Windows 10: How to have two windows OS on the same PC?

First Off, here is my setup:


I have a Dell Inspiron Laptop with a licensed windows 10 on it. I have had the HDD on this laptop fail so no recovery possible, no dell support assist, no image to reinstall, so I had to clean install windows 10 downloaded from Microsoft and not Dell they had so much extra Dell additional stuff to be installed which were useless anyway and i did not like that. My laptop ran again but I had to waste a day to get my laptop running again.

Since then, I have "upgraded" my laptop using SSD as my primary drive and my 1TB HDD as my secondary drive connected via the ODD or DVDRW bay. So two disk 0 and 1 as per disk management software.


What I want to do:

To protect myself from having to experience downtime should the primary drive fail, i intend to:

1. Backup an image of the primary drive and save it on the secondary drive.

2. Install an OS on the secondary drive so that when primary drive fails or gets corrupted, the laptop boots via the secondary drive then I can restore the backup image of the primary drive, then restore laptop back to normal booting from the primary drive.


What I did:

1. I manage to install Windows 10 on my secondary drive I have a BIOS SATA Switch that can turn ON or OFF SATA 0 or 1 while the primary drive was disabled.

2. While primary drive disabled, Windows 10 ran properly on the secondary drive but had the same license as the one on the primary drive because the license is locked to my laptop and I logged-in as the same user on both primary and secondary installs.


What happened:

As soon as I enabled primary drive to boot the laptop, it somehow manage to delete the windows 10 installation present in the secondary drive!!! My hypothesis for this was, both install had the same license and the same username setup. So my objective of having a backup OS for speedy recovery was not achieved.


Future Plan:

I do not want to give up on this plan. Now I am planning on installing WINDOWS 7 on the secondary drive. Reason: It wont have the same license as the Windows 10 on the primary drive, so maybe the primary drive will not mess with it. And I intend to use another username to log-in to windows 7.


Notes:

1. This is not a normal DUAL BOOT. I am intending to keep the OS separated from each other and not even knowing the other exist. I do not intend to dual boot because the BCD command in the dual boot resides in the primary drive and if the primary fails, the laptop still fails to boot.

2. I do not want to use LINUX as my secondary OS because my image backup and restore software runs on windows.

3. I am also considering using using Windows RE or PE as my OS for the secondary as it can enable image restoration but most RE and PE installations have been done on USBs and DVDs, not on physical HDDs.


Question:

1. Will Windows 10 on primary and Windows 7 on secondary survive without trying to modify each other? My BIOS boot sequence will boot Windows 10 first, if that fails, then moves to the Windows 7 on the secondary.

2. I would love to still use windows 10 on my secondary, can it still be possible with same license?

3. What would be the perfect recommended "failsafe" OS for my secondary? Windows 10, 7 or PE and why?

:)

 

Is it possible to have two Microsoft to do windows running at same time on Mac OS

I'm going to try to migrate all my data from Things 3 over, but, it would be much easier if I could have two windows open so that I could review work list at the same time as personal list.

Is this possible? Am I being really thick and its straightforward?

Thanks for any suggestions,

ATB

B

 

Let's have a poll on "Your primary Windows OS"

Let's have a poll on Your primary Windows OS:

• Windows 10
• Windows 7
• Windows 8
• Windows Vista and earlier

Why "primary Windows OS"? Some of us may have alternative OS'es installed (CentOS for me), some of us may have two or more Windows versions installed concurrently.

Thank you!

 

Let's have a poll on "Your primary Windows OS"

might want to head here.

Windows7 is my OS, what's yours?