HELP! Using multiple drives with different operating systems

[sbadude]

Hey everyone,

First off, this is my first posting here, watch the youtube channel all the time though. I have a question about my BIOS and booting using multiple drives each with a different operating system.

 

I currently have 3 hard drives in my computer. 1 HDD with Windows Vista, 1 SSD with Windows 8, and 1 HDD as storage.

I would like to use the Windows 8 SSD and the Storage HDD together, and the Vista HDD as a standalone.

I want to be able to switch which drive I boot from, as I have important things on my Vista and want to keep that drive in case I need it.

I have been able to switch between the two drives through the BIOS, however, when I do it tells me that my disks need to be checked for errors and performs disk cleanup. After switching back and forth a couple of times, things get very wacky.

 

My only solution has been to unplug the the Vista HDD when I want to use Windows 8 SSD/Storage HDD, and unplug the Windows 8 SSD/Storage HDD when I want to use Vista HDD. While this works, it is annoying to open my case and unplug stuff ever time I wish to switch where I boot from.

 

Additionally, when I unplug the Vista HDD to use the Windows 8 SSD/Storage HDD, my BIOS tries to boot from the Storage HDD which, obviously, doesn't have an OS and I end up needing to go into the BIOS anyways to tell it to boot from the Windows 8 SSD. This happens regardless of which SATA port I connect the Windows SSD to on the motherboard. It always tries to boot from the Storage HDD.

 

Any thoughts here or am I just going to have to live with this as is?

[neon]

If your case has a couple of 5.25" bays then you can buy a couple of hotswap HDD bays this will allow you to swap/remove your HDDs in seconds, if you use the same bay for both OSs then the computer should try to boot from there first (at least mine does) not sure what your problem is.

You could always temporarily unplug your storage drive while booting your OS then plug it in when finished booting this should stop it trying to boot from the storage drive.

You will also probably need a 2.5" to 3.5" converter for your SSD to use it in the hotswap bay.

This solution works well for me using different drives for different OSs.

[Opask]

This could be a problem caused by having one of the installations being UEFI and the other being MBR. Do you know if you installed win 8 with UEFI enabled?
 

I'm using non-UEFI Win 8.1 on a SSD with a UEFI Linux install on another drive. Microsoft has issues with using two different install methods and it always messes stuff up. This could be your problem in which case I haven't found a solution other than probably having both installs being UEFI which I don't think Vista supports.

 

Other then that the above post offers a good idea using hotswap bays if you are into that.

[sbadude]

This could be a problem caused by having one of the installations being UEFI and the other being MBR. Do you know if you installed win 8 with UEFI enabled?

 

I'm using non-UEFI Win 8.1 on a SSD with a UEFI Linux install on another drive. Microsoft has issues with using two different install methods and it always messes stuff up. This could be your problem in which case I haven't found a solution other than probably having both installs being UEFI which I don't think Vista supports.

 

Other then that the above post offers a good idea using hotswap bays if you are into that.

How might I be able to tell if it is UEFI installed?

[sbadude]

[Opask]

How might I be able to tell if it is UEFI installed?

Either of these two methods work.

1. Press "win+r" and type "msinfo32" and look bios mode on the chart. If it says uefi its uefi, if it says legacy its legacy.

2. Go to disk management and check if your win 8 hdd has an EFI partition. If it doesn't have one it isn't installed in UEFI.

[sbadude]

Either of these two methods work.

1. Press "win+r" and type "msinfo32" and look bios mode on the chart. If it says uefi its uefi, if it says legacy its legacy.

2. Go to disk management and check if your win 8 hdd has an EFI partition. If it doesn't have one it isn't installed in UEFI.

Looks like win 8 is installed as legacy.

[Opask]

Looks like win 8 is installed as legacy.

OK well I have no idea as to what's causing your problem. I'm going to go ahead and blame Microsoft. I can have four hard drives each with a separate Linux install and never experience this problem but as soon as you throw a windows install next to an install of any other OS whether it be another windows install or not problems like this start to occur.

Honestly at this point I think your best bet would be a hot swap bay.

[sbadude]

OK well I have no idea as to what's causing your problem. I'm going to go ahead and blame Microsoft. I can have four hard drives each with a separate Linux install and never experience this problem but as soon as you throw a windows install next to an install of any other OS whether it be another windows install or not problems like this start to occur.

Honestly at this point I think your best bet would be a hot swap bay.

Ha, ya windows has been rather unkind yo me. Just really strange how it worked fine initially and then began to act up.

Looks like hot swap bay it is.

Thanks for the help.