Dual boot issue

[bruinator]

Guys, I am trying to dual boot on my pc and it told me I couldnt because ""windows can't be installed to this disk. The selected disk an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, windows can only be installed to GPT disks".

That was according to gparted live. Someone told me that I could "Why not just disable UEFI (Secure Boot) in BIOS? Should allow you to install multiple OS's." so i could dual boot.

Another person told me doing that would be like "Disable the firmware on the motherboard? I don't see the point, but if you smash the motherboard that would certainly "disable" it."

A pc repair place told me i couldn't do it either. Who do i believe? I would like to dual boot, can i?

thx

[ns870152]

try to convert GPT disk to MBR

or change your mainboard :D

[Beamslider]

Not enough information provided to really answer your questions to any extent.

But you can not install on Windows MBR disk with UEFI turned on in bios.

[bruinator]

Not enough information provided to really answer your questions to any extent.

But you can not install on Windows MBR disk with UEFI turned on in bios.

so is it ok to turn it off in bios and then i will be able to dual boot?

[Beamslider]

No......

[emerglines]

Try this trick : http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/15458-uefi-bootable-usb-flash-drive-create-windows.html

[bruinator]

some people tell me yes and some tell me no. I do not know who i should listen to

If i format the partition 8 again, is there an option other than ntfs i should use that will allow me to dual boot?

[bruinator]

Try this trick : http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/15458-uefi-bootable-usb-flash-drive-create-windows.html

Or this?

http://kasperk.it/microsoft-windows/create-windows-8-universal-uefi-enabled-dvd

[DKT27]

You need to convert that drive to GPT.

[badrobot]

Never install a dual boot on the same primary hard drive. It will give you more problems later when you decide to uninstall one of the OSes. Get a secondary drive.

Edited September 12, 2013 by badrobot

[emerglines]

some people tell me yes and some tell me no. I do not know who i should listen to

If i format the partition 8 again, is there an option other than ntfs i should use that will allow me to dual boot?

For most it wouldn't work, but just try the easy one if you can, install a Virtual machine thats it !

[bruinator]

Never install a dual boot on the same primary hard drive. It will give you more problems later when you decide to uninstall one of the OSes. Get a secondary drive.

That is what i want to do but i dont have enough slots on my mobo for expansion. The only way i could do it would be to disconnect the connections from dvd drive and conect them to other sata hd.

Is there an inexpensive way i can use my internal HD as an external one by converting sata cable and power cable into usb adapter and use USB slot?

[emerglines]

Never install a dual boot on the same primary hard drive. It will give you more problems later when you decide to uninstall one of the OSes. Get a secondary drive.

That is what i want to do but i dont have enough slots on my mobo for expansion. The only way i could do it would be to disconnect the connections from dvd drive and conect them to other sata hd.

Is there an inexpensive way i can use my internal HD as an external one by converting sata cable and power cable into usb adapter and use USB slot?

You will kill your hard disk by doing that, just use a virtual machine, an external hard drive isn't for OS usage its just for incident backup or storage hard drive !

[badrobot]

Never install a dual boot on the same primary hard drive. It will give you more problems later when you decide to uninstall one of the OSes. Get a secondary drive.

That is what i want to do but i dont have enough slots on my mobo for expansion. The only way i could do it would be to disconnect the connections from dvd drive and conect them to other sata hd.

Is there an inexpensive way i can use my internal HD as an external one by converting sata cable and power cable into usb adapter and use USB slot?

Do you have an available PCIe x1 slot on your mobo? Just add a PCIe SATA port on your mobo. They are not expensive.

http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=48_19_901&item_id=054270

Edited September 12, 2013 by badrobot

[bruinator]

here is my pc, could you plz tell me if i do have a PCI-e slot? http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c03155043&prodSeriesId=5187034

thx

[badrobot]

here is my pc, could you plz tell me if i do have a PCI-e slot? http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c03155043&prodSeriesId=5187034

thx

You didn't say you have a mini-ITX PC.

Anyway, internal DVD burners costs like $10-$15. What you can do is uninstall your internal DVD burner and get an external one like this one (or you may find cheaper than this one http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3170775&CatId=483 ) and use the vacated SATA port for another hard drive. You may need also to buy a SATA power y-splitter for power supply to the second hard drive if you don't have spare SATA power connector from your power supply.

Edited September 12, 2013 by badrobot

[voodoochile]

ORRR...

just take a look at virtual machines man

forget about second drives, or removing the optical drive, or anything like that,

take a look at Vmware http://www.nsaneforums.com/topic/184548-vmware-workstation-1000-build-1295980/

or virtualbox http://www.nsaneforums.com/topic/184888-virtualbox-4218-88780/

i used to dual boot for many many years, but after discovering vmware I have never dualbooted again

forget about rebooting to boot to the secondary os, forget about drivers for it, forget about repartitioning

in a virtual machine you don't need drivers, you allocate as much space as you want and can resize it later

and you never have to reboot and wait to boot to the os

everything boots up in a virtual machine and you are using two OSs simultaneously

and you can take your virtual machines with you and use it in every other pc you want (using the same program of course)

that's my advice anyway

[bruