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Pros / Cons of Multi-boot, Multi-Disk Partition Scheme With SSD
Hello everybody,
I'm reletively new on this forum and I've spent a lot of time reading posts here concerning innovative installation methods and various approaches to partitioning. This forum really has some great info and users!
I'm an old school guy going back to the days before PCs even existed. Electronics has always circulated in my bloodstream. I'm an old dog but open to new tricks.
I decided to overhaul my primary workhorse computer (See this thread for full description) by adding an SSD and rearranging my drivespace, as one of my drives was failing. I had an 80GB Vertex2 SSD scavanged from another system and thus I hatched my new partition scheme to use it.
Long story short is that after multiple trials I came to the conclusion the SSD was causing me much trouble, probably failing due to it's age. 80GB was a mighty tight fit anyway to boot 3 operating systems. So today I ordered a new SSD, a low cost 120GB Sandisk Plus from Amazon, paying less than $40 including shipping by using a discount coupon I had.
At this point I'm asking myself whether I should scrap all of the MBR partitioned disks and use only GPT disks. In reading this thread I see it's now possible to boot Windows installed on GPT using a non UEFI, legacy BIOS, which is good b/c that's all my mobo supports. That thread also requires at least a minimal MBR image, be it on a floppy VHD or other virtual image, or via some other clever "trick" to allow either winload.exe or bootmgr to live in the MBR world but still be able to find the %SYSROOT% partition on GPT media.
I think this reboot.pro post is the approach that best matches my requirements and I am going to use it if I can. It's a matter of whether I can obtain all of the pieces, like the modified wimboot. My days of Windows development are long gone, and I am no longer familiar with the tools. Almost everything is .Net now. Linux, on the other hand is where any dev work I do takes place. I'll have to look at the github info and see if the changes to wimboot are within my skills and desire to do.
On the other hand I could stick with the simple MBR scheme for the SSD as I began with, and avoid the need to use clever tricks to boot Windows 7. That won't work to boot Windows 10, I'll need to use the bag of tricks for that. So that being the case why not go GPT all the way?
So I'd like to hear from any of you out there who have built a similar multi-boot system and have input as to the pros and cons of a GPT only vs mixed MBR + GPT partitioning scheme, or if you have any words of wisdom regarding optimmizing Windows for use with an SSD. I've been reading those threads here too, good info for sure, but if you have anything to add I"m all ears.