Windows 10: How to put 2 partitions on an external hard drive.

My son would like to create a dual boot operating system. We understand (at least we think) that we need to create 2 partitions on a single drive and install one operating system on each. Hopefully that will give him a dual boot menu when he starts up ?

Our problem so far has been attaching his hard drive externally to my desktop and trying to get the 2 partitions.
We are stuck at this point. Here is a photo of what his drive looks like right now.

Any help would be appreciated.



:)

 

Windows 10 does not recognize my second hard drive

The Microsoft way didn't work for me. But I got it sorted another way, but I had a few extra things that made it possible.

1. Firstly I had another computer that could read the hard drive (actually my sons), so I used that to copy the contents I wanted to keep to another hard drive (an external hard drive in my case).

2. I then put the undetectable hard drive into an external hard drive caddy (I dismantle one I had and just changed the hard drive over).

3. I then turned on the computer with the issue and plugged in the USB external hard drive (with the undetectable drive inside). The computer could see the drive.

4. I deleted the drive partition in Disk Manager and converted it to a GPT partition, formatted it then deleted the partition and converted it back to an MBR partition and formatted it again.

5. I shut the computer down and put the unreadable hard drive back into the PC.

6. Turned the PC back on and it found it in Windows 10.

Number 4 in the steps may sound strange, but I actually tried putting the hard drive back into the PC between each step, but only found it worked after I did all of that. My (unbacked) conclusion is that something from the original install or configuration
making it invisible was sitting in the MBR.

Anyway, it's taken me many days to work this one out, so hope it saves you time.

 

How to recover partitions from external hard drive dueto windows 10 update issues

External Hard Drive has lost previous partitions when reinstalling windows 10 to enable the latest windows 10 update.

Can you advise how to recover lost partition.

 

Do you and your son share the same computer?

 

You would be much better off splitting that large 232GB partition on the main drive. An OS partition can run very nicely on 64GB, but you can make it larger. That way the dual boot menu would be easier to manage. Here is a tutorial here on Tenforums. It is written for dual booting 10 & 7, but the concepts are the same. You would simply shrink the existing "C" partition to around 64GB or 96GB (plenty of room), create a new 64GB or 96GB partition for the install of the second OS. That (the new partition) would be the one you would choose when installing the second OS. Take a look and see if the tutorial gives you what you are looking for.

TC

Dual Boot Windows 10 with Windows 7 or Windows 8

 

Josey no I am just helping out by connecting his drive externally to mine.
Tomcat thanks for the link we will try that.

 

Good it will work.

 

It may not be that simple what o/s are you going to use and is it a uefi motherboard its better to install the oldest o/s delete all partitions and let windows create new one. Then shrink c: and install the second o/s windows will want a a small system parition and a c drive if its uefi it will lneed a parition as well and you may set the drive as gpt or mbr.
Its often simpler and safer to install one windows then run th eother as a virtual pc with free Downloads – Oracle VM VirtualBox with that you dont have to mess with paritions

 

Samuria no uefi just a regular Bios. Per tomcats suggestion we did shrink the first partition to 96GB. The second partition also has 96GB. Just called him, and he has successfully installed both operating systems (win 10 and Win 7) , and his laptop is booting to the "dual boot" menu. He is just finishing getting a few drivers.

 

Excellent! Please post back when all done, would love to hear how it all went.

Good job! *Thumbs

TC

 

All sorted by the looks of it, but for others reading this thread - MiniTools Partition Wizard is available as a bootable CD so you could have done it without removing the drive.
https://www.partitionwizard.com/comp...otable-cd.html

 

Thanks, Bree. Further info. Bootable is paid version only.....



Bootable Partition Manager| MiniTool Partition Wizard Bootable Edition

 

Or use Kyhi's winpse tool from software+app section and minitool is included as one of the tools.

 

Yes, and I found a link to the free 9.1.

 

V10 is out now.