1 installed on a 256GB SSD drive. I upgraded to W8.1 Pro.
2nd drive is a 2TB SATA.
Goal:
Keep W8.1 Pro on SSD.
Install W7 Ultimate 64 (legal copy, installation disk) on SATA Drive.
Select which one I want at boot.
Main Issue
Cannot easily choose which OS to log into. See Dual Boot Problems and Current State for details.
Background: W7 Installation Probems
1. I disabled Secure Boot in the BIOS and Fast Startup in Windows 8.1
2. I created 3 partitions (D, E, F) on the SATA drive (a GPT drive)
3. Used the Advanced Option in W8 to boot from the DVD (absurd),
4. Windows 7 started setup from the DVD but at the initial screen (Language, Country), it hung. Hard. No keyboard, no mouse. Had to turn off computer.
5. Using F12, selected legacy boot from DVD. Now the installation got beyond the first screen. I selected Custom Install. When I tried to install to the E: partition, I got the message that W7 could not be installed on a GPT drive. From
a lot of research and reading, I'm guessing this is because I chose a legacy boot. But, please, note: the only reason I did a legacy boot was because I could not get past the first screen with a "normal" CD/DVD boot,
6. So, I went back into W8, deleted the volumes on the SATA drive, changed it to MBR, recreated the volumes.
7. Using F12, again selected legacy boot from DVD and was able to install W7 on the E: partition, except that every reboot during the installation process got me back into W8, so I had to restart with the F12 option/legacy boot to finish W7 installation.
8. Finally got W7 installed. Logged in. OK so far.
Dual Boot Problems
1. No boot menu. Computer booted directly into W8.1. And, yes, Fast Startup in W8.1 still disabled.
2. Downloaded and installed EasyBCD. Created boot menu for W8.1 and W7 with W8.1 the default.
3. Reboot, select W8. Fine, I'm into W8.1
4. Reboot, select W7. All I get is one bar of hieroglyphics across top of screen. Hard freeze. Had to unplug computer.
5. Do an F12 reboot and select legacy boot from the SATA drive. Get a different boot menu with Windows 7 on top and W8 Media version below. Select W7. It loads and I log in.
6. Do an F12 reboot and select legacy boot from the SATA drive. This time, select W8. Get an error that it can't find W8.
Current State
1. The default boot into W8 works fine.
2. Can't get into W7 unless I do an F12 legacy boot from SATA at startup.
3. If I do an F12 legacy boot from SATA, I can't get into W8.
I do not want to rely on F12 for 2 reasons: first, I want W7 to be my default working enviroment. Please do not try to convince me that there is no good reason for that. I want to do this, have legal, paid for copies of W7 (actually, I now have four.)
Second, it will make installing W7 updates nightmarish since I'll have go go through the whole F12 thing for every reboot.
I am assuming that the problem stems from the original GPT/MBR split (with the SSD being GPT and the SATA being MBR) - although I could be wrong. And, remember, the only reason I changed the SATA from GPT to MBR was because the W7 setup froze
at the initial screen when I first tried to install W7 with a normal boot from DVD.
Things I've tried:
1. Via W8, got to a command prompt where I ran bootsect.exe /scanos. The result was that it found NO Windows Installations. Obviously incorrect.
2. Uninstalled EasyBCD from W8.
3. Rebooted. Same boot menu as before: W8.1 on top, Windows 7 below (as I had set things up in EasyBCD).
2. Via W8 Command Prompt did a bcdboot c:\windows to try to get GUI boot menu. Got the error message: failure when attemptng to copy boot files.
What I want to do seems to me to be quite simple: run W8 from the SSD, run W7 from the SATA. It's my understanding that I should be able to install W7 on a GPT drive and that would, I am hoping,
solve the boot menu problem. But see Installation Problems above: I couldn't do the default boot from the DVD and install W7 because it froze at the first screen. Is there some other way to get past the freeze and install W7 to a GPT?
I've been working on this for two weeks now, have read more articles, watched more YouTube videos than I care to list. Need Help Desperately.
<textarea style="height:80px;width:444px;border:1px solid grey;padding:2px;"></textarea><select><option value="af">Afrikaans</option><option value="sq">Albanian</option><option value="ar">Arabic</option><option
