Yeah, you would have to change your BIOS every time you wanted to boot from a different hard drive. Switch between your installed operating systems by rebooting your computer and selecting the installed operating system you want to use. It is safer to use 2 hard disks. The process is similar for PC and Mac computers, but this article will focus on performing this task for a PC. All Rights Reserved. New contributor . You should just create different windows profiles(if you have xp, vista, or 7). For starters, you may want to boot from a USB drive if you want to install Windows 10; then, you may want to switch which hard disk you boot from, so that you can run multiple operating systems all without having to worry about complicated boot menus. I want to do s dual boot … dual-boot hard-drive windows ssd  Share. This tutorial will show you how to multi-boot between 2 different operating systems. You may notice that a USB flash drive doesn’t appear as an option, and it’s possible that your computer’s second hard disk (if it has one) also isn’t listed. Any USB port will do, but if you’re having problems with the front ones not recognising your device, try using a port at the rear of your computer. everytime drive got unplug, the default boot sequence got reset.. Dual Booting Explained: How You Can Have Multiple Operating Systems on Your Computer, choosing which hard drive to boot in your BIOS or boot menu, artitioning the drive into several different partitions, Read more about setting up a dual-boot Linux system, Read more about dual-booting two versions of Windows, set up a Windows dual-boot system on your Mac, How to Make Safari Always Open Your Previous Tabs on Mac, How to View a List of All the Links You’ve Clicked on Instagram, How to Download PS5 Games From Your Phone, How to Add an Expiration Date to Emails in Gmail, How to Use Bangs in DuckDuckGo (to Search Other Websites), © 2021 LifeSavvy Media. 1 will be named sda and the other sdb. Best mid-range phone: Great, affordable smartphones. Once you step away from the boot order that’s programmed into your computer, things can get a little tricky, so here’s how to manage everything. If each operating system is installed to a separate drive, you could actually switch between both by selecting a different drive as your boot device every time you boot. Look out for the Power On Self Test (POST) screen, which is the information screen you first get when you turn on your computer. Looking to add storage, or for a smart way to back up your Mac? Check out our Code of Conduct. Another difference between these two solutions is that you can easily add more hard drives to your computer to extend a Spanned volume, something that is not supported on Striped volumes. Having more than one operating system installed allows you to quickly switch between two and have the best tool for the job. Here’s a quick overview of what to expect: RELATED: How to Install Windows on a Mac With Boot Camp. This order will stay the same until you change it again by following these steps. Expert Reviews™ is a registered trade mark. Hello! The Linux boot loader will be installed in the EFI Boot Partition of the hard drive it’s installed on, not that of the Windows 10 hard drive. If you don’t, then your PC’s BIOS may not recognise the drive and won’t let you boot from it. For example, if you want to dual-boot Windows 7 and 10, install Windows 7 and then install Windows 10 … dual boot vista and xp two different hard drives by heteri Sep 13, 2007 3:52AM PDT. Chris Hoffman is Editor-in-Chief of How-To Geek. They should allow that. J8son, Jun 6, … 1 2 2 bronze badges. How To Dual Boot Ubuntu 20.04 Linux And Windows 10 On Separate Hard Drives UEFI / Legacy BIOSVideo taken from the channel: Intelligent Gaming I have tried EasyBCD but it wont work - does anyone know how I can do this? What happens now depends on … Linksys Velop Dual-Band: A middling mesh Wi-Fi system, The best powerline adapters to buy from £30. (In reality, many operating systems use multiple partitions. You may like two different operating systems so much that you can't choose between them. But sometimes, having one operating system you like simply isn't enough. I am attempting to use two hard drives to accomplish a dual boot system. You could use virtual machine software instead of setting up a dual-boot system, but a dual-boot system lets you actually use both operating systems on your hardware at full, native speed. Follow asked 42 secs ago. I have 2 different operating systems on separate drives and for some reason my bios doesnt give me the option of booting from each of the hard drives, just the master. Press any key when prompted to boot from the installation disc. Typically, you should install the newer operating system last. You could put a second hard drive into your computer and install an operating system to it, choosing which hard drive to boot in your BIOS or boot menu. Thomas Joseph is a new contributor to this site. If you wanted to, you could have three or more operating systems installed on your computer — you could have Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux all on the same computer. Different operating systems have different uses and advantages. Since 2011, Chris has written over 2,000 articles that have been read nearly one billion times---and that's just here at How-To Geek. If you have multiple operating systems installed, you should see a menu when you start your computer. The question is, will I still be able to dual boot from two separate hard drives on two different Sata ports? This menu is typically set up when you install an additional operating system on your computer, so you won’t see if you just have Windows installed or just have Linux installed.