Dual boot question

Pete Allen

Pete Allen

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Hey guys,

I have an editing pc running windows 7, I'm wondering if it's possible to move my hard drive from another pc (running windows 8.1) and make my edit pc dual boot.

So basically, I have two operating systems on separate drives and, can boot to either by choice.

Need to reduce workspace.

Anyone know if this will work?

Thanks
 
You'll need a bootloader to choose operating systems and the one on the disk that's been moved from the other computer may or not be happy at re-detecting all its hardware and installing the correct drivers automatically.

The recovery console accessible from the original Windows 7 install DVD has a command bootrec which will build a bootloader for you. There's a page about it here :

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392

The normal warnings about the possible dire consequences of overwriting the boot information on an operating system drive apply in their fullest extent in this case. Proceed with caution.

edit : I should point out that I am not a qualified "IT person".
 
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I tried this several years ago and fried my motherboard. I did some research at the time and it looked as if low level hardware specific drivers tried to manipulate the system in ways it couldn't handle.

A secondary OS is useful for when one goes pear shaped through software or drive failure and you are in too much of a rush to get some work done to lose a week faffing.

In one rig I have 2 drives with OS's on each and just change the bios to whichever drive I need to boot into.
 
onomatopoeia said:
You'll need a bootloader to choose operating systems and the one on the disk that's been moved from the other computer may or not be happy at re-detecting all its hardware and installing the correct drivers automatically.

The recovery console accessible from the original Windows 7 install DVD has a command bootrec which will build a bootloader for you. There's a page about it here :

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392

The normal warnings about the possible dire consequences of overwriting the boot information on an operating system drive apply in their fullest extent in this case. Proceed with caution.

edit : I should point out that I am not a qualified "IT person".
Click to expand...

Thanks Mark, looks like you think this is a bit risky.

neil_g said:
I have to ask, why bother. Why not just have one machine with one os.
Click to expand...

Basically Neil, I have both machines set up exactly how I want them, one for edit and, the other for admin, would take an age to re-install either, plus I don't really want my edit pc connected to the web.

Deadlock said:
I tried this several years ago and fried my motherboard. I did some research at the time and it looked as if low level hardware specific drivers tried to manipulate the system in ways it couldn't handle.

A secondary OS is useful for when one goes pear shaped through software or drive failure and you are in too much of a rush to get some work done to lose a week faffing.

In one rig I have 2 drives with OS's on each and just change the bios to whichever drive I need to boot into.
Click to expand...

Sounds like this might be a plan albeit a bit long winded.

Thanks for the replies guys.
 
Pete Allen said:
Basically Neil, I have both machines set up exactly how I want them, one for edit and, the other for admin, would take an age to re-install either, plus I don't really want my edit pc connected to the web.
Click to expand...
sorry still dont see the point, seems like a lot of effort when 1 machine would do. just install the admin tasks on the edit machine or visa versa depending on what is better spec.
 
I used to do this but then either Neil_g or Arad introduced me to Virtual Machines using VirtualBox (FREE) and I can now run several OS' on the one machine.

As long as you have both OS on disc etc you could try that method.
 
Have you covered yourself with the licensing implications? I can kind of see what you are trying to achieve, but the geek in me says dump Windows 7 and just run a single OS
 
Virtual machines are sometimes useful, but you take a performance hit which is not something I can personally live with.

Virtual machines, just running one OS, etc, offer no redundancy when a hard drive fails. I lost count after the 6th or 7th drive, with 3 failing in 6 months.

Licensing - Most software will allow you multiple installs on one license if you are only running one version at a time. This means you will be OK with a dual boot system. This is true for the likes of Windows, Lightroom,etc, etc. But do check specifics as Neilc28 says.

If you are running a business, you simply can't afford to rely on just one OS, one HD, or one machine.
Otherwise, do whatever precautionary measures meet your balance of security/performance/money/down time.
 
With regards to licensing I was referencing windows which is most likely an OEM license so cannot be moved to another machine. Other software should be fine but the OS is likely to be a problem, and in order to stay within legal requirements is probably going to cost around another £100 plus the time needed to completely reinstall.

In my opinion this just isn't feasible, at least for me anyway.

I'm surprised someone hasn't created an RDS or Citrix server with RemoteFX to provide light room and Photoshop at a reduced price. Initial outlay would be pretty huge though!
 
Why not buy a KVM? That way you can have both machines running off 1 x Monitor, Mouse & Keybaord and you can switch over at will... Much easier ;)

Edit: Sorry, just realised that you want to reduce space :banghead:
 
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Deadlock said:
Virtual machines are sometimes useful, but you take a performance hit which is not something I can personally live with.
Click to expand...
I've just (this week) started investigating VMware, having set up a vSphere (a.k.a. ESXi) 5.5 host and run the converter on a physical windows 7 machine to create a virtual image.

Running a soak test on our software earlier today (very CPU intensive), reveals that performance is broadly comparable to running natively. However, my old desktop PC which is acting as the server has hardware virtualisation support, which probably helps.

Hosted hypervisors are another story in performance terms.

edit to add: Am bound to be asking some of the people here that have more experience with this stuff some numpty questions in the near future!
 
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I don't think that you can take a hard drive with an os setup on one pc and move it to another. what you could do is get a boot manager and ten reinstall the os one your windows 7 machine
 
Neilc28 said:
Have you covered yourself with the licensing implications? I can kind of see what you are trying to achieve, but the geek in me says dump Windows 7 and just run a single OS
Click to expand...

yeah but windows 8 is crap - tried it, hated it , not going there again - if it were me i'd keep windows 7 and dump the other one

I have a machine that has dual boot between windows and linux - the only reason i bother with windows at all is that we have some work specific web based applications that i periodically need to access from home, which have a fit when you try to access them with anything other than internet explorer
 
Well the op is running it and hasn't stated that he dislikes it. Windows 8 isn't disliked by 100% of people and as he is running it he could take advantage of Hyper-V :)
 
onomatopoeia said:
I've just (this week) started investigating VMware, having set up a vSphere (a.k.a. ESXi) 5.5 host and run the converter on a physical windows 7 machine to create a virtual image.

Running a soak test on our software earlier today (very CPU intensive), reveals that performance is broadly comparable to running natively. However, my old desktop PC which is acting as the server has hardware virtualisation support, which probably helps.

Hosted hypervisors are another story in performance terms.

edit to add: Am bound to be asking some of the people here that have more experience with this stuff some numpty questions in the near future!
Click to expand...
indeed. done right with the correct amount of resource assigned to it a VM should not be slow.

certainly we have some beefy SQL VMs at work that never have any bother.
 
Neilc28 said:
Well the op is running it and hasn't stated that he dislikes it. Windows 8 isn't disliked by 100% of people and as he is running it he could take advantage of Hyper-V :)
Click to expand...

fair enough, but my point was he might also have a good reason not to want to dump W& hence the desire for dual boot
 
I actually do like W8 a lot but, that's for another discussion.

Pete is spot on, I have too much software on my edit pc to want to migrate it all and, I'm not sure if some of it would work , I also don't want to step back from W8 on my admin machine.

Wasn't really looking for alternatives or analysis, just if it would work and possible negatives, if it isn't a good idea (which I'm picking up from the comments here) I'll stick with what I have, just wanted to make a bit more room, I suppose I could always move.

Thanks for the comments guys. (y)
 
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