Sort of dual boot win10 / win7

My desktop is Win10. I want to create a Win7 system on a spare ssd sata drive so I can boot to either but with only one or the other connected physically, for security reason when using Win7 I don’t want it to access Win10 files at all.

As I want it totally separate, I don’t think normal dual boot will be suitable will it? I’d have thought physically changing the boot drive and restarting would be simple but oh no! It goes haywire and often won’t recognise that I’m booting from a Win7 drive or gives an error. I think it is the UEFI trying to be too helpful! Any suggestions on how to do this please?

Conversation 3 comments

  • xperiencewindows

    09 February, 2021 - 4:05 pm

    <p>Totally separate?</p><p><br></p><p> Use two different, fully functional computers, one with Win 7, the other with 10. </p>

  • boots

    09 February, 2021 - 10:09 pm

    <p>I have a dock that fits in a 5 1/4 inch bay that makes it easy to physically swap out 3.5 inch Sata drives.</p><p>You may be able to find something similar for 2.5 inch drives.</p><p>www.orico.cc/usmobile/product/detail/id/3645</p><p><br></p>

  • dftf

    10 February, 2021 - 5:44 am

    <p>"Dual-boot" usually means "having two-or-more OS installed on the same physical drive": you want to use two physically-separate drives, so no, this doesn't apply to you. In this case, you'd usually pick which to boot from via the UEFI boot-menu, but yes, once you boot into either OS, it would be able to see the other drive. If you want both drives to be permanently-connected internally, but only visible to one-at-a-time, your only options here would be to:</p><p><br></p><p>(1) See if your UEFI lets you disable a drive from within its settings; and then disable and enable the appropriate drive each time you want to change to the other OS, or;</p><p><br></p><p>(2) Leave both drives enabled, and then make the other drive not-visible from within each Windows install using Disk Management or DISKPART. I'm sure it is possible to remove the drive-letter and essentially make it inaccessible (so when you go into File Explorer or My Computer it doesn't show up).</p><p><br></p><p>Or, for your safest options:</p><p><br></p><p>(3) Physically plug-in only the one drive you want active.</p><p><br></p><p>(4) If the PC is in a safe-location, see if it has an eSATA port, and then leave the drive attached outside the computer (similar to how you would with a USB portable hard-drive). If it doesn't, simply buy a long SATA lead, and then look for a gap on the back of the computer where the lead could emerge from, and then use that to easily swap the drives externally.</p>

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