Windows 10: Dual Boot Anomally?

Hi guys

I posted this question on Tom's Harware but nobody on that forum answered me yet or seems to know the difference between the Win8.1 Pro and Win10 Pro 300MB/450MB partitions, so I thought I'd try and ask on TenForums instead. Here goes....

I've 2 Macrium system images to restore to 2 separate SSDs for the purpose of dual booting Windows 8.1 Pro and Windows 10 Pro.

Both system images have all 4 partitions created by Windows on install - see images...




- Win8.1 Pro image has 300MB, 100MB, 128MB + C




- Win10 Pro image has 450MB, 100MB, 16MB + C

Now it's my understanding that the 300MB and 450MB partitions each contain files needed to use Bitlocker with each Windows Pro version respectively, as well as the BCD files.

I'm tempted to just restore all partitions on the Win8.1 Pro image to the first SSD, then just restore the C partition from the Win10 Pro image to the second SSD and use Easy BCD to create the boot loader for Win10 Pro in the 300MB partition on the 1st drive. That'd roughly equate to what you get when you install a dual boot of Win8.1 Pro and then Win10 Pro normally.

But what about the Win10 Pro Bitlocker files on the 450MB partition?

And what is different with the 450MB partition that it needs an extra 60MB in size straight after install - do I loose some other functionality if the 450MB boot partition is ditched in favour of the 300MB boot partition?

Thanks

:)

 

Always booting from the wrong drive

Drive K is not a boot drive.

If dual booting Windows located on the drive K: it will be changed to C:

You have to do the dual boot from the BIOS.

Check post from Andre da Costa on Dual booting.

 

Boot Issues, Partitioning Errors, Backup, and Dual-Booting Windows 10

This was in fact a dual boot problem. All VM is dual boot.

 

those two partitions on separate drives 300 / 450 are the OS Recovery Tools - WinRE.wim
Windows 8.1 uses a Recovery Image Partition - which you do not have anyway..
Windows 10 recovers itself from the windows\winsxs folder...

not sure how best to proceed if you enabled bit locker

 

Thanks Kyhi - in that case it might be better to try and restore the Win10 image completely and then just the C partition from the Win8.1 Pro image and then add the Win8.1 Pro boot files, but as you say, what about Bitlocker?

I'll hang on a couple of days then - somebody here ought to know?