[SOLVED] will the win 7 on hdd confuse the pc(will have dualboot win10 linux on ssd)

[anaturelover]

HI

on my new ssd 500gb i currently have win 10 . I ll install linux on it on dual boot.

i still have my old hhd 1 tera containing the win7 i was using and there are
other partitions on this very hdd containing music movies txt etc.
I do need to have acces to those video music data and they are too voluminous to enter the ssd.


i would like to keep the win7 rapidly accessiblein case i have prob with the dual boot but the question is
if i plug this hdd plus the ssd,
will the pc be confused ? (cause it contains a win7 on the data hddwanting to start)

 

[Colif]

If you attach it to PC and go into bios and make sure its not seen as a boot device, it should be fine.
If the drive is set up as MBR and the dual boot with linux is GPT, you can also set the bios to only boot EUFI boot method and then it wouldn't even see the MBR drive at boot.

 

[anaturelover]

hi
how am i supposed to do that and is the the simpliest way

are partition on ssd always gpt and
thos o nhdd always mbr?

 

[Colif]

I would just try to do the 1st part, if bios can't see the drive it won't matter.

are partition on ssd always gpt and
thos o nhdd always mbr?

No, ssd or hdd can be either mbr or gpt. it depends on which operating system you used them on.
i was assuming win 7 was 32bit and there for might have MBR.

Win 7 32bit can only be MBR
Win 7 64 bit can be either MBR or GPT
Win 10 prefers GPT but will install as MBR if it has to.

 

[anaturelover]

hi how can i check if a disk is is set up as MBR and the dual boot with linux is GPT, ?
win7 is 64 , but lets not make supposition.

 

[Colif]

in win 10, open command prompt (admin)
Type Diskpart and press enter
type list disk and press enter
any drives in the result that have an asterix under GPT are GPT drives.
Since you can only have 1 disk format on a single drive, if win 10 is GPT, so is Linux

Win 7 could be GPT as well, so I would just make sure its not in boot order and you should be okay.

 

[anaturelover]

if i trust that picture, the 1 tera no wich my win7 64 is is mbr but ssd and toshiba hdd gtp.
i have hp elitedesk 800 g1 sff, does this machine use bios or eufi?

 

[Colif]

Yes, disk 0 & 1 are GPT, disk 2 is MBR

PC uses UEFI boot method

UEFI is the bios. See below

up until 2009 all PC used Legacy bios.
They didn't know what a mouse was, you had to use arrow keys on kb to navigate them. They weren't very modifiable, they had to be a certain size and were only 32bit.
They only used Legacy boot method (it wasn't called legacy yet)
it uses MBR - MBR stands for Master Boot record
MBR drives can only have 4 partitions and max drive size is 2.2tb
Boot partition on MBR drives is always 1st partition on drive

In 2009 UEFI was released to replace Legacy bios. UEFI stands for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface
it uses a graphical interface that knows what a mouse is
It can be expanded and have new features added
It can use UEFI or Legacy boot method
It can boot MBR drives since it was made to replace BIOS, it had to be backwards compatible.
It also supports GPT drives. GPT stands for GUID (GUID = Global Unique ID - every GPT drive on earth has its own number) Partition Table
GPT drives can have up to 256 partitions and max drive size is a silly 18.8 million tb
Boot partition on a GPT drive can be anywhere.

All Windows PC before win 7 used MBR
Win 7 32bit uses MBR only
Win 7 64bit can be MBR or GPT
win 10 64 bit can also be either but it prefers GPT

the 2 boot methods are UEFI or Legacy

UEFI boot method can boot both MBR & GPT drives (as you found in other thread)
Legacy can only boot MBR, it doesn't know what GPT is for booting

 

[anaturelover]

ok tx i ll try to figure out if the win7 on the tera mbr can boot alone in the other post and then all come back here