Creating separate Windows 10 installs on different drives in the same pc

[skyrider002]

Creating one partition with a boot drive and a secondary drive for daily use and mass storage, and a second partition with a single drive kept as lightweight as possible for maximum performance. Both running up to date Windows 10 installs. Can it be done? I would hate to have to resort to physically plugging and unplugging hard drives every time I have to switch.

 

[Colif]

Creating one partition with a boot drive and a secondary drive for daily use and mass storage, and a second partition with a single drive kept as lightweight as possible for maximum performance. Both running up to date Windows 10 installs. Can it be done? I would hate to have to resort to physically plugging and unplugging hard drives every time I have to switch.

short answer: No

extended version. Win 10 not really designed for dual booting with itself. How will 1 install know the other is there? The only way would be to swap drives or run risk of 2nd installer over writing boot info of 1st one

If you installed win 10 the 2nd time, with the 1st install in PC, it will see the boot partition on 1st drive and change that info to the 2nd hdd (if it lets you choose the 2nd hdd during installation).

If you remove 1st install while installing 2nd, neither would see each other and you would have to swap drives

 

[Corwin65]

Your question was answered above by Colif.
This might help: Get an SSD at least 240GB Minimum and try to keep only Windows on it. Install only applications that you need on it. It will stay fast and performance will be great as long as you leave enough empty space.

Just make sure that you disconnect your old drive when installing Windows and until all updates are complete (drivers as well).

 

[USAFRet]

Creating one partition with a boot drive and a secondary drive for daily use and mass storage, and a second partition with a single drive kept as lightweight as possible for maximum performance. Both running up to date Windows 10 installs. Can it be done? I would hate to have to resort to physically plugging and unplugging hard drives every time I have to switch.

Can you do it? Yes.
But this will not give a performance benefit.

The only things that impact performance would be those things that are actually running. Otherwise, it's just files on the drive.

2 identical OS's on the same system just leads to confusion.

What leads you to think that "a single drive kept as lightweight as possible" would lead to "maximum performance" ?