Dual boot windows 10 and 11 on seperate drives

[remo233]

I currently have windows 10 installed  on an SSD. I have ordered a Samsung Evo NVME on which I will be looking to install windows 11 for a dual boot option. Would I need to use a separate software to have the dual boot option or will the dual boot option be available after I install Windows 11 on the new drive automatically?

[da na]

Set whichever drive you want as default and use your BIOS's boot menu to switch to the other one when you need

[remo233]

Ok so I will need to use the bios boot up option which is f11 on my system to switch whenever I want to change?

[Kilrah]

If you remove the current drive before installing win11 on the new drive you'll get 2 completely independent installs and you select which drive to boot from from the BIOS.

 

If you don't then Win11 will add itself to the main drive's boot list, you always boot from the old drive, and you'll get a choice about in the middle of the boot process with a screen like this. Win11 won't boot anymore if you remove the old drive.

 

It's usually recommended to remove all other drives before installing Windows for that reason. 

 

[remo233]

Thanks Kilrah. So what you are saying is that if I dont remove the old drive and install windows 11 on the new drive, I will get the option which you have shown in the screenshot for choosing an operating system to boot from when the system starts. This is what I am looking for, to have this option. Thanks for your help. 

[SupaKomputa]

Yeah it's possible.

Make sure you remove the old drive before installing the new one.

To quickly change the OS, press quick boot select (F9 in my mobo) when starting pc, and select one.

[remo233]

Hold on, so if I don't disconnect old drive, I will get the dual boot option but without having to use the bios boot option.  Why not just leave the drive in? I prefer the dual boot option.

[Kilrah]

12 minutes ago, remo233 said:

Hold on, so if I don't disconnect old drive, I will get the dual boot option but without having to use the bios boot option.  Why not just leave the drive in? I prefer the dual boot option.

Correct. 

It's fine to use the built-in boot option, it's just that people here tend to tinker a lot, add/remove things and thus tend to want to avoid dependency of one over the other. If you decide to get rid of W10 and remove/repurpose the drive it will be a bit of a pain to get the W11 install to boot without it. 

[remo233]

So I contacted Microsoft technical support about this issue. They confirmed that if I was installing windows 10 on the second drive, it is better to disconnect the existing windows 10 device before installing but as windows 11 is being installed on the second drive, this will not be required.