value="hy">Armenian</option><option value="az">Azerbaijani</option><option value="eu">Basque</option><option value="be">Belarusian</option><option value="bg">Bulgarian</option><option
value="ca">Catalan</option><option value="zh-CN">Chinese (Simplified)</option><option value="zh-TW">Chinese (Traditional)</option><option value="hr">Croatian</option><option
value="cs">Czech</option><option value="da">Danish</option><option selected="selected" value="auto">Detect language</option><option value="nl">Dutch</option><option
value="en">English</option><option value="et">Estonian</option><option value="tl">Filipino</option><option value="fi">Finnish</option><option value="fr">French</option><option
value="gl">Galician</option><option value="ka">Georgian</option><option value="de">German</option><option value="el">Greek</option><option value="ht">Haitian
Creole</option><option value="iw">Hebrew</option><option value="hi">Hindi</option><option value="hu">Hungarian</option><option value="is">Icelandic</option><option
value="id">Indonesian</option><option value="ga">Irish</option><option value="it">Italian</option><option value="ja">Japanese</option><option value="ko">Korean</option><option
value="la">Latin</option><option value="lv">Latvian</option><option value="lt">Lithuanian</option><option value="mk">Macedonian</option><option value="ms">Malay</option><option
value="mt">Maltese</option><option value="no">Norwegian</option><option value="fa">Persian</option><option value="pl">Polish</option><option value="pt">Portuguese</option><option
value="ro">Romanian</option><option value="ru">Russian</option><option value="sr">Serbian</option><option value="sk">Slovak</option><option value="sl">Slovenian</option><option
value="es">Spanish</option><option value="sw">Swahili</option><option value="sv">Swedish</option><option value="th">Thai</option><option value="tr">Turkish</option><option
value="uk">Ukrainian</option><option value="ur">Urdu</option><option value="vi">Vietnamese</option><option value="cy">Welsh</option><option value="yi">Yiddish</option></select>⇄<select><option
value="af">Afrikaans</option><option value="sq">Albanian</option><option value="ar">Arabic</option><option value="hy">Armenian</option><option value="az">Azerbaijani</option><option
value="eu">Basque</option><option value="be">Belarusian</option><option value="bg">Bulgarian</option><option value="ca">Catalan</option><option value="zh-CN">Chinese
(Simplified)</option><option value="zh-TW">Chinese (Traditional)</option><option value="hr">Croatian</option><option value="cs">Czech</option><option value="da">Danish</option><option
value="nl">Dutch</option><option selected="selected" value="en">English</option><option value="et">Estonian</option><option value="tl">Filipino</option><option
value="fi">Finnish</option><option value="fr">French</option><option value="gl">Galician</option><option value="ka">Georgian</option><option value="de">German</option><option
value="el">Greek</option><option value="ht">Haitian Creole</option><option value="iw">Hebrew</option><option value="hi">Hindi</option><option value="hu">Hungarian</option><option
value="is">Icelandic</option><option value="id">Indonesian</option><option value="ga">Irish</option><option value="it">Italian</option><option value="ja">Japanese</option><option
value="ko">Korean</option><option value="la">Latin</option><option value="lv">Latvian</option><option value="lt">Lithuanian</option><option value="mk">Macedonian</option><option
value="ms">Malay</option><option value="mt">Maltese</option><option value="no">Norwegian</option><option value="fa">Persian</option><option value="pl">Polish</option><option
value="pt">Portuguese</option><option value="ro">Romanian</option><option value="ru">Russian</option><option value="sr">Serbian</option><option value="sk">Slovak</option><option
value="sl">Slovenian</option><option value="es">Spanish</option><option value="sw">Swahili</option><option value="sv">Swedish</option><option value="th">Thai</option><option
value="tr">Turkish</option><option value="uk">Ukrainian</option><option value="ur">Urdu</option><option value="vi">Vietnamese</option><option value="cy">Welsh</option><option
value="yi">Yiddish</option></select>
English (auto-detected) » English

