Windows 10: Is possible to have 2 separate and distinct versions of Windows on a hard drive?

Is it possible to shrink my existing Windows partition, enough to create another partition, and install a fresh copy of Windows on it and then have a boot menu give me the option of booting either of the copies of Windows?

Reason: This is for my laptop. I'm thinking a backup copy of Windows could be useful if, on the road, I somehow screw up my main copy of Windows. I could just boot with the backup on the 2nd partition and carry on.

Bonus points: bonus points would be available if, instead of me installing a fresh copy of Windows and installing a core set of apps onto my "backup" Windows partition, I could just clone the existing copy of Windows, with all of its settings and apps already configured, to the backup Windows partition.

Note: My current solution is to simply have a ghost image of my main Windows partition on a USB drive and just overwrite a ruined install on the main partition with this known good copy. But that could take a while whereas a "backup" copy of Windows could be booted up in seconds.

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:)

 

Hard drive/ OS issue

a guy suggested :

• shutdown
• unhooked HDD
• restarted
• yay !!
• reconnected HDD
• restarted
• yay !!

also , try method 3
How do I unlock the drive where Windows 10 is installed?

 

Hard Drive Setup?

So it would be possible what I was suggesting? The SSD Windows Partition, with the 2 640GB HDDs running raid 1 without windows on them as pure data drives?

 

Seagate External Hard Drive

Hi Barbara,

Hardware failure or corruption within your system files are some of the possible reasons why you are experiencing an issue with accessing your external hard drive. For us to provide an accurate solution, we would need you to answer the following questions:

• Which build, version and edition of Windows 10?
• Are you experiencing the same issue when you are trying to access the external hard drive using another PC?
• What troubleshooting steps have you done so far?

In the meantime, we suggest running the automated troubleshooter for hardware. Follow these steps to do so:

• Open the Control Panel.
• Using the search box at the upper right corner of the window, type troubleshooting.
  
• From the search results, click on Troubleshooting.
• Click on Hardware and Sound and then choose Hardware and Devices.
• Once done, restart your computer and then check if the same issue persists.

We are looking forward to your response.