Today I installed a Samsung 500GB EVO 850 SSD after Cloning 2 Windows partitions/OSs to it using the Samsung Data Migration tool, that worked very well. Installed the SSD in the Test rig & booted the PC, no boot menu & it booted directly to the SSD ‘C’ drive. I was able to add all the other OSs SSD OS to it using EasyBCD but only the 2 OSs on the SSD will boot. After trying a Windows DVD startup repair & no joy I looked into what others (googled) online are doing… reg tweaks, switches & BIOS tweaks. I ended up w/ the BIOS adjustment on the rigs ASUS Z170M-E D3 MB. Now I select which HDD to run by just clicking on the description in the BIOS/ EZ-Mode. OK, now I am wondering if/what others here @ MDL are handling this hiccup. Having both drives & all 5 OSs in the boot menu would be ideal though. Note: I have overprovisioned it to 10% (w/ Samsung Magician) already also. Spoiler
Thank you for your advice macnavarra & JoeC, I will try EasyBCD (third party) software again to try to solve the SSD vs WD HDD OS boot menu problem I am having. If that fails again I suppose I can just use the F8 key combo at post (instead of BIOS drive choices route) & see if that drive boot menu will save a step or 2 switching drives. --- I may have to start over w/ the (Samsung) Migration Tool then Provisioning tool to try reversing the 2 OSs positions on SSD from C-D to D-C, or just live w/ how it is now
If you have two hard drives with each with an o.s. Then the only way is to use the boot option from your bios post screen. Personally I would prefer the option to use separate drives for each o.s. and select the boot drive from the post screen during boot. The reason is that each o.s. has it's own boot loader and hard drive, if something goes south with one drive or boot up, it will not affect the other drive's boot loader. IE: if your drive fails, you'll lose both o.s.'s but if the o.s.'s are on their own drives, if one drive fails, you still have access to the other drive and it's boot loader (each has their own boot loader)
So many questions: 1.) You mentioned having two Windows OS's installed on the Samsung SSD. Which two? Two different versions of Windows 10? Or Windows 10 plus Windows 7? 2.) I assume the other three OS's installed on the WD drive are some form of Linux? Or something else? 3.) Are both disks using a GPT partition table? Or is one GPT and the other MBR? 4.) Is your BIOS set to use UEFI or Legacy/CSM as the boot mode? Also, do you have Secure Boot enabled or disabled? Things to keep in mind: 1.) Windows will only boot if the Windows C:\ system partition is installed on a primary disk partition. It will fail if it's installed on a logical disk partition. Linux doesn't care, it will boot if the root partition is either primary or logical. 2.) Both disks should either have a GPT partition table or both should have a MBR partition table. Having one GPT and one MBR means you will have to switch between using UEFI and Legacy/CSM in your BIOS settings in order to boot all five OS's. 3.) Be sure to disable Secure Boot in your BIOS settings, since not every Linux distro has adopted using a digitally signed bootloader that is compatible with using Secure Boot. 4.) Three different Linux OS's installed on the same disk can share one Linux swap partition. This will save disk space. Recommendations: 1.) If you're installing Windows 10 and Windows 7 on the same disk on a UEFI system, I suggest installing Windows 10 first. Doing it the other way around will not work. 2.) On a UEFI system using Legacy/CSM as the boot mode, or on a MBR system, initialize both disks as MBR. Install both Windows systems on the Samsung SSD, then disconnect it from the system. Then install all the three Linux systems on the WD HDD. Re-connect the Windows SSD drive to the system. Use your BIOS boot menu to boot into the third Linux installation, and run "sudo update-grub". After doing this, go into your BIOS settings and place the WD HDD as the first device in the boot order, followed by the Samsung SSD. Doing it this way, all five OS's should appear on the grub boot menu, and the MBR on the Windows disk will still be able to boot both Windows OS's independently from the other disk. 3.) On a UEFI system using UEFI boot mode, initialize both disks as GPT disks. Install Windows 10 followed by Windows 7 on the SSD. Make sure both will boot, then disconnect the SSD from the system. Install one Linux OS on the WD HDD. You should have three partitions present on the disk: a boot partition, a root partition, and a swap partition. Shrink the root partition to make room for the other two Linux root partitions. Install the other two Linux systems using the "Something Else" option, making sure that the bootloader for each Linux system is installed on the boot partition, and pointing both to the using existing swap partition for swap. Make sure all three Linux OS's will boot, re-connect the Windows SSD to the system, then use Tito's suggestion above. You may have to go into your BIOS settings and tweak the boot order, depending on whether rEFInd installs on the SSD or the HDD.
Thank you Tito for the rEFInd link. I drilled down a bit & am convinced that I have a UEFI Bios installed on the ASUS on that rig. -- On a side note, I just finished installing the latest W10 b17063 (w/ WU) on that rig on the WD HDD. I changed the BIOS/ boot device order & moved the WD HDD (7200 rpm) drive to #1, that makes my life easier on this update.
Thank you John for the tips & advise. So many questions: 1.) Both Windows 10 x64 2.) WD HDD has 2 Windows 10 x64 & 1 Wi8ndows 10 x86 OSs 3.) Both disks are MBR 4.) BIOS setup for: UEFI & Legacy OPROM, Launch CSM, Secure Boot disabled Things to keep in mind: Thank you for the advice & helping me be confident I have the disks setup correctly 1.) SSD “C” is System partition (see my 1st post Spoiler screenshot. 2.) Both disks partition tables do have a MBR partition table. 3.) Thank you, just confirmed done. 4.) No Linux OSs on this PC Recommendations: 1.) Thank you for again for the advice. 2.) Thank you for the advice. 3.) Thank you for the advice.
@MrG Your mobo perfectly supports UEFI, but the OS are installed in legacy/MBR mode (as CSM is still on your firmware and you opted for legacy install). 1. rEFInd will not work in your case, unless you switch to pure UEFI mode. 2. As you don't have Windows 7, there's no need to opt for CSM (as Windows 7 needs CSM for booting in UEFI mode too). 3. You can't boot any x86 media in pure UEFI mode, as the UEFI firmware you've only supports x64.