So I have installed windows 10 first on my primary hard drive. But I need windows 8 for my work. I have another hard disk inside on which I intend to install windows 8 so by creating a dual boot. What will be the correct procedure? PS- I dont want to change boot order via BIOS everytime to select which drive i waaanna boot into. I tried installing win8 on 2nd drive but cant get the os boot selection menu. only works via bios. Please help thx
Install the drive and make it the boot drive. HIDE the win10 drive in bios if you can. Now install Win8 and it should go to the new drive. Boot to Win10 with both drives enabled in bios. Use EasyBCD to add an entry for Windows 8 on the drive letter it is seen as in Win10. Once the EasyBCD entry is made, use Win10 Disk Management to remove the drive letter for the Win8 drive (also Win8's system reserve partition if it made one). Now you are set to dual boot from the Win10 boot loader. I'm fairly certain that Win10 will screw with your Win8 installation as time goes by. There will also be some issues with accessing files if the two OSs share any other hard drives or partitions. The safer solution would involve enabling/disabling drives in bios but that is a PIA.
I will only use windows 8 once in a while because SQL server 2008 doesnt support win10 anymore. I'm also concerned about the "Fast startup" in both OS. Because I read that the win8 and win10 keeps the drives in an unstable state and any changes made by other OS might be lost when i boot into the main OS? I can also install windows 7 instead of win8 if that helps...and if nothing works then is it safe to change the boot device to win10 and win7(if i install) every now and then via the BIOS? Also thanks for ur reply
Win7 should work just the same. Does your bios offer the option of disabling hard drives? If so, I would do the bios switch only and disable the drive not in use for that boot. If you go the EasyBCD route, make sure to first make the entry from the Win10 drive and it has to be the one set as boot drive in bios. Trying it from the earlier OS won't work.
You can use any alternative EFI loader. Clover (has nice GUI, themes, can also boot OS X) or ELILO. Will require some config but definetly you wont need to start pressing DEL or F keys to change boot order. PS: You can boot Clover even from non-UEFI machine, and therefore add support on UEFI systems for it and vice-versa, legacy boot for UEFI machines.
I did it on my SP3, for the exact same reason. As I can't post links, even pointing to mydigitalife, just search "Windows 8.1/10 dual boot on Surface". Could work with an OEM licence... (???) It worked, but I don't understand why !
prantik > MS could later make one of the OSes unusable later... I fear they will do it. I also did this (as I always did for 20+ years) : data on a separate disk/partition, all user folders on this partition, and shared between the OSes. (Documents, Pictures, etc.). Works perfect (as always). Hoppyah > I suppose you answered to me here about my boot problem ? I don't want to hyjack the OP's thread, but it could be usefull to him. I did a /scanos from a command line (advanced options at boot time), and it returns : zero OS ! Then, I went to advanced system parameters from control panel (win8.1), and just changed start option (system menu timeouts), hoping it could rewrite BCD... It worked ! Secure boot re-enabled, no more uggly red screen, OS menu is back. /scanos still returns zero OS, but everything works flawlessly ! Still don't understand, but worked fine. I hate BCD. I prefered the good old boot.ini (since NT3.1 beta october). A DOS boot floppy, edit.exe, and we were the kings. But the good old time is gone.
Making a dual boot is very easy. You can use a second drive or a partition on the current drive. You do it while booted in windows. Boot to your current windows install. Mount a windows ISO, or extract it to a folder, use a USB flash drive, etc. Run setup from the "Sources" folder. Select "Custom Install Windows Only (Advanced)". Choose your correct partition to install windows to Or your second drives partition. After install, you now have a dual boot. No fuss, no muss. You don't have to hide anything or mess with the BIOS.
In the past you could make a dual boot (if you already have an older windows version installed) by just installing the second windows by booting and installing it as usual (just not on the same partition as the first windows) and windows will add the second install to the bootmenu. I've not tried it with 8.1.U1 and the new 10 but i assume it still works the same.
As a precautionary measure, maybe it safer to turn off the hybrid boot too ... In certain situations, also can consider commercial ones ... e.g Terabyte Bootit Bare Metal.
Wait, I can install W10 on a separate partition FROM the current install? Weren't there supposed to be some restarts during install? Also, would this interfere with DAZ loader in any way? I have currently installed W7 and linux, and an empty space for trying out W10.
It will restart during that type of install. IDK about the Daz loader. Are you using a linux bootloader?
What if they are using a GPT install with full UEFI, installing a newer OS while in windows won't this give you a MBR and not a UEFI ?.
What I meant was if you install to a new drive inside windows you will not get a UEFI install, you will get a MBR. Installing into the same drive is ok.
Oh I see now. You mean when installing to a different physical drive? I am not sure. On my PC's with multi boot and multiple drives, I turn off UEFI and use MBR for compatibility with previous images. My laptops and AIO PC's with one drive, I kept UEFI on. I make every PC multi boot.