I have Windows 10 installed on one HD and running well.
I've just added a second formatted HD where I wish to install Windows 7.
My question - should I first disconnect the Windows 10 HD before installing Windows 7 on the new HD?
My concern is that I not mess up anything on the Windows 10 drive and will I be able to choose which drive to boot from?
Advice greatly appreciated.
Install 10 then install 7 easy
Windows 10 uses a similarly structured boot management system to that in Windows 7, so an installation of either as a second system on another drive or partition will not affect the first. Disconnecting one drive to install the other is not necessary, and will mean that you will have to use your bios function to decide which system to boot rather than a convenient menu. I am not a great fan of the graphical boot menu, I would prefer the legacy text-based one like in Windows 7. With a utility like EasyBCD, you can do this after installation.
Depends what setup you want. If you disconnect the W10 disk, you will get an independent W7 installation to which you switch with the BIOS boot priority (I prefer that setup).
If you leave the W10 disk connected, then you will get a double boot with the W7 bootmgr ending up in the W10 bootmgr record. Both setups have their pros and cons.
You can run into problems installing 10 first and then 7, as 10 uses a more modern bootloader than 7.
Sometimes (more so on older pcs), you have to repair the boot menu afsterwards to get it to work properly (I use the Macrium Reflect tools to do this). Not that difficult but a nuisance nonetheless.
If you were to start afresh, always install 7, then 10 as that always works properly. For windows 8 and 10 dual booting, order is not important as they use the same bootloader.
Safest way to dual BOOT on two disks.
Disconnect one you don't want that OS on because you may end up with BOOT spread over both of them and if you remove one or BOOT from wrong one you can end up with no OS at all.
After installing that OS, you can use: EasyBCD - NeoSmart Technologies on first or even both disks to give you BOOT menu to chose OS you want to BOOT to.
That process never failed me even with various OSs, like Windows of all kinds plus Linux distros.
I use 1 disk but I divide them to two
I can Dual boot fine
Windows 7 thinks it is last version so Windows 7 will delete 10
Windows 10 won't delete Windows 7 ;D
I'm not sure of if you install 7 then 10 7 will be removed
I remember it does
You're good to go Just install on the second hdd
no need disconnect
Completely 100% agree. You don't even have to install EasyBCD.Safest way to dual BOOT on two disks.
Disconnect one you don't want that OS on because you may end up with BOOT spread over both of them and if you remove one or BOOT from wrong one you can end up with no OS at all.
After installing that OS, you can use: EasyBCD - NeoSmart Technologies on first or even both disks to give you BOOT menu to chose OS you want to BOOT to.
That process never failed me even with various OSs, like Windows of all kinds plus Linux distros.
bcdboot d:windows/d /addlast
run from an elevated command prompt will add the second Windows OS to the boot menu after both hard drives are reconnected. Path in red being to the second OS Windows folder.
Then you can run msconfig and the boot tab will let you set your desired default OS and timeout for choosing.
