Can I combine two OS drives,each with a differnt OS,into one dual boot

[Protheos]

How can I combine two drives, each with a differnt OS, into one bigger, dual OS bootable drive, keeping both OS +apps
I used clonezilla to move all contents of a 259GB OS windows 7 drive onto a new 1.8TB drive. I want to now move all contents of a second 250GB OS windows 10 drive (I have at other times used on the same computer) onto the 1.8TB drive. I want to ultimately have both OS and all programs available to me on the new 1.8TB drive, and be able to boot into either OS and use all the apps and functions, without having to change out my drives from one 250GB original drive to the other 250GB drive. Thus I want to place now, the full content of my second 250GB OS windows 10 drive onto the 1.8TB drive, so I can boot into either drives original content and OS, and apps, from the one new 1.8TB drive. Is this possible? I believe I will have to change some of the partitions on each drive from primary partitions to logical partitions, so as to not exceed placing more than 4 primary partitions on the new 1.8 Hard drive. I think I know how to do that. But otherwise, will this work, and dual book OK, OR how can I proceed to accomplish my goals.

 

[samuria]

Welcome to the forum. It can be done but depends if your disk is gpt or mbr and whether your using uefi or legacy the simple way is to run one as a virtual PC

 

[Megahertz07]

As you already have Win 7 on the disk, you can make another partition on the empty space an then copy win 10 to it. Then with Easy BCD modify the boot loader. EasyBCD - NeoSmart Technologies
I personally think that the best is to have each OS in his own disk, but on a laptop is a different story.

 

[Protheos]

Thank you for your help!! For clarity then, I should only bring over the main partition, disk management calls (Healthy Boot,Page file, Crash Dump, Primary Partition) and leave the 100MB healthy (Recovery Partition) and the 10.00GB healthy (Recovery Partition) behind. I am fine with that, as long as they are not needed for OS 10 to boot. Also I suppose then I do not need to convert any partitions from primary, type partitions, into logical type partitions, as by following this instruction I will not end up with more than the 4 maximum that can, in my limited understanding, abide on a single drive. (I will only have the three in total windows 7 related partitions, and the one main windows 10 partition.) Then by doing as you said, I can use Easy BCD to make both OS bootable. I hope I will be able to figure out how to use BCD to do that, IF I get stuck I will check back with you. If my understanding of your suggestions are correct than I am going to try this. Thank you!

 

[Megahertz07]

I would like to see Disk management from both disks (win 7 and 10).
How did you install win 10 on the 250GB OS windows 10 drive? Did you clone win 7 on it and then did the update or did you do a fresh install?

Did you know that you can have a 256G SSD for Win 7 and Win 10 and replace the ODD with a ODD replacement case for the HDD?
Aluminum Caddy for ODD Laptop Drive Bay - Newegg.com

 

[Protheos]

Thank you, Ok here are the snips of each drive in disk management. This first one is the 250 GB OS 10 drive. I will note that I do not need to move or preserve, the content from partition D. I have already saved that content elsewhere. I only need C, the 10 OS and apps. bootable on the new 1.8 drive.

The second is the new 1.8 TB drive, with the cloned old 250GB OS7 in place, now bootable to OS7 just fine.

 

[Protheos]

Megahertz07, I see I missed a question of yours. The windows 10 on the 250GB drive was put in place over an original OEM windows 7, a couple of years ago, using the then free, windows 10 upgrade Microsoft was offering. The upgrade process worked it's magic on the machine. thank you again

 

[Megahertz07]

As we can see from the Disk management images, both disks has:
- Partition 1 - 10G Recovery. This partition has the Factory Recover Image
- Partition 2 - 100M Recovery. This partition has the Main Boot loader. On the Win 10 installation it has been deactivated.

So, under Win 7, you can you can make another partition (at least 250G) on the empty space of C: win 7 drive and then copy win 10 to it.
Install Macrium Software | Macrium Reflect Free (better than Clonezilla) and try to copy only the Win 10 partition to the unallocated space you created.
Then with Easy BCD modify the boot loader. EasyBCD - NeoSmart Technologies

As you are dealing with disk tools, better do a data backup before you begin.

 

[AddRAM]

And label your OS partitions, Windows 7, Windows 10, etc

 

[Protheos]

In Macrium I think it may be going to delete all of my target disk

As we can see from the Disk management images, both disks has:
- Partition 1 - 10G Recovery. This partition has the Factory Recover Image
- Partition 2 - 100M Recovery. This partition has the Main Boot loader. On the Win 10 installation it has been deactivated.

So, under Win 7, you can you can make another partition (at least 250G) on the empty space of C: win 7 drive and then copy win 10 to it.
Install Macrium Software | Macrium Reflect Free (better than Clonezilla) and try to copy only the Win 10 partition to the unallocated space you created.
Then with Easy BCD modify the boot loader. EasyBCD - NeoSmart Technologies

As you are dealing with disk tools, better do a data backup before you begin.

As you are dealing with disk tools, better do a data backup before you begin.[/QUOTE]

Thank you... Sorry for the delay, had to go out of town. I have followed the above advice. I have copied the main windows 10 partition onto a new partition on the 1.8tb drive. I have used the boot program suggested above, easyBCD to create a new entry in the boot menu, directed to the windows 10 partition, I copied to the new 1.8 drive, on its own D partition. However, when I reboot the computer and select that boot option I get the message "windows can not verify the digital signature for this file" File: /windows/system32/winload.exe I am stuck.... so close and yet so far. How can I fix this, does Megahertz07 or anyone else have any ideas????Thank you. I will attempt to add a shot of this screen. Cant get it to post.... see it here: IMG_20180221_090707.jpg - Google Drive