Windows 10 Can I dual boot Windows 10 with Windows 10?

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

When the next update comes online I'd like to do a clean install, on my original C:\ drive in place of Windows 8 which won't boot anyway because the drive became Dynamic when I was messing around.

I have everything on the drive backed up, I'd like to format it, partition it the way I want (how I messed it up to start with) and then restore all the data on the D:\ partition and install Windows 10 on the C:\ partition.

What I want to ask is, can I do this and leave my current version of Windows 10 on the drive it's on now (a separate physical hard drive) until I have the new version all set up, with all my software reinstalled?

Since it takes days to get everything set up again I'd like to be able to access the current version and the settings I have in it until I'm sure I've got everything squared away.

Happy to hear any suggestions.

Mike

 

[Jimbo22]

I don't see why you can't/couldn't do this as you're talking about 2 separate HDD's. Give it a whirl and see....like you say, just make sure you have everything backed up.

 

[Trouble]

If you get everything ready in advance and then disconnect your current Windows 10 drive before doing the second install then you should be able to proceed without issue.
When you're done just reconnect the drive you've previously disconnect and use the Fkey to evoke the boot menu and select the drive you wish to boot to (new install or old install)

If you try to perform the install with the current installation drive connect you likely find that your BCD (Boot Configuration Data) has been edited to support a conventional dual boot and you'll likely have to clean that up (with something like Easy BCD) once you have everything just right.
It's usually not too much of a chore but you can avoid it altogether by disconnecting and then reconnecting the drive.
I find it easier (for me at least to dual boot / multi boot by selecting the drive from the Boot Menu rather than the more conventional dual boot method.

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

Thanks guys, I'll give it a try and disconnecting the drive I have Windows 10 on sound like a good idea.

I'll format and partition it in Windows 10 and restore the D:\ drive and then unplug the W10 drive and install it from a DVD.
If it doesn't work all I'll have to do is plug my W10 drive back in.

I remember when it was really simple.

When I used Windows 3.1 it crashed so often that I always had 2 installs on my one hard drive.
One was C:\Windows and one was C:\Alt Windows.

When Windows would crash and not boot, I'd login to the prompt Type C:\Alt Windows\win.exe, or whatever the Windows exe file was called and it would just boot into the other Windows, then I'd delete the old one and reinstall it.

That way I always had one that worked.

As I remember Windows took 17 megabytes of disk space and came on about 14 disks or so.
I think it took a long time to install it.

I wish I could have an OS now that only used 17 Mb of disk space.

Mike