2 Windows 7 drives on one computer

[poco242]

Is it possible to have 2 drives on one computer each loaded with W7?

What I want is one drive for benching/OCing, and the other for normal use. I tried it tonight with little success. Note I am using a single W7 disc. I had to unhook my main SSD to install it on the second SSD. It would error out otherwise on install. Once I did that and got it installed, I could not get it to start on the original drive. I had to unhook the second drive and use my W7 disc to repair startup to get it to go again.

Do I need to buy a second copy to get this to work?

 

[papadan]

Hi, yes I have the two drives listed in my sig. both pretty much the same drives as far as content go. I can boot back & forth between them just by going into bios & selecting the boot tab. I then select which one I want to boot from. The ss below I boot off my SSD & drive F is my HDD Which I can also boot.

 

[poco242]

It didn't work for me. Maybe because I had one copy stripped down with no programs on it. From what I have been reading to do what I want to do I will need 2 keys so 2 copies of windows. I don't just want a mirror copy, but one regular drive, and one striped down with nothing but benching programs on it. I have booted to different mirrored copies OK, but once I strip everything off on one, it screws everything up. That is why I tried a fresh install on the second drive and that was even worse.

 

[papadan]

It didn't work for me. Maybe because I had one copy stripped down with no programs on it. From what I have been reading to do what I want to do I will need 2 keys so 2 copies of windows. I don't just want a mirror copy, but one regular drive, and one striped down with nothing but benching programs on it. I have booted to different mirrored copies OK, but once I strip everything off on one, it screws everything up. That is why I tried a fresh install on the second drive and that was even worse.

What do you mean by stripping everything off?

 

[d1nky]

ive had/got multiple win8, win7 and xp on different drives on my rig.

Like the guy said before just boot on 'X' drive. Maybe selecting advanced boot options and choosing the drive. F11 for me.

Otherwise you could always partition the spare drive and plug it in when needed and pull the others out.

Also windows boot loader should let you choose from which install as long as you havent written over the boot file, which is placed at random drives when installing.

Another thing, there are many programs on the net or msconfig to change boot options etc

'stripping off' he meant a stripped windows version with nothing on it i.e LAN, audio, etc - this shouldnt effect the boot options.

 

[poco242]

Are you guys actually running 2 different copies of W7? I mean not just a mirrored copy, but 2 completely different installs? That is were I am having trouble. It just will not boot to one after booting to the other without using the install disk to "repair" it.

 

[papadan]

Are you guys actually running 2 different copies of W7? I mean not just a mirrored copy, but 2 completely different installs? That is were I am having trouble. It just will not boot to one after booting to the other without using the install disk to "repair" it.

No it's the same copy of Win. I cloned the copy on my HDD when I installed the SSD. Have you tried installing an image of the original boot drive to the second drive?

 

[poco242]

That I was able to do, but I wanted a clean install for benching and OC'ing. I wanted a clean install because I have a lot of programs installed on the first SSD that I do not want on the second SSD. I could just uninstall them on the new drive, but that leaves a messy Windows. I did that first but windows took 3gb more space than a clean install. That tells me uninstalling programs does not get rid of everything.

What I am afraid I will end up having to do is do a clean install on my primary drive and install only the basics and then clone it. Then re install all of my programs on the main drive. I just wanted to avoid that day long process.

 

[papadan]

That I was able to do, but I wanted a clean install for benching and OC'ing. I wanted a clean install because I have a lot of programs installed on the first SSD that I do not want on the second SSD. I could just uninstall them on the new drive, but that leaves a messy Windows. I did that first but windows took 3gb more space than a clean install. That tells me uninstalling programs does not get rid of everything.

What I am afraid I will end up having to do is do a clean install on my primary drive and install only the basics and then clone it. Then re install all of my programs on the main drive. I just wanted to avoid that day long process.

Did you try to use a registry cleaner to get rid of anything in there? Did you try setting the sys. protection disk space to the minimum or even disabling it all together to see how much dish space you could recover?
Dan

 

[poco242]

No. I have had bad luck with most registry cleaners cleaning too well

By sys protection are you talking about recovery points? If so I have that set low.

 

[papadan]

No. I have had bad luck with most registry cleaners cleaning too well

By sys protection are you talking about recovery points? If so I have that set low.

Yes I was referring to the disk space restore points allocates. The only other thing I can think of to keep from having to do a reinstall (I hate that) is if you have an old HDD you can do an image restore to it. Then uninstall any programs you don't want. Then turn off system protection (restore) & do a defrag. to pack everything together. Then create an image of that & transfer to your second drive. I also when I uninstall a program I go through & manually delete anything it missed.

 

[poco242]

I can do that, but I may just be better doing a re install. I had probably 50 BSOD's while over clocking so I bet my OS is not the best anyway

 

[wagex]

could just get a cheap hot swap bay shut down, swap drives, boot up.

 

[papadan]

I can do that, but I may just be better doing a re install. I had probably 50 BSOD's while over clocking so I bet my OS is not the best anyway

Good luck!!
Dan

 

[bob4933]

Hmm, I have had no issues with this whatsoever. I have a backup mass storage drive I installed windows 7 on, just in case my main drive had problems. I can boot from either hard drive whenever I want. I don't recall doing anything special at all, simply installed windows on the other hard drive, and set up my primary drive to boot.

What you could do, is remove your main hard drive, and run and boot windows into your 2nd drive. After you finish updating and installing drivers and all that jazz, reinstall your main drive and go from there.

 

[poco242]

What you could do, is remove your main hard drive, and run and boot windows into your 2nd drive. After you finish updating and installing drivers and all that jazz, reinstall your main drive and go from there.

That is exactly what I did last night. Once I unhooked the new drive and hooked up the old SSD, it would not boot. I had to do the "repair start up" with the install disc to get it to go again. Not sure why. I built the computer and have an OEM builders copy of windows.

 

[c627627]

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[bob4933]

I built the computer and have an OEM builders copy of windows.

This is more than likely your issue.

 

[d1nky]

sounds like the boot sector is missing or needs changing.

 

[poco242]

This is more than likely your issue.

Why would that matter? That is the windows anyone who builds a computer would use right?