SOLUTION:
The problem I described above stemmed from the fact that I had been unable to install W7 without using the legacy option. (The W7 installation would freeze at the first screen.) That created the boot incompatibilities between W8.1 and W7because I had
to use legacy for the latter but not for the former.
It turned out that the USB ports were the basic problem. The Windows 7 installation program doesn't recognize USB 3.0 ports. Unfortunately, the A08 BIOS in the XPS 8700 -Special Edition (as of late Dec. 2014) has only 3 options for enabling/disabling
the USB ports: Front, Top, Back. The back panel has a mix of USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports and I needed a 2.0 port for the mouse and keyboard to work. However, disabling the Front and Top USB ports was sufficient. The W7 install no longer froze.
So, from my W8 installation, I wiped out the SATA drive, changed it back to GPT, partitioned it, disabled the Front and Top USB ports in the BIOS and booted from the W7 DVD. The installation went fine. After installing the network driver, downloaded
previously, and updating W7, I installed the USB 3.0 drivers and then re-enabled the Top and Front in the BIOS.
So, now the EasyBCD boot options work just fine. Both drives are GPT. No legacy options.
<textarea style="height:80px;width:444px;border:1px solid grey;padding:2px;"></textarea><select><option value="af">Afrikaans</option><option value="sq">Albanian</option><option value="ar">Arabic</option><option
value="hy">Armenian</option><option value="az">Azerbaijani</option><option value="eu">Basque</option><option value="be">Belarusian</option><option value="bg">Bulgarian</option><option
value="ca">Catalan</option><option value="zh-CN">Chinese (Simplified)</option><option value="zh-TW">Chinese (Traditional)</option><option value="hr">Croatian</option><option
value="cs">Czech</option><option value="da">Danish</option><option selected="selected" value="auto">Detect language</option><option value="nl">Dutch</option><option
value="en">English</option><option value="et">Estonian</option><option value="tl">Filipino</option><option value="fi">Finnish</option><option value="fr">French</option><option
value="gl">Galician</option><option value="ka">Georgian</option><option value="de">German</option><option value="el">Greek</option><option value="ht">Haitian
Creole</option><option value="iw">Hebrew</option><option value="hi">Hindi</option><option value="hu">Hungarian</option><option value="is">Icelandic</option><option
value="id">Indonesian</option><option value="ga">Irish</option><option value="it">Italian</option><option value="ja">Japanese</option><option value="ko">Korean</option><option
value="la">Latin</option><option value="lv">Latvian</option><option value="lt">Lithuanian</option><option value="mk">Macedonian</option><option value="ms">Malay</option><option
value="mt">Maltese</option><option value="no">Norwegian</option><option value="fa">Persian</option><option value="pl">Polish</option><option value="pt">Portuguese</option><option
value="ro">Romanian</option><option value="ru">Russian</option><option value="sr">Serbian</option><option value="sk">Slovak</option><option value="sl">Slovenian</option><option
value="es">Spanish</option><option value="sw">Swahili</option><option value="sv">Swedish</option><option value="th">Thai</option><option value="tr">Turkish</option><option
value="uk">Ukrainian</option><option value="ur">Urdu</option><option value="vi">Vietnamese</option><option value="cy">Welsh</option><option value="yi">Yiddish</option></select>⇄<select><option
value="af">Afrikaans</option><option value="sq">Albanian</option><option value="ar">Arabic</option><option value="hy">Armenian</option><option value="az">Azerbaijani</option><option
value="eu">Basque</option><option value="be">Belarusian</option><option value="bg">Bulgarian</option><option value="ca">Catalan</option><option value="zh-CN">Chinese
(Simplified)</option><option value="zh-TW">Chinese (Traditional)</option><option value="hr">Croatian</option><option value="cs">Czech</option><option value="da">Danish</option><option
value="nl">Dutch</option><option selected="selected" value="en">English</option><option value="et">Estonian</option><option value="tl">Filipino</option><option
value="fi">Finnish</option><option value="fr">French</option><option value="gl">Galician</option><option value="ka">Georgian</option><option value="de">German</option><option
value="el">Greek</option><option value="ht">Haitian Creole</option><option value="iw">Hebrew</option><option value="hi">Hindi</option><option value="hu">Hungarian</option><option
value="is">Icelandic</option><option value="id">Indonesian</option><option value="ga">Irish</option><option value="it">Italian</option><option value="ja">Japanese</option><option
value="ko">Korean</option><option value="la">Latin</option><option value="lv">Latvian</option><option value="lt">Lithuanian</option><option value="mk">Macedonian</option><option
value="ms">Malay</option><option value="mt">Maltese</option><option value="no">Norwegian</option><option value="fa">Persian</option><option value="pl">Polish</option><option
