Windows 7 & Windows 10 On Seperate Drives! How do i Dual Boot them ?

truewraith · 25 Mar 2020 at 20:45

hi,

i have win7 & win10 on separate hard drives but i have forgot how in the past on boot up i have the option to chose which one to load into each time, if anyone knows please can you let me know as that would be great

cheers

Mcnumpty2323 · 25 Mar 2020 at 20:49

Depends
Did you install them with only each drive connected at one time?
If so it's press f12 on boot~which f key varies from board manufacturer might be f8 or another
Or if both drives were connected it should automatically list both operating systems
When it boots up
Doesn't sound like that in your case though
So an f key or set boot priority in bios

truewraith · 25 Mar 2020 at 21:09

ive had windows 7 on this hard drive, but i installed windows 10 via another machine on an ssd drive so was going to put in this machine and see if it come up with the option like you said that will list both of them to chose from, but didnt want to mess up the boot on the win7 which i seen in the past, so thought i would ask some advice first

Mcnumpty2323 · 25 Mar 2020 at 22:13

truewraith said:
ive had windows 7 on this hard drive, but i installed windows 10 via another machine on an ssd drive so was going to put in this machine and see if it come up with the option like you said that will list both of them to chose from, but didnt want to mess up the boot on the win7 which i seen in the past, so thought i would ask some advice first

It should see 2 different OS/drives
Then so pressing the correct f key at boot should give you the option to pick either one
Should not mess up the boot record
That happens if you have 2 or more drives connected while installing windows

truewraith · 26 Mar 2020 at 05:09

the other windows 7 that was on another pc and upgraded that to windows 10 and now i have put that hdd into my main windows 7 pc, and i dont get any option to chose between the 2 i even tried f12 and chose the win10 one from boot option and it just flickered the screen and then started loading windows 7 instead

Mcnumpty2323 · 26 Mar 2020 at 06:10

What happens if you disconnect the hdd
Does the ssd boot into windows?

truewraith · 26 Mar 2020 at 06:54

oh u mean disconnected windows 7 drive? if so i aint tried that but i will
thanks

Mcnumpty2323 · 26 Mar 2020 at 06:57

truewraith said:
oh u mean disconnected windows 7 drive? if so i aint tried that but i will
thanks

Yes
To see if the windows 10 drive will actually boot up
If it won't boot when it's the only drive connected then obviously not going to work with 2 connected
If it boots on its own then with both connected you could use Bootrec /fixmbr
Or easy bcd to add the 2nd drive to the boot record