two hard drives, two OS

Bruce, can you post the make and model of your motherboard?

It sounds like there may be confusion about the BIOS settings and how to select a drive during start up. When you start up the computer it goes through the POST - that's the "stuff" you see rolling by - usually starts with text and may the go to a graphic+text. On that screen you may see something like: Press DEL for BIOS / F12 for BOOT SELECT (whatever else your motherboard offers).

Entering the BIOS (DEL on my computer) opens the BIOS settings - it is here where you set the default boot devise order. This default is the order the computer tries until it finds the first bootable devise in your list (decending order).

You can bypass that boot order list during the POST - you do not enter the BIOS set up - by pressing the key listed on the POST screen (mine is F12). This opens a screen (mine is text based) where I scroll down to "Drives" (your label may be different but does the same thing), open "Drives" which is the listing of all the drive on the system - the order of the list is based on the socket number on your motherboard (e.g., SATA1, SATA2, SATA3, SATA4, etc.) but the LABEL may be the model of the drive instead of the SATA socket number.

So, my list looks like this:

WD5000AAKS
WD3200AAKS
HD1013SJ
ST63500418AS

I know what OS is loaded on each - I select the desired drive and boot to it.

This method is very easy/simple and takes no more time to select/boot than a boot manager. The primary benefit to the method is reduced writes to the Master Boot Record, no error messags if one drive is removed (for any reason).

Following this method you do NOT have to "start over" or load and configure any software.

Regards,
GEWB

BruceMyers48 said:

GEWB, How would I go about marking this thread solved?

It's already been done, see the green check mark by the thread title?


You use the little red triangle at the top right of every post.