Can you have drives with different OS on a system?

[Geettttt]

Recently took out an HDD (OS : windows 7) from one of my old laptops, and I was wondering if I could put it in my PC. I have a PC with an SSD (OS installed: Windows 10) and an HDD as storage. I do space on my PC to do it and also have an extra SATA cable and power cable for it. Do I need an extra program to have to 2 drives with different OSs? If it would work, do I select which drive I want to boot up or...

 

[USAFRet]

Can you have 2 different OS's in one system? Yes.

Recently took out an HDD (OS : windows 7) from one of my old laptops

That, however, is unlikely to work in a whole different system, especially a desktop.

 

[Geettttt]

Can you have 2 different OS's in one system? Yes.

Recently took out an HDD (OS : windows 7) from one of my old laptops

That, however, is unlikely to work in a whole different system, especially a desktop.

So laptop drives don't as well on desktops?

 

[USAFRet]

Can you have 2 different OS's in one system? Yes.

Recently took out an HDD (OS : windows 7) from one of my old laptops

That, however, is unlikely to work in a whole different system, especially a desktop.

So laptop drives don't as well on desktops?

It's not the physical drive, but rather the OS installed on it.
It would be the same the other way...if you had a 2.5" drive in a desktop, with installed OS...and then put that drive in a laptop...no boot for you.

 

[Geettttt]

So I there any way I can get access to the drive? Do you know if there is any hardware that can?

 

[USAFRet]

So I there any way I can get access to the drive? Do you know if there is any hardware that can?

Access to the drive? Sure. Just plug it in. It will be seen as just another drive letter. Most/all of the data on it accessible.
Boot from that drive? 98-2 against.

And there is no special sauce to make it work.

 

[USAFRet]

Can you have 2 different OS's in one system? Yes.

Recently took out an HDD (OS : windows 7) from one of my old laptops

That, however, is unlikely to work in a whole different system, especially a desktop.

So laptop drives don't as well on desktops?

It's not the physical drive, but rather the OS installed on it.
It would be the same the other way...if you had a 2.5" drive in a desktop, with installed OS...and then put that drive in a laptop...no boot for you.

So I there any way I can get access to the drive? Do you know if there is any hardware that can?

Access to the drive? Sure. Just plug it in. It will be seen as just another drive letter. Most/all of the data on it accessible.
Boot from that drive? 98-2 against.

And there is no special sauce to make it work.

So I boot up the pc and then plugin the sata cable and the power cable to the drive or do I put in the cables and drive then turn on the pc?

1. Verify your current drive is #1 in the boot order
2. Power off
3. Connect that laptop dive, data and power cables
4. Power up
5. That drive should be seen as just another drive letter.

Or, you could buy a USB dock. Handy to have around for random drives like this.

 

[Geettttt]

Can you have 2 different OS's in one system? Yes.

Recently took out an HDD (OS : windows 7) from one of my old laptops

That, however, is unlikely to work in a whole different system, especially a desktop.

So laptop drives don't as well on desktops?

It's not the physical drive, but rather the OS installed on it.
It would be the same the other way...if you had a 2.5" drive in a desktop, with installed OS...and then put that drive in a laptop...no boot for you.

So I there any way I can get access to the drive? Do you know if there is any hardware that can?

Access to the drive? Sure. Just plug it in. It will be seen as just another drive letter. Most/all of the data on it accessible.
Boot from that drive? 98-2 against.

And there is no special sauce to make it work.

So I boot up the pc and then plugin the sata cable and the power cable to the drive or do I put in the cables and drive then turn on the pc?

1. Verify your current drive is #1 in the boot order
2. Power off
3. Connect that laptop dive, data and power cables
4. Power up
5. That drive should be seen as just another drive letter.

Or, you could buy a USB dock. Handy to have around for random drives like this.

Well I did that and made sure that the SSD had boot priority, shut down installed the drive and power it up. It booted up fine, but the drive was not recognized, so I think the drive is dead. Anyway thanks for you help.

 

[photonboy]

To be CLEAR...

1) Using the OS from the other PC is not going to work properly due to licensing or setup issues with drivers.

2) You should:
a) hook it up
b) bootup to the normal drive (not the one you just attached from laptop)
c) COPY any data you need off the drive, then
d) FORMAT the drive to wipe all data (do a FULL NTFS format so that it will build up a bad sector table)

Other:
If you really wanted to dual boot you could but generally booting multiple Windows versions is pointless (and you'd need to buy a legal version), and unless you use Linux that's pointless as well.

*The best use might be to create a BACKUP IMAGE of your current drive in case of failure and store that on the laptop drive. Acronis True Image or similar.