value="pt">Portuguese</option><option value="ro">Romanian</option><option value="ru">Russian</option><option value="sr">Serbian</option><option value="sk">Slovak</option><option
value="sl">Slovenian</option><option value="es">Spanish</option><option value="sw">Swahili</option><option value="sv">Swedish</option><option value="th">Thai</option><option
value="tr">Turkish</option><option value="uk">Ukrainian</option><option value="ur">Urdu</option><option value="vi">Vietnamese</option><option value="cy">Welsh</option><option
value="yi">Yiddish</option></select>
English (auto-detected) » English
<textarea style="height:80px;width:444px;border:1px solid grey;padding:2px;"></textarea><select><option value="af">Afrikaans</option><option value="sq">Albanian</option><option value="ar">Arabic</option><option
value="hy">Armenian</option><option value="az">Azerbaijani</option><option value="eu">Basque</option><option value="be">Belarusian</option><option value="bg">Bulgarian</option><option
value="ca">Catalan</option><option value="zh-CN">Chinese (Simplified)</option><option value="zh-TW">Chinese (Traditional)</option><option value="hr">Croatian</option><option
value="cs">Czech</option><option value="da">Danish</option><option selected="selected" value="auto">Detect language</option><option value="nl">Dutch</option><option
value="en">English</option><option value="et">Estonian</option><option value="tl">Filipino</option><option value="fi">Finnish</option><option value="fr">French</option><option
value="gl">Galician</option><option value="ka">Georgian</option><option value="de">German</option><option value="el">Greek</option><option value="ht">Haitian
Creole</option><option value="iw">Hebrew</option><option value="hi">Hindi</option><option value="hu">Hungarian</option><option value="is">Icelandic</option><option
value="id">Indonesian</option><option value="ga">Irish</option><option value="it">Italian</option><option value="ja">Japanese</option><option value="ko">Korean</option><option
value="la">Latin</option><option value="lv">Latvian</option><option value="lt">Lithuanian</option><option value="mk">Macedonian</option><option value="ms">Malay</option><option
value="mt">Maltese</option><option value="no">Norwegian</option><option value="fa">Persian</option><option value="pl">Polish</option><option value="pt">Portuguese</option><option
value="ro">Romanian</option><option value="ru">Russian</option><option value="sr">Serbian</option><option value="sk">Slovak</option><option value="sl">Slovenian</option><option
value="es">Spanish</option><option value="sw">Swahili</option><option value="sv">Swedish</option><option value="th">Thai</option><option value="tr">Turkish</option><option
value="uk">Ukrainian</option><option value="ur">Urdu</option><option value="vi">Vietnamese</option><option value="cy">Welsh</option><option value="yi">Yiddish</option></select>⇄<select><option
value="af">Afrikaans</option><option value="sq">Albanian</option><option value="ar">Arabic</option><option value="hy">Armenian</option><option value="az">Azerbaijani</option><option
value="eu">Basque</option><option value="be">Belarusian</option><option value="bg">Bulgarian</option><option value="ca">Catalan</option><option value="zh-CN">Chinese
(Simplified)</option><option value="zh-TW">Chinese (Traditional)</option><option value="hr">Croatian</option><option value="cs">Czech</option><option value="da">Danish</option><option
value="nl">Dutch</option><option selected="selected" value="en">English</option><option value="et">Estonian</option><option value="tl">Filipino</option><option
value="fi">Finnish</option><option value="fr">French</option><option value="gl">Galician</option><option value="ka">Georgian</option><option value="de">German</option><option
value="el">Greek</option><option value="ht">Haitian Creole</option><option value="iw">Hebrew</option><option value="hi">Hindi</option><option value="hu">Hungarian</option><option
value="is">Icelandic</option><option value="id">Indonesian</option><option value="ga">Irish</option><option value="it">Italian</option><option value="ja">Japanese</option><option
value="ko">Korean</option><option value="la">Latin</option><option value="lv">Latvian</option><option value="lt">Lithuanian</option><option value="mk">Macedonian</option><option
value="ms">Malay</option><option value="mt">Maltese</option><option value="no">Norwegian</option><option value="fa">Persian</option><option value="pl">Polish</option><option
value="pt">Portuguese</option><option value="ro">Romanian</option><option value="ru">Russian</option><option value="sr">Serbian</option><option value="sk">Slovak</option><option
value="sl">Slovenian</option><option value="es">Spanish</option><option value="sw">Swahili</option><option value="sv">Swedish</option><option value="th">Thai</option><option
value="tr">Turkish</option><option value="uk">Ukrainian</option><option value="ur">Urdu</option><option value="vi">Vietnamese</option><option value="cy">Welsh</option><option
value="yi">Yiddish</option></select>
English (auto-detected) » English

