Dual boot question

heatonpkmassive

heatonpkmassive

heatonpkmassive

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Evening all,

I don't ask much round here, but I figured I'd get some good advice from some of you here at OCUK regarding the question I have, which is as follows..

I want to try Windows 11 but I want to do what I always do with a new OS, keep the current Windows 10 install I have on a SATA SSD but disconnect that disk when installing Windows 11, before then reconnecting the Windows 10 SSD, setting the older OS as default and then pressing F8 (or whatever it is for this board) on boot whenever I want to boot the newer OS. I have 6 x SATA SSDs but 2 free NVME slots, main one PCI-E 4.0 and the 2nd linked to the chipset at PCI-E 3.0. I'd obviously use the PCI-E 4.0 M2 slot for a 500GB 980 Pro NVME SSD I got here a while back from the MM and install Windows 11 to that, before then reconnecting my Windows 10 SATA SSD and then setting that as the default bootdisk.

My question is really from what I see here:

www.techspinreview.com

Enable Secure Boot & TPM for Windows 11: BIOS How To Guide! - Techspin

It can be a little tricky to enable secure boot and enable tpm but we walk through it with a few steps with troubleshooting tips, when you're ready to get Windows 11.
www.techspinreview.com www.techspinreview.com

It should just be a case of following those instructions and I won't be faced with a Windows 10 install that will no longer boot right? UEFI mode is already enabled in BIOS, boot disk is GPT, so I should be good following the instructions on that page? I just remember seeing loads of 'now my PC won't boot' stories after people have enabled TPM, don't want that to happen obviously.

As ever, grateful for any input :)
 
Then I would test what happens with 10
Before installing 11
Ie turn on tpm etc and see if it boots OK
If there's no issues there
Then can't see why you will have any problems
Disconnecting or just disable in the bios the sata drives
Is a good approach
It's a shame can't do the same with m2/nvme drives
At the very worst if both are installed and you have a problem
You should just be able to set whatever you changed in the bios back
And still have 10 and try something different
I have 10 on one drive and 11 on the other
Though been so long I forgot how I went about it

I don't even need to press f8 on boot
Though that would also work anyway
Windows shows me both 10 and 11 and gives a default 30 seconds
To pick which you want to boot from
 
Mcnumpty2323 said:
Then I would test what happens with 10
Before installing 11
Ie turn on tpm etc and see if it boots OK
If there's no issues there
Then can't see why you will have any problems
Disconnecting or just disable in the bios the sata drives
Is a good approach
It's a shame can't do the same with m2/nvme drives
At the very worst if both are installed and you have a problem
You should just be able to set whatever you changed in the bios back
And still have 10 and try something different
I have 10 on one drive and 11 on the other
Though been so long I forgot how I went about it

I don't even need to press f8 on boot
Though that would also work anyway
Windows shows me both 10 and 11 and gives a default 30 seconds
To pick which you want to boot from
Click to expand...
Yes, you get shown that choice if you have the Windows bootloader, probably because you had both disks in the system when installing the second OS. That's something I want to avoid because when you have it like that, if you disconnect the first drive with the oldest OS, nothing boots. That's why I install with only the drive I'm installing to in the system, do the same with the other OS and then use the BIOS boot selection key to pick which drive to boot from. That's the 'cleanest' way in my opinion, means each OS doesn't 'know' about the other one so disconnecting a drive won't cause boot failure. It's what I'll be doing here. Also, when you have more than one drive installed, Windows puts important boot files on the second drive as well, meaning disconnecting a drive causes a no boot situation.

I was pretty much going to do what you suggested, test with W10, just didn't want to break that install. I guess I'm just going to have to do that and see what happens. If W10 doesn't boot, I'd start from scratch with that as well. But this particular w10 install is set up how I like, be good if it stayed intact.

Cheers for commenting, appreciate the input :)
 
Make an image backup of 10 Before doing anything?
I have macrium backups
Takes 3 minutes to put windows and everything back if
Something goes wrong

Yeah I have windows on 2 x m2 nvme drives not sata
There's no easy disconnect for those
And bios doesn't allow to disable them
So to physically remove one from under its built in motherboard heatsink
And with a full custom loop in the way isn't feasible
Without a lot of effort anyway

With sata drives yes I would disconnect/bios disable drives that
Would interfere as it's straightforward with sata

And yes if both drives on mbr if one goes wonky
You may not be able to boot the other
Macrium also has a bootable usb
It has a handy fix boot issues feature for emergency repair
Or the windows install usb and use cmd and the bootrec repair commands

I do stuff I shouldn't and do break stuff lol
But the image backups are the important part of everything
No matter how badly I have broken stuff those just load
And everything is restored in 3 minutes using m2 nvme drives
 
Cheers fella, but I fear if I make an image beforehand, if it then doesn't boot it won't boot with the backup either because that backup would have been made before the BIOS changes have been made.

