Dual OS questions

I wanted to know if it would be possible to Dual Boot two operating systems using two different boot drives and a motherboard with a switchable BIOS without an OS selection prompt. In the past, when I would dual boot an OS, I would be asked which OS I'd like to load into. For example if I set the primary drive to boot Windows 8 on the first bios profile and another OS on the second bios profile, would it allow me to skip the OS selection prompt and allow the computer to boot directly to desktop?

I'm not really sure how to explain this properly, but I am planning on building a computer and I want to have Windows 8 as my primary OS as well as having ubuntu/linux or win7 on the side if needed. My primary concern is allowing my system to boot Windows 8 as it would normally if it weren't a dual OS system, and to only boot a different OS if I change the boot option while loading the BIOS or by changing the bios manually through a bios switch on the mobo.

A possible configuration...
C:\ --> (256gb SSD) Windows 8
D:\ --> (256gb SSD) Ubuntu
E:\ --> (2tb HDD Storage, maybe 1tb can be configured to be accessible by one OS, and the other half by the other OS, so depending on which OS you are in, you will only see half of the drive E:\, is this possible?)

 

Yeah install each OS to the drive. Make sure the other drive isnt plugged in otherwise it might detect other OS's and create a dual boot.

eg:
My machine had an old existing XP installation on a HDD.

I upgraded to a SSD and installed win7, but i wanted to keep my XP install just in case.

So I unplug the HDD before installing win7 on the SSD,

If i need to go back to my XP install, i just choose the HDD as the boot drive instead of the SSD

-

As for the 2TB storage, you can split that in half for each OS. You can make the partition invisible in disk management by not assigning it a drive letter.


(otherwise i totally misunderstood you)

 

So basically, install OS 1 on SSD 1, and then unplug it and then install OS 2 on SSD 2... and then plug both of them in and then have SSD 1 as primary boot drive, and then if I wanted to boot into OS 2, I would select it manually by changing boot order? And then splitting the 2tb into two.. using disk management?

 

Yes right on

Disk management in Windows 7 or 8 can partition the drive in half. You can then choose to assign or un-assign a drive letter for that partition. If you do not assign it a drive letter, it will be invisible.

 

Awesome! It'll be like having two different computers with one!

 

Update:

I have a question about Dual OS on a laptop with a split partition. I have my main OS on the main C:\ drive, but I also have a part of the C:\ drive which was split for recovery files. In my install, I formatted that part of the drive. Since it's now empty, instead of using it for storage I am planning on putting an OS on there, but I only want to access it by selecting which drive to boot on the menu. So everytime I turn on my computer it will boot off the main drive, and if I wanted to boot off the other drive I would press f12 or the button to go to the boot menu, and select the correct drive.

Does anyone know a software or OEM Microsoft setting that I can use to force the computer to boot on the primary drive, instead of asking which OS I'd like to load?

 

The GRUB bootloader that most Linux systems will install will do this for you. You can actually install GRUB w/out installing Linux and then manually configure it to operate roughly how you've described. You'll probably need something like Super Grub Live CD.

 

I forgot to mention that the main OS for this laptop is Win8, and the secondary OS I plan to put that was on the recovery partition is Win7.

 

GRUB will still do the trick.

 

Unless it was altered with Windows 8: Right click on Computer -> Advanced System Settings -> Click on Settings under Startup and Recovery tab -> Select your primary OS, and then uncheck "Time to display list of operating systems".

This will remove the prompt to select which OS to boot into at start up. If you want it back, just check the box again so that the prompt displays.

 

Thanks! But I'm curious, how would you access the other OS without going into the boot menu? The other partition I plan on installing it on is on the same HDD as the main OS just separated. (Native Win8 Boot Options)

*(GRUB Question) I tried to download the latest GRUB2 but their ftp website is down. Does anyone know where I can find a mirror or new download link so that I may try it out? Thanks

 

You wouldn't. You would need to enable the prompt to display the list of operating systems again - so it's a give and take of sorts. It sounds like what you want is to have the menu for your OS boot option displayed, but have a primary OS to boot to by default still, right? In that case, you can leave the prompt enabled and designate the default OS, and then designate the amount of seconds you want the prompt to stay up before loading said OS.

Not sure where you went initially, but mirror #2 here worked for me (mirror #1 did not).

 

Thanks Prostar, and I was able to download it from the official link on a different network. It seems the one at work was blocking the port for the ftp transfer. My weekend is free this week so I'll be able to do some tests with these programs and hopefully post my findings.

 

Ah, well glad for that! In the future, you can always try accessing the site as https, or ping the site name within a command prompt and then plug in the ip address it loops back to you into the browser's omnibox like accessing any other site. Sometimes that gets past the firewall.