Upgrading from 320gb hdd to 128gb ssd on Mac Pro dual boot.

I have a Mac Pro 2008 with a 320gb hdd and I want to convert it to a 128gb ssd. I have it dual boot from one drive partitioned 50/50. I was wondering how I should transition from hdd to ssd. The drive has less than 120 gb on it and the Mac Pro runs Mavericks and Windows 7.

Pop SSD into drive bay with adapter in FW800 drive adapter, use CCC to clone system and recovery partition.
As for Windows, it needs about 80GB at least esp. on an SSD. Use WinClone to make a restore image.
Samsung 840 EVO 250GB is $144 on Amazon and the 128GB is $80. I look at the 500GB $299 and think, "why not."
you could leave for now the slow old 320GB hdd for Windows and hold a backup for OS X.
Your system,either one actually, should only have OS and apps on boot drive, very little if any data, just 3-4GB for AppData or ~/LIbrary to hold preferences, mail and minimal data.
Convert, as in clone the system.

Dual Boot Selection with two SSD Installed

I have two SAMSUNG SSD's installed in the W540.
SSD #1 -- Microsoft Windows 7 Professional
SSD #2 -- Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
The SSD's had a complete install of each Microsoft Windows operating system without using the dual boot manager. I select teh SSD to boot from by using teh F12 key at boot time.
On my previous computer (HP EliteBook Workstation 8560w), the BIOS had a option to display a boot selection menu for me to select from without having to manually select the option to display. The boot selection menu gave me 20-30 seconds to select a alternative boot option. If I did not respond it woudl boot to the primary drive.
Can the Lenovo W540 be setup the same way? I can find no options in the latest BIOS.

I am honestly dubious that your previous HP machine had anything in the BIOS to provide this "Boot Manager" functionality you've described. Your description is exactly what Boot Manager in Windows does, which probably what was in effect on your HP machine.
Now you say you installed two separate versions of Windows on two separate drives, and without involving Windows Boot Manager. That suggests to me that you unplugged the other SSD when you did each install, so that the Windows installer didn't even know about the other bootable OS when doing its current install. If it had seen the other pre-existing bootable Windows, then the second install would have triggered the creation of a 2-OS boot menu (identical to what you say you saw on your old HP machine). You could still have two bootable Windows, on two separate drives (or, you could also have installed to two separate partitions on one drive if you wanted to), and at boot time Boot Manager would present the menu to you and you'd select one or the other. The most recent Windows to get installed would probably have made itself the "default", so that after 10-30 seconds it would auto-boot to that Windows if you didn't arrow up/down and press ENTER to select the other Windows for this particular boot.
The BIOS of the machine has a "boot sequence" setup, and one of your two SSD drives MUST be first, in front of the other. So at boot time by default (in the absence of F12 to select a boot device) the BIOS would normally go to THAT "first" drive in the boot sequence list, locate the "active" partition on that drive (where Boot Manager is assumed to live), and start the boot process. If Boot Manager sees a 1-OS boot menu, it just goes to that partition (as C, where Windows lives on that drive) and starts Windows. If a 2-OS boot menu exists, Boot Manager presents it to you and you decide which Windows you want to boot to.
When you push F12 at boot time, you simply say to the BIOS "let me pick which of my drives I want you to go to, to then find the "active" partition on that drive to kick off the boot process". Since you did two completely independent Windows installs, I would say that you probably have a "system reserved" partition (which is marked "active") on each SSD, along with a C system partition (for Windows) on each SSD. So you can actually boot to either drive, via F12, or you can just let the machine boot to whichever one you know to be first in the boot sequence list.
But... if you'd simply installed your second Windows to the second SSD while the first Windows/SSD was still cabled and visible, the second Windows install would have done everything you're now asking to be done. The existing 1-OS boot menu (on the first SSD) would have been seen and updated by the Windows installer, to add the second Windows to the menu which would thus now be a 2-OS boot menu. The second Windows would get installed wherever you wanted it to get installed (i.e. to the second SSD), and all would be well with the world.
Note that had this taken place, no second "system reserved" partition (marked "active", and housing the second copy of Boot Manager) would have been created on the second SSD with the second installed Windows. The existing "system reserved" (marked "active", and living on the first drive in the BIOS boot sequence list) would simply have had its boot menu updated from 1-OS to 2-OS, and you'd be home free right now.
This is exactly how Boot Manager works. I'm sure your old HP machine had such a setup, with your two Windows installed sequentially over time, and with the second one recognizing the first one's existence and adding itself to the boot menu to produce a 2-OS boot menu which is what you saw. That wasn't from the BIOS. It was from Windows Boot Manager handling a 2-OS boot menu.
So, what can you do now? Well, technically, you only need one "active" partition (i.e. "system reserved", where Boot Manager lives) on the first SSD in your BIOS boot sequence list. You won't need the second "system reserved" which in my opinion was probably created (unnecessarily) when you did your second Windows install with the first SSD temporarily disconnected.
But the goal here is to get the 1-OS boot menu that's on the first SSD "system reserved" partition updated, to add the second Windows on the second SSD, producing a 2-OS boot menu. And to do that you can use a wonderful 3rd-party product named EasyBCD. It is a tool to maintain your boot menu, and you can manually do things after-the-fact (like now) which you should have done before, or simply to perform maintenance or changes.
So, with both SSD's cabled and operational (your current booted Windows will appear as C, and probably your other drive's Windows partition will thus appear as D to the current booted Windows), you run EasyBCD. It really doesn't matter which Windows is on the first SSD and that is first in the BIOS boot sequence, only that it will be the boot menu in the "system reserved" partition on that drive which will be manipulated by EasyBCD to become the 2-OS menu. You can make either Windows the default (which will auto-boot in 10 seconds if you don't select the other Windows), no matter which SSD it's on.
You can view the current boot menu (from the currently booted Windows) via EDIT. You pick which entry is to be the "default".
To add a new entry to the boot menu, push the ADD button and navigate to the drive (D) the Windows to be added lives on.
If you don't already have same, I would recommend you have a "system image" backup of both of your bootable Windows drives (to an external USB 3.0 drive, ideally), so that if you're skittish about doing this you'll at least be able to quickly and easily restore what you currently have from your backups.
But believe me, EasyBCD can be trusted to do exactly what you want to do... which is to create a 2-OS boot menu on your first drive's "system reserved" partition. This 2-OS boot menu will name BOTH of your two bootable Windows, from your two SSD drives. You won't need to push F12 to select the boot device, just let the machine go to the first drive in the boot sequence and kick off Boot Manager, and the rest will behave exactly as you are now seeking.
Let me know if you have questions. And for sure, let us know how it turns out.

