Thinkpads Forum

Hi I,m considering setting up my system (7658-18U) as a dual boot unit,I,ve got Windows 7 Enterprise running on a Samsung 830 Pro 256gb SSD,in the ultra bay I,ve got a WD640gb Scorpio blue HDD this is the drive I want to put a second OS on,I,ve downloaded a copy of Windows 10 for Enterprise through my MS TechNet membership,its good until April 2015,I just want to more or less play around with it.I,m running BIOS 2.29 108 Middleton version.Anyone experienced with dual booting these machines?Your input would be much appreciated.

Cheers,Larry

I've got all my Thinkpads dual and triple booting. Nothing as new as Windows 10 but my general experience is that Windows installers can mess with things and I generally install an OS on a bare drive--I have a couple of old 80gb drives for that purpose. Then I image the OS partition on that drive and move it to the drive I want it on. I currently use a free program, Aomei Backupper, for that purpose. I use the Aomei Partition Assistant as well for adjusting partitions in the drive. In the past I used PowerQuest Partition Magic and Drive Image.

Having the OSes on separate drives is the safest option by far. I wouldn't let the Windows installer--or a Linux installer--touch my main drive and would have it completely removed when installing a new OS.

MisterB wrote:
Having the OSes on separate drives is the safest option by far. I wouldn't let the Windows installer--or a Linux installer--touch my main drive and would have it completely removed when installing a new OS.

A very solid piece of advice right here.

About dual boot the answer was given. F12 can help choosing boot device (main / ultrabay) from startup, but i don't know how hibirnate (sleep) state was affected by boot device choosing.
But i don't understand this:

gloppppp wrote:I,ve got Windows 7 Enterprise running on a Samsung 830 Pro 256gb SSD, in the ultra bay

In ultrabay you can get 150Mbps MAX. With already installed BIOD you can get 300 in main HDD bay - which is more sutable for SSD.

ajkula66 wrote:

Having the OSes on separate drives is the safest option by far. I wouldn't let the Windows installer--or a Linux installer--touch my main drive and would have it completely removed when installing a new OS.

A very solid piece of advice right here.

Solid - yes, but not always practical. For example if you want more operating system than you have drives (not the case here, but some folks do like to try many different OSes). But in this case it's probably fine.

In case you do have to use a single drive (with partitions) - this advice usually works: to avoid issues with boot loaders messing things up - always install the older OS before the newer one. This way the newer installer can take over, and it will succeed in managing both.

dr_st wrote: In case you do have to use a single drive (with partitions) - this advice usually works: to avoid issues with boot loaders messing things up - always install the older OS before the newer one. This way the newer installer can take over, and it will succeed in managing both.

Another excellent piece of advice...

Don't forget that NONE of these slots (neither hard drive bay nor Ultrabay) were made for regular drive-removal!
I'd guesstimate that after 25 removals of either one, problems MAY start because of unforeseen wear on the bay-contacts!

If your a revolving door of OS changing then look at VM's, or invest in a few spare HDD caddies.

The spare HD caddies are not the problem, swapping them out is exactly what I warned against in my previous post!

I just took a look at my Ultrabay SATA caddy which has definitely been inserted and removed far more the 25 times. Probably several hundred times in all. It's been used every time I upgrade or change a drive on all my SATA Thinkpads including several I've sold and every time I image a drive or partition. All in all it's holding up pretty well. The Ultabay connector is a pretty delicate piece of hardware. Much more delicate than the SATA connector on the drive which is actually pretty rugged. I think being careful will help. Any misalignment when inserting will definitely mess things up.

Multibooting is something that takes some practice and experience. There are several ways to accomplish it and it's best to learn on system that isn't being used for anything important so you don't have to panic when the mbr gets messed up and you have to figure out how to fix it. That's why I recommend using at least a different hard disk to start out with if not a spare Thinkpad.

It was actually the support for different OSes and multiboot possibilites that attracted me to Thinkpads in the first place. After taking it to extremes with my first Thinkpad, the 770X which supported every version of Windows from 3.1 to XP plus OS/2, I do it in a more pragmatic fashion these days and the second OS is there for backup and security purposes. If one OS crashes, I boot the other one and restore an image of the first. I also test software compatibility in different Windows versions by multibooting.

RealBlackStuff wrote:Don't forget that NONE of these slots (neither hard drive bay nor Ultrabay) were made for regular drive-removal!
I'd guesstimate that after 25 removals of either one, problems MAY start because of unforeseen wear on the bay-contacts!

SATA is having a designlife for 50 matings.

Hello again,I see that my question has been misread,I,ll say again my primary drive (ID-0) containing WIN7 is a 256gb Samsung 830 pro SSD,my secondary drive located in ultrabay is a WD640gb (ID-1)this is also the drive I wish to install WIN10 onto,I,m currently as stated running Middleton BIOS.

Cheers,Larry

You need to simply set up your ultrabay drive with Win 10 on its own as a bootable HDD without the SSD present. When the W10 instal is working ok then replug the SSD and choose which one to boot from in the bios or using F12. You can change the boot disk as often as you like without replugging either.
It might be best to hide the unwanted partitions on the other disk from the booted disk using disk management (or whatever it is called in W10) to avoid any duplication.
This is not true dual booting as such but will work just as well.

JBUK wrote:You need to simply set up your ultrabay drive with Win 10 on its own as a bootable HDD without the SSD present. When the W10 instal is working ok then replug the SSD and choose which one to boot from in the bios or using F12. You can change the boot disk as often as you like without replugging either.
It might be best to hide the unwanted partitions on the other disk from the booted disk using disk management (or whatever it is called in W10) to avoid any duplication.
This is not true dual booting as such but will work just as well.

I agree with this approach. You don't want your primary drive present when you install Windows 10. It's better not to let a Windows installer see other installations of Windows. This applies to any multiboot scenario whether on one or multiple disks. After installation, the Windows partition can be imaged and transferred to another disk easily. Or, in this case, just kept on its own disk.