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Possible to dual boot UEFI and BIOS OS?

orangecat
By orangecat
in Windows
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I need to use Windows 7 for some older applications but I don't want to switch from Windows 10 as it works great for 99% of what I need it to do. Is there a way I can dual boot Windows 7 and Windows 10 off my SSD without making to install Windows 7 in UEFI mode? I really need Windows 7 to use a MBR partition not GPT or whatever it's called.

Also I tried using VMware but it doesn't work for what I need. I have to run Windows 7 on bare hardware.

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6 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

UEFI has a "legacy mode." But otherwise no, you can't have the motherboard run from BIOS or UEFI like a dual-booting system.

I assume there's no way to "hack" it?

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Depends if you have more than one drive in your machine since a hard drive can only be GPT or MBR afaik. If you have two physical hard drives then you should be fine.

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Just now, maleko48 said:

Depends if you have more than one drive in your machine since a hard drive can only be GPT or MBR afaik. If you have two physical hard drives then you should be fine.

Yea I already knew that. I was hoping someone would know of a way to make it work through a hack or something but I guess not =(

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3 minutes ago, Kilobytez95 said:

I assume there's no way to "hack" it?

Simplifying it, the first thing the CPU is going to do is execute BIOS/UEFI. It's hard coded. So you would need yet another firmware to sit in that spot that would let you switch. And that's assuming firmware that uses legacy BIOS as the standard is even available for your board.

 

So just find the Legacy Boot option for your motheboard and see if you can boot Windows 7 from there.

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Just now, M.Yurizaki said:

Simplifying it, the first thing the CPU is going to do is execute BIOS/UEFI. It's hard coded. So you would need yet another firmware to sit in that spot that would let you do it. And that's assuming firmware that uses legacy BIOS as the standard is even available for your board.

 

So just find the Legacy Boot option for your motheboard and see if you can boot Windows 7 from there.

Seems like I will need to use an old HDD for my Windows 7 installation. I was hoping I could use my SSD but I doubt there's a way to make it work in dual boot like I need it to.

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Some motherboards (particularly nicer ones) will use UEFI, then switch to legacy if no boot able media is found. That's as good as you'll get. Could you explain why you don't want Windows 7 on GPT? Maybe we can help you there. 

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Just now, JoostinOnline said:

Some motherboards (particularly nicer ones) will use UEFI, then switch to legacy if no boot able media is found. That's as good as you'll get. Could you explain why you don't want Windows 7 on GPT? Maybe we can help you there. 

My board supports that. I need MBR for my Win7 OS because the software I'm trying to run won't run if it's partitioned as GPT. It's hard coded for MBR for some reason.

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What the heck are you trying to accomplish exactly? I run a triple boot of Win7 Win10 and Ubuntu from my primary GPT NVMe SSD on my laptop and have a second SATA SSD for a dedicated Hackintosh install. Most modern UEFI BIOS also offer legacy boot, but that is only necessary in the first place if you are using an old-format MBR hard drive. You can triple boot in MBR or GPT, so I'm not really sure why you are putting this synthetic limitation on yourself.

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Just now, Kilobytez95 said:

My board supports that. I need MBR for my Win7 OS because the software I'm trying to run won't run if it's partitioned as GPT. It's hard coded for MBR for some reason.

UEFI supports booting off MBR. Again, if anything, you need to enable the legacy boot option on it.

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1 minute ago, maleko48 said:

What the heck are you trying to accomplish exactly? I run a triple boot of Win7 Win10 and Ubuntu from my primary GPT NVMe SSD on my laptop and have a second SATA SSD for a dedicated Hackintosh install. Most modern UEFI BIOS also offer legacy boot, but that is only necessary in the first place if you are using an old-format MBR hard drive. You can triple boot in MBR or GPT, so I'm not really sure why you are putting this synthetic limitation on yourself.

I have my reasons. I know I can dual boot 7 and 10 with GPT but I need my 7 install to be MBR. I know it can be done on a signal disk but I woudl prefer to dual boot off the same SSD so I don't have to use a 15 year old HDD for the OS.

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My Tutorials: How To Play Crysis on Linux in DirectX 10 with DXVK Splinter Cell Conviction General Protection Fault Fix

 

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8 minutes ago, Kilobytez95 said:

I have my reasons. I know I can dual boot 7 and 10 with GPT but I need my 7 install to be MBR. I know it can be done on a signal disk but I woudl prefer to dual boot off the same SSD so I don't have to use a 15 year old HDD for the OS.

SSD/HDD makes no difference as far as the install goes (MBR or GPT). Just curious what program won't operate on GPT... Are you on a desktop or laptop?

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3 minutes ago, maleko48 said:

SSD/HDD makes no difference as far as the install goes (MBR or GPT). Just curious what program won't operate on GPT... Are you on a desktop or laptop?

Desktop and I'm aware of that. I'm trying to run some obscure extraction software from like China or something and it only seems to work on MBR systems for some reason.

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My Tutorials: How To Play Crysis on Linux in DirectX 10 with DXVK Splinter Cell Conviction General Protection Fault Fix

 

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Do you only have a single SSD? You could attempt a hybrid drive setup but idk if that will make your program work or not and I wouldn't try using it long term.

 

LOTS OF LINKS:
https://superuser.com/questions/833355/is-it-possible-to-have-one-mbr-partition-and-one-gpt-partition-on-the-same-drive#833384

https://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/hybrid.html

https://superuser.com/questions/1005392/installing-windows-10-windows-cant-be-installed-on-mbr-convert-to-gpt

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2662592/install-win-mbr-disk.html
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/convert-mbr-to-gpt-disk

https://www.disk-partition.com/help/convert-gpt-mbr-disk.html

https://www.easeus.com/partition-master/convert-gpt-disk-to-mbr-disk.html

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/disk-management/change-a-gpt-disk-into-an-mbr-disk

https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/26203-convert-gpt-disk-mbr-disk.html

https://www.partitionwizard.com/help/Convert-GPT-disk-to-MBR-disk.html

https://www.easyuefi.com/resource/convert-gpt-to-mbr.html

https://neosmart.net/wiki/convert-gpt-to-mbr/

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/85757-convert-gpt-disk-mbr-disk-windows-10-a.html

https://superuser.com/questions/939829/convert-disk-with-os-from-gpt-to-mbr

 

There are plenty of PITA workarounds that might work, but why not just convert your drive Win10 is installed on to MBR then add Win7 as a dual boot?

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