SSD + HDD, GPT & MBR dual boot.

Hi all,
I ordered my first SSD the other day and it is expected to arrive tomorrow. I current have a 500 GB HD that I dual boot Arch/Win 7. I was wondering the following:
It is possible to to put /boot, /var and my NTFS on the HDD with standard MBR, and install /, /home, and swap on my SSD with GPT? If so how might I go about doing that? If not, I can put /boot on my ssd as I don't believe it gets written to often. If I do that is it possible to dual boot a MBR drive from a GPT drive?
Also I am slightly confused about the UEFI section. I know my motherboard is "UEFI" but I don't know how to tell if it is in BIOS mode, or UEFI mode. Basially this is my first new computer if 5 years and a ton has changed
Any tips would be greatly appreciated, thanks.
Sam

Chocobo wrote:
Thanks for the links.
In reference to https://gitorious.org/tianocore_uefi_du … I_boot_USB:
mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/[USB_DEVICE] should read: mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/[USB_FAT32_PART] correct? Just staying with convention of the rest of the wiki entry? It wouldn't make sense to format the device as FAT32, only the partition correct?
Minor issue.
Also, I am not sure step 4.2 or 4.3 are needed when for archboot seeing all the files already seem to be there.
ldlinux.sys version (installed by extlinux) should match the c32 and other syslinux modules in (USB)/boot/syslinux, otherwise syslinux will refuse to boot.
Hmm, I am not sure what I am doing wrong but I keep getting an "Operating system not found" error. I will have to keep playing with this, and see if I can figure it out.
May be due to the above reason, but not sure, since "Operating system not found" error is mostly from the BIOS (atleast in systems I have used), not from syslinux.

[SOLVED] Dual booting arch onto an SSD that already has W7 in MBR?

I currently have windows 7 64bit installed onto a 256gb m4 SSD. I would like to be able to dual-boot W7 and Archlinux, but so far I've been getting wildly varying accounts of doom and data deletion from every source that I've looked at- and unfortunately, the Archwiki's guide to dualbooting is out of date.
So here's the questions:
First, is UEFI something I need to look at? At the moment W7 seems to be on MBR. I'm getting conflicting accounts on whether this is not even an issue or if it will attempt to make my computer eat my dog.
Next, what is going on with sectors and alignment and such? Some people ignore them, some people delve so far into it that I think I vaguely know they're still talking about a hard drive.
Which leads me into partitioning, and not doing it in a way that's terrible. I can't find any information on this anywhere that isn't buried within the above-mentioned posts, along with incredibly vague warnings of GParted moving a partition, spoken of in a way as if that data is lost to the twilight zone.
Finally... pulling all this together is the largest issue.
Do any of you know good, factual resources where I can look into this stuff?
Last edited by ilar (2013-04-03 03:53:31)

1) If you knew what UEFI was you should have known it wasn't an option, and shouldn't have asked about it.
2) (G)parted and gdisk (if you go with GPT at some point) handle SSD sector alignment automatically, and have for some time. A google search could have revealed that.
3) Whether one uses an SSD or HDD, dual-booting will be the same: 2+ partitions devoted to separate operating systems. While SSDs and HDDs may be fundamentally different constructs, booting from them is not different at all. That's why you aren't finding anything saying such.
4) As for the wiki being out-of-date, the specific reason (as stated page's in the header) is that GRUB legacy is no longer officially supported in Arch. Disregard that information and use GRUB2/Syslinux/LILO and the process remains the same: Install the operating systems side-by-side and chainload the secondary OS. It doesn't matter one bit: I've dual-booted every Linux distro I've used over the past four years with Windows, from Ubuntu to Mint to SuSE to Sabayon to Arch to whatever, and I've done it all the exact same way, using HDDs and an SSDs and both in combination. There's plenty of information out there on this, and your time could better have been spent looking it up rather than arguing with people here.
5) Welcome to Arch.

