OT: Win 10 and Win7 Dual Boot

wwaag wrote on 6/8/2016, 4:29 PM

Has anyone successfully created a Win7/Win10 dual boot system with the free Win 10 upgrade? I would like to do a Win10 clean install, but don't relish the idea of spending days re-installing all of the software at the same time.

Comments

john_dennis wrote on 6/8/2016, 5:34 PM

I use GHOST 15 imaging software to save the whole boot images at various steps of the process of building the systems. I have Windows 10 at various stages of development on two machines. When I get bored with the effort I save the current state, reinstall the "production" system in less than 15 minutes. I gave up dual booting in the 1990s though I have created virtual machines under VMware. For my purposes, it's more of a thought experiment than a practical need.

ddm wrote on 6/8/2016, 6:19 PM

I like to just use different hard drives. Easy to change which boot drive in bios, and then clone them with Acronis to backup. On my hackintoshes, I leave the case open and have 2 sets of hard drives sitting on the top of the case and I just unplug one set of drives for W10, another for OSX. Got into the habit because of the Hackintoshes , as upgrading the OS can occasionally hose you completely, so it's a must to clone your drive and then install your update on the cloned drive to make sure it updates properly, once you're good, clone that drive back to the other. Sounds more complicated than it is. I now do it for my Windows OS and my laptop. I have so many old 500 gb drives around and I've been buying 240 gb SSD's lately, because they're so cheap, and 240 gigs is a great size to clone, fast, and just big enough to fit all my apps and os.

wwaag wrote on 6/8/2016, 7:57 PM

I like to just use different hard drives.

That's a very good idea. I've got an IcyDock removable drive cage that I could use one its slots for the OS. Thanks.

wwaag wrote on 7/17/2016, 4:48 PM

Finally got around to doing this before the July 29 deadline. Inserted a clean SSD into the drive cage and then installed Win10 from the DVD burned using the MS create tool. I then entered a product key from a Win 7 upgrade disc (I'm not even sure it was the same one from the installed OS) and it immediately activated. Power down, re-insert the original SSD and then boot into the original Win 7 OS. All in all, it works very well allowing a leisurely installation of software into a clean Win10.

Only 2 problems, the first one, more of an annoyance. Each time I switched, I would have to select that particular drive in the BIOS. Second, I found that almost every time I re-loaded the original Win 7 OS, a Chkdsk operation would be required for the remaining drives. After an online search, I found that one needs to disable the Fast Boot option in W10. Afterward, no problems.

For anyone wanting to do a clean install of Win 10, but still use Win 7 in the interim, this seems to be a reasonable solution. Just make sure that Fast Boot in Win 10 is disabled.

wwaag

PeterDuke wrote on 7/17/2016, 9:16 PM

Thanks Wayne. I had noticed that.

diverG wrote on 7/18/2016, 5:20 AM

2 system discs in a caddy, selectable in BOS. With one disk being a clone od the other., does windows not object as I would expect the disk ID's to be identical.

G

PeterDuke wrote on 7/18/2016, 6:54 AM

If you had two (or more) identical HDDs m ounted at once, for fast boot to work it must still know which one to use. It must use the serial number of the disk or other ID.

I have tried switching the electronics of two "identical" drives, but neither could be recognised by the system.