Having windows on two disks


  1. April Raine
    Posts : 78
    win 7 home premium 64 bit
       New #1

    Having windows on two disks


    I have windows home premium 64 bit on a 1 TB Disk and have another 1Tb disk in the PC. Outside on the tower i have 500GB disk which sits on top of the tower and is sata connected. Here is an image of the tower and you can see where it sits . My question is can i install windows 7 32 bit on the 500GB and have a dual boot. Would i need some system reserved space and would this be created with the install?

    EDIT I see it does. Just to be sure can anyone see any difficulty with this. I cannot harm my original win 7 64 on C anyway?
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Having windows on two disks-os2.jpg  
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  3. ThrashZone
    Posts : 20,583
    Win-7-Pro64bit 7-H-Prem-64bit
       New #2

    Hi,
    As long as these installs are not using the same activation key you can dual boot as many as you want too.
    If you use the same activation key you're committing copy writes violations and M$ might deactivate all the installs and you'll have to call them to straighten out the mess you created using the same activation key for 2-3.. versions of windows no matter if it 64 bit or 32 bit
    1 key = 1 install.
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  4. April Raine
    Posts : 78
    win 7 home premium 64 bit
    Thread Starter
       New #3

    Thanks. Does that key issue apply even though i got a 32 bit and 64 bit disk with the pc?
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  6. ThrashZone
    Posts : 20,583
    Win-7-Pro64bit 7-H-Prem-64bit
       New #4

    Hi,
    Yes it does have 2 disks only means you can use one or the other with the same key but not both :)
    But you do risk loosing both
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  7. April Raine
    Posts : 78
    win 7 home premium 64 bit
    Thread Starter
       New #5

    OK thanks:)
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  8. April Raine
    Posts : 78
    win 7 home premium 64 bit
    Thread Starter
       New #6

    One more thing, will i get a prompt at boot to choose or will i have to go to the bios each time and change boot sequence.?
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  10. ThrashZone
    Posts : 20,583
    Win-7-Pro64bit 7-H-Prem-64bit
       New #7

    Depends the safest way to install is removing all other drives while installing the other os
    That way it has it's own boot manager or 100mb system reserved partition

    Then you can use the F8 key to get to the boot options on startup and select the drive you want to boot too.
    So no you don't have to enter the bios at all and change anything F8 or F12 depends on what the startup flash screen says for boot options is.
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  11. April Raine
    Posts : 78
    win 7 home premium 64 bit
    Thread Starter
       New #8

    Depends the safest way to install is removing all other drives while installing the other os
    That way it has it's own boot manager or 100mb system reserved partition
    but won't installing windows on it create a reserved partition?
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