256 gb ssd dual boot

hi i have ordered a mac book pro retina. yet to be despatched.is the 256 gb ssd hard drive large enough to cope with a dual boot with OSx and win 7
if so what partitions would you recommend

You shouldn't have any problem with Windows and OS X. If you don't have enough storage, get an external disk and use it to store data.
If you want to install a lot of applications in Windows, the minimum space for Windows is 100 GB. Then you can assign more, and if you want to get more space for Windows, use Paragon Camptune to add more space to the Windows partition

SSD, Dual Boot, NILFS

Lots of questions here! . A new Windows 7 install that botched my Arch install prompted me to take what little money I have and order a OCZ Vertex Turbo 30gb SSD from newegg. I'm obviously going to keep my 320gb WD drive. I figured that I could probably just install Arch to the SSD and leave Windows and my data on the WD drive, but what fun is that? If I can get Windows and Arch to boot off the SSD that would be ideal. I've already seen a few things about partition alignment and how Windows doesn't like the ideal alignment for SSD performance (probably best left to the forums at OCZ but input is welcome). Also, I would really like to try NILFS and am not sure of it's current status and what I'll have to go through to install it? Basically I'm just looking for some input and maybe for someone who has first hand experience with what I'm trying to accomplish here. I'd really like to have as much as I can sorted out before the drive comes early next week. Cheers!

Use a livecd to mount your root partition and the nilfs2 partition.
"cd" to the folder in which your root partition is mounted.
Type
cp -a * nilfs2_partition/
Where "nilfs2_partition" is your nilfs2 partition.
The -a flag makes it recursive and stops it from changing the filesystem permissions.
Grub can't read nilfs2 filesystems so you will need a seperate partition for /boot . You will need to adjust /boot/grub/menu.lst if you are using grub or /boot/grub/grub.cfg if your are using grub2 to set up dual booting.
Last edited by raymboard (2010-02-04 17:07:35)

T520 Upgrade to Win 10 Issues - BIOS, SSD, Dual Boot, Recovery

Lenovo T520 Purchased from Lenovo May 2012 using IBM employee discount Windows 7 Home Premium product key Belarc software - Dec 2012 27GBM-Y4QQC-JKHXW-D9W83-FJQKD Tag under battery HXVFW-CQGWQ-2W8BB-FXK8G-TJMCB Belarc software – Aug 2015 27GBM-Y4QQC-JKHXW-D9W83-FJQKD Created a system recovery CD since the PC came with no CD's. When I tried to use this recently it would not boot. Created a system repair CD later. Worked fine recently. Recently created a system recovery bootable USB on a 16GB SanDisk Cruzer. It also would not boot but web research shows that others have found this problem with this size and brand of USB. System board replaced March 2014New system board runs Computrace by Absolute Software to protect against theft. The password must be entered about once every 3 months during booting. Bios was updated afterwards and the software is still active. SSD installed in mSATA slot August 2015Original HD kept installed.New SSD slightly larger than old HD.Paragon software used to move Windows partition. This created a dual boot option. Had to run repair to fix dual boot even though everything run as administrator. Tried to install Windows 10 since Windows 7 had minor annoying issues that when researched the solution was to ignore since they do not cause problems.To prevent possible issues the HD was physically removed during the Windows 10 install.Saved Windows 10 to a 64GB USB.Booted USB successfully and installed ran for maybe an hour where I observed it doing the copy and then the install step.Completed successfully and a reboot was the next step.Reboot fails with “Missing Operating System”.Booted from USB to fix and neither of the above product keys work.Tried to use skip option and compatibility reports to restart from the SSD which does not work.If repair choosen from USB message received is “The drive where Windows is installed is locked. Unlock the drive and try again.” Since I seemed out of options I reinstalled the HD and recloned it to the SSD to get the SSD again working. After doing the above I have multiple questions.It appears that the installation of the new system board caused the need to get a new Windows 7 product key. How do you do this?Is it true that a 16GB SanDisk Cruzer cannot be used booted from?How would one unlock a disk drive?Should I really keep the dual boot from the HD and the SSD as backup?And the important question – How should I proceed to get a successful installation of Windows 10 on the SSD?

