Two setups of Windows 10 were implemented.
Two setups of Windows 10 were implemented.
others have done this before with older systems. it's definitely doable, though it can be tricky. you're asking if you can install a fresh, updated version of windows 10 onto a different m.2 drive while keeping your existing legacy installation intact. it’s normal and even common across various operating systems like windows 9x, xp, windows 7, etc. the setup process usually lets you choose which drive to boot from during startup—sometimes via f8 or similar options. just make sure your hardware supports it and that you back up important data before making changes.
I’ve used this approach before for setting up a fresh OS drive. Just plug in the blank disk, install Windows, boot up, and handle whatever tasks are needed before replacing the old one. I haven’t faced any issues with that method, though I haven’t run it continuously. My gut tells me it should be fine.
I've seen others who usually purchase a new drive and set up Windows, but both remain installed when the system starts. It seems they're shown a similar menu to choose which to boot from. When I encountered this, both had identical names, making it confusing initially (like Windows 10). *edit* This might not apply if you install a second OS while the first is already active. If done separately, the option could disappear. You can adjust settings in System Properties > Advanced > Startup and Recovery to change the behavior.
yeah my intuition says thats how it's supposed to work , i just don't want to find out how wrong I am the hard way. is there a boot menu to select which drive or is it only bios controlled
oh yeah, nothing has changed in that space, you can install as many instances as you want and they'll just append to the bootloader. Much simpler than dual booting Windows with Linux. Installing 2 instances of 10 may give you the same label on both though; not entirely sure how that piece is handled. If that happens though then you can easily rename one of the entries with a BCD editor like https://neosmart.net/EasyBCD/
Be mindful of your boot partitions. If Windows detects another HDD (like during installation) it won't make a new partition and will use the existing one. This means each installation needs the other drive connected to boot. UEFI might handle this differently, while BIOS could vary.