Dual and Multi boot systems

[APTI]

One thing many people do is make systems that will boot more than one choice of operating systems. This little article is a new and better way to do this. Often we have to fix the multi boot systems because an update changed something and damaged our grub configuration. Windows is especially good at doing this. So here is the best way to do this that allows you do make a multiboot system without having to do anything to grub or play with configurations.

This can only be done in a system that can accept more than one drive and an expansion card.

What you will need.

1.. One hard drive for each Operating System you want to install. (M.2 chips are not supported for this, must be SATA Drive)
2.. purchase one of these items.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MJ8YTXV used for full height slots and supports 4 drives
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07ZVTZVYD used for half height slots and supports up to 3 drives.

Install the board into the computer and it will control the power to each hard drive via a button on the back of the card / computer. You simply turn on the drives you want to use and turn off the ones you do not. You may set a boot order in bios still and I suggest you set a linux drive as the 1st boot and windows drives as the last ones. Reason for this is if you leave windows drives turned on along with linux drives, you will boot to linux which allows linux to access the windows drives. Windows can not see linux drives so it is pointless to boot windows and leave linux on. However with linux drives as boot priority in BIOS you will be able to access the windows drives from linux by leaving them turned on along with linux.

When installing the OS on each drive make sure it is the only one turned on. This will limit the OS to only that drive and will not try to do anything fancy with other drives. This separation also keeps all updates especially windows updates from affecting anything other than the drive they are on. That means no problems with grub or anything else as each OS is physically separated.

Obviously you choose the boot drive before turning on the system power, you can't hot swap and choose.

This configuration will remain in effect regardless of changes to any of the operating systems. This keeps your configuration safe and stable.

I have a triple boot with windows 7 windows 10 and Linux Fedora. No issues with updates or any other problems. I select what I need to use and everything is stable. Since I do not trust windows online I can download things in linux and send the download directly to the windows drive to install next time I boot on that drive.

 

[bob466]

I never Dual Boot...use Virtualbox to run my w7 VM it's not connected to the net either.

 

[APTI]

I use VM also anytime I can for windows. However a VM can not handle games nor any 3d graphics. There are things that can't run in VM and for that we have dual boot but I just tell how to do it easy.

 

[dos2unix]

If your motherboard supports multiple M.2 cards, you can disable one in some UEFIs.
I have two internal M.2 drives, an internal SATA/SSD drive, and an external HDD ( spindle type )
hard drive. I can boot from any of them, I just press F11 to get a boot menu.

I can also specify a boot order, if I want to boot from the external drive, it will let me.
I do agree it's best to disable all drives that you aren't installing to. Some distro's want to share
the boot partition. That's not always a bad thing, but I prefer to be able to boot stand alone.

 

[APTI]

If your motherboard supports multiple M.2 cards, you can disable one in some UEFIs.
I have two internal M.2 drives, an internal SATA/SSD drive, and an external HDD ( spindle type )
hard drive. I can boot from any of them, I just press F11 to get a boot menu.

I can also specify a boot order, if I want to boot from the external drive, it will let me.
I do agree it's best to disable all drives that you aren't installing to. Some distro's want to share
the boot partition. That's not always a bad thing, but I prefer to be able to boot stand alone.

that is how this works, each is a stand alone. and you do not have to crawl around the BIOS to boot what you want. plus if windows is in the mix it likes to hide the BIOS message and just go. Trust me this is the best way to do dual boot without issues. M.2 is different and haven't found a way to deal with them so easy in dual boot. Remember we want to make is easy.

 

[wizardfromoz]

@APTI , interesting thread

I hope I may ask a few questions on it, as I think of them?

Under your method

1. Do I take it correctly that if you open your FM (File Manager) you cannot see the other Distros and their partitions, because you have isolated yourself to the Distro running?
2. If so, then I take it the same applies with opening an instance of GParted or other Partition Editor?

I'll likely have more, lol.

TIA

Chris

 

[APTI]

@APTI , interesting thread

I hope I may ask a few questions on it, as I think of them?

Under your method

1. Do I take it correctly that if you open your FM (File Manager) you cannot see the other Distros and their partitions, because you have isolated yourself to the Distro running?
2. If so, then I take it the same applies with opening an instance of GParted or other Partition Editor?

I'll likely have more, lol.

TIA

Chris

That may or may not be true. If you have the drive off then you are correct. nothing can access them because they are physically powered down. However you can access them if they are on then the BIOS boot order will take over. In my case I have Windows 7 Windows 10 and Fedora 38 on one PC. If all drives are powered on I boot Fedora by default. I can then also access the other drives. If I turn off the Fedora drive I boot windows 10 and if the windows 7 drive is turned on I can access it also but not the Fedora drive because it is powered off, not to mention windows can't read many linux file systems.

 

[wizardfromoz]

I understand, thanks.

So is it the case, then, from the title


Dual and Multi boot systems

that you are positing this for booting maybe a couple of different Windows versions with a Linux, or would you suggest the same for someone who wants to boot only several Distros of different GNU-Linux?

Cheers

Wiz

 

[f33dm3bits]

I use VM also anytime I can for windows. However a VM can not handle games nor any 3d graphics. There are things that can't run in VM and for that we have dual boot but I just tell how to do it easy.

If you have two gpu's you can do a pci passthrough of the second gpu to your vm, then your vm can handle 3d graphics. However some anti-cheat software defects if Windows is running in a vm and doesn't like that.