I guess I'm just gonna have to try it. But it'd be useful to hear from anyone who has already done this, there must be someone!
 
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Don't duel boot, if you have to do that at least just get a second drive you can plug in when you need that OS. I haven't seen disk selectors by a manual switch in a long time, however you could used to buy disk select switch changes. They used to have key security on the modules. You might be best off using something like this.
 
GaryTheSnail said:
Don't duel boot, if you have to do that at least just get a second drive you can plug in when you need that OS. I haven't seen disk selectors by a manual switch in a long time, however you could used to buy disk select switch changes. They used to have key security on the modules. You might be best off using something like this.
Click to expand...

Cheers for the input Gary but I've done it, exactly the way I like. W10 boots by default, F11 will select disk to boot from if I do want W11. Both co-exist with one another but don't 'know' about one another, which means I can take snapshot backups from one OS from within the other now. Much faster doing that.

Maybe this is useful for someone else to know but as long as you installed W10 in UEFI mode, it's no issue to switch on TPM 2.0 and secure boot, which is what I'd read about people having trouble with.

But now I can try W11 without sacrificing my W10 build and it actually solved the issue I had, Fifa runs flawlessly in W11. It won't even start in W10 and I spent too much time troubleshooting it so went this route. Kinda like having W11 there if I need it, but retaining my W10 build. It's how I always upgrade OS, I never just migrate over to the new one.
 
heatonpkmassive said:
Cheers for the input Gary but I've done it, exactly the way I like. W10 boots by default, F11 will select disk to boot from if I do want W11. Both co-exist with one another but don't 'know' about one another, which means I can take snapshot backups from one OS from within the other now. Much faster doing that.

Maybe this is useful for someone else to know but as long as you installed W10 in UEFI mode, it's no issue to switch on TPM 2.0 and secure boot, which is what I'd read about people having trouble with.

But now I can try W11 without sacrificing my W10 build and it actually solved the issue I had, Fifa runs flawlessly in W11. It won't even start in W10 and I spent too much time troubleshooting it so went this route. Kinda like having W11 there if I need it, but retaining my W10 build. It's how I always upgrade OS, I never just migrate over to the new one.
Click to expand...

Until something goes wrong and it requires to format the drive completely and start again, might be a bit more stable these days but I remember it never used to be as stable. I still prefer single drives IMO but each to their own.
 
GaryTheSnail said:
Until something goes wrong and it requires to format the drive completely and start again, might be a bit more stable these days but I remember it never used to be as stable. I still prefer single drives IMO but each to their own.
Click to expand...

That's when you use any kind of bootloader and not the BIOS boot selection key, it's the whole idea behind what I've done. These are single drives. I can disconnect disks all I like, everything that remains and is bootable will still always boot.

That's why you do it with only the disk you're installing to installed, before then connecting up the rest of the disks. That way, Windows doesn't put boot files on every disk it only puts data on the single one installed, meaning that when you disconnect one, everything else still boots. Using the BIOS key to select OS means that bootloaders cannot malfunction, because there isn't one. That's why each OS doesn't know about the other.

It's the cleanest way of dual booting, by far.
 
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I've been dual-booting for nearly 20 years now and I've always used partitions to do it. Partition the boot drive and save a world of hassle.

My current ongoing big upgrade will mean the boot drive will be a WD 1TB NVMe so I'm going to partition it in two. Initially I was going to have 2 off Win10 boots, but I've been using Win11 on a VM for a while so my day-to-day boot will now be Win 11 (OpenShell and ExplorerPatcher are great wee programs for Win11) whilst my games/data boot will be Win10.

All my data is on a RAID1 array, currently 2 off 2TB SSDs. All backed up on other drives.

EaseUS Partition Master Free will allow you to resize your current boot drive and install a 2nd partition on it.
 
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james73 said:
I've been dual-booting for nearly 20 years now and I've always used partitions to do it. Partition the boot drive and save a world of hassle.

My current ongoing big upgrade will mean the boot drive will be a WD 1TB NVMe so I'm going to partition it in two. Initially I was going to have 2 off Win10 boots, but I've been using Win11 on a VM for a while so my day-to-day boot will now be Win 11 (OpenShell and ExplorerPatcher are great wee programs for Win11) whilst my games/data boot will be Win10.

All my data is on a RAID1 array, currently 2 off 2TB SSDs. All backed up on other drives.

EaseUS Partition Master Free will allow you to resize your current boot drive and install a 2nd partition on it.
Click to expand...
Not keen on that method after a partition table corrupted on me some years ago, managed to restore it with testdisk after some hours but much prefer separate disks.

And now I have this set up, it works flawlessly. Seriously impressed with the performance of W11, I can directly compare between 10 and 11 and 11 is noticeably better.
 
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