You should have a look at this: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/forum/insider_wintp-insider_install/errors-when-trying-to-update-to-build-10074-from/2fa7fc91-5863-4ddf-a0cd-183f2d38bcbd

S430 mSATA SSD and Dual Boot

Yesterday my Lenovo Thinkpad S430 arrived, I have some questions concerning dual booting Linux and Win 8 from the mSATA. I have a Crucial m4 128Gb with the current firmware 07MH which I want to want to install instead of the 16Gb mSATA SSD which is currently used for caching.
For that I want to do a clean Win 8 install (I got the ISO and a valid serial) and presumably an current Ubuntu. Unfortunately I have no experience with UEFI and Secure Boot and that stuff. Is there anything I need to do, are there any problems with what I want to do?
The current UEFI BIOS on my S430 is the GAET71WW (2.07), should I upgrade it to the current 2.54?
Is there anything else I should know?
Regards and thank you,
meruah

If I'm reading Hemanth Kumar's post correctly, 16GB is the largest mSATA drive provided by and supported by Lenovo for use as a cache.
I'd expect that you can use most any capacity mSATA drive in that slot for a primary OS drive. It is frequently done with Lenovo laptops to install a large mSATA SSD - as I did in my T420, 256GB - and keep the HDD as a data drive.
That said, I don't have specific experience with your machine. It would be great if someone with specific experience would join the conversation. Otherwise, I can only say it's probably OK.
Z.
The large print: please read the Community Participation Rules before posting. Include as much information as possible: model, machine type, operating system, and a descriptive subject line. Do not include personal information: serial number, telephone number, email address, etc. The fine print: I do not work for, nor do I speak for Lenovo. Unsolicited private messages will be ignored. ... GeezBlog
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Dual Booting, SSD, NILFS

Lots of questions here! . A new Windows 7 install that botched my Arch install prompted me to take what little money I have and order a OCZ Vertex Turbo 30gb SSD from newegg. I'm obviously going to keep my 320gb WD drive. I figured that I could probably just install Arch to the SSD and leave Windows and my data on the WD drive, but what fun is that? If I can get Windows and Arch to boot off the SSD that would be ideal. I've already seen a few things about partition alignment and how Windows doesn't like the ideal alignment for SSD performance (probably best left to the forums at OCZ but input is welcome). Also, I would really like to try NILFS and am not sure of it's current status and what I'll have to go through to install it? Basically I'm just looking for some input and maybe for someone who has first hand experience with what I'm trying to accomplish here. I'd really like to have as much as I can sorted out before the drive comes early next week. Cheers!

I want to use it for a few games and Adobe Photoshop. I should really just learn Gimp, but I haven't. The newer versions have some sort of GPU acceleration that I doubt I can access from a VM.
I do have another drive which I had planned to store most of my data (movies, shows, music, programming, etc.) which I could put windows on. I did buy a 128 GB SSD however, because I expected to put 2 OS on it, and I'm positive windows could do with a little faster boot time.
If I did put it on another drive, would I be able to use GPT to boot windows? Or am I still constrained to the MBR?

Dual boot Windows 7 partition help

I want to dual boot Windows 7 & arch but I need help with figuring out what partitions to make and where to put them because it seems the automatic partition-er won't do the trick for me.
I have two drives that I want to completely format for a fresh, clean install: a 60GB SSD & a 750GB hard drive. I want the end result to be that the SSD only has Windows 7 Pro x64 SP1 installed to it and I will point the 'My Documents', 'My Pictures', etc. to a NTFS partition on the hard disk drive ( I know how to do this folder pointing ). I don't want arch to touch the SSD if possible so I can reformat the SSD separately if I ever just want to reformat Windows. I only want arch to be on the hard disk for that reason. I don't think I care which one handles the OS switching at boot ( should I favor Windows MBR or syslinux? Please give advice. ) And I would assume I make the NTFS partition on the hard disk a primary partition so how do I split up arch for the 3 other primary partitions left since the auto partition from the arch boot CD uses 4?

I'm no expert, but the way I would do it would be like this:
1. Create partitions on the HDD for /, /boot, /home and swap, along with one (or more) for your Windows personal files
2. Set the BIOS to boot from the SSD.
3. Install Windows on the SSD.
4. Right-click the "My Documents" folder, select "properties", then the "Location" tab and choose the new location for the folder.
5. Install Arch on the HDD partitions, and allow the boot manager to install itself in the MBR of the SSD.
Then the whole boot process will be on the SSD... If you ever need to get rid of the Linux bootloader, you can overwrite it with a "clean" Windows one using bootrec.exe (see here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392).
Last edited by esuhl (2012-03-26 04:52:12)

Dual Boot on 2 SSD`s

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