[SOLVED] Dual boot windows 10, what's the best way?

[Pc6777]

I wanted to make a system dual boot windows 10 with sepreate c drives(not logically, physically different c drives). And I wanted to make it so they have different drives they can access and not access. So for example on my one machine i would disable all drives besides 1, and the other boot it would have some drives enabled and some drives disabled. I was thinking I should do this at a bios level and switch machines from there, unless there is a better way. On one machine i would have internet and get windows updates, on the other machine I will run 20h2 and never update it unless I decide to manually update with boot disc. and never let it touch the internet and do offline stuff on there. I also want to make sure microsoft can't snoop in disabled drives, beacuase I don't want microsoft spying on my offline drives when I'm using the online boot c drive. I want 2 sepreate machines with dual boot and make it so my offline machine and online machine can't look at each other at all and there's like a firewall in between them. Also one of the drives will be a usb 3 drive, but I can disable that device just like a sata device I assume? And I will leave it plugged in all the time.

 

[USAFRet]

2 discreet bunches of drives.
Maybe one external, to swap data back and forth.

Physically connect/disconnect as needed.

 

[Pc6777]

2 discreet bunches of drives.
Maybe one external, to swap data back and forth.

Physically connect/disconnect as needed.

I wanted to be able to not have to physically disconnect, is that required for what I want? I want everything plugged in at all times but certain drives completely disabled depending on what drive I boot from.

 

[USAFRet]

"completely disabled"

You can mount/unmount as needed.
But having that be the default for OS #1, and different for OS #2....that's a pain.
And still may not be "completely"

You could probably rig up a ganged power switch, for each selection of drives.

Or, the easiest way....2 individual systems.
What will these 2 systems be used for?

 

[Pc6777]

"completely disabled"

You can mount/unmount as needed.
But having that be the default for OS #1, and different for OS #2....that's a pain.
And still may not be "completely"

You could probably rig up a ganged power switch, for each selection of drives.

Or, the easiest way....2 individual systems.
What will these 2 systems be used for?

One for gaming, watching movies, browsing the web(online machine) and the other machine will be offline for it's entire duration of use and never touch the internet for use with personal files that I don't want microsoft collecting data on and maybe some movie watching/stuff I can do offline. So pretty much one online machine and one offline machine with a firewall/barrier between the drives and the machines.

 

[USAFRet]

One for gaming, watching movies, browsing the web(online machine) and the other machine will be offline for it's entire duration of use and never touch the internet for use with personal files that I don't want microsoft collecting data on and maybe some movie watching/stuff I can do offline. So pretty much one online machine and one offline machine with a firewall/barrier between the drives and the machines.

Easier solution:

Have those "personal files" on an external drive or two.
When you want to access those and don't want Bill Gates to see what you're doing....connect that drive and unplug the LAN cable.

Drives offline when you want, outside access disabled when you want.

 

[Pc6777]

Easier solution:

Have those "personal files" on an external drive or two.
When you want to access those and don't want Bill Gates to see what you're doing....connect that drive and unplug the LAN cable.

Drives offline when you want, outside access disabled when you want.

I could do that, I would still rather just have sepreate machines with physically different drives accessible/disabled, I will think about that though, or I could always run a vm but I'm not sure if microsoft has any backdoors into vms you run even if the vm is offline.

 

[USAFRet]

If a VM is offline...it is OFFLINE.
They're not reading into every VHD, to see what you have in there.

Alternate thought....an encrypted drive or volume.
VeraCrypt.

Put your data or VMs in that.
No, they cannot crack into that.

 

[Pc6777]

If a VM is offline...it is OFFLINE.
They're not reading into every VHD, to see what you have in there.

Alternate thought....an encrypted drive or volume.
VeraCrypt.

Put your data or VMs in that.
No, they cannot crack into that.

I will ethier do a vm or just dual boot from bios, I always use ssds for boot so load times won't be so bad. And your positive, if I disable drives in device manager and delete them on my online windows boot, those drives still won't be snooped on even thought they are physically connected and just disabled/unmounted though software? I would rather not have to constantly unplug stuff and just configure it the way I want and never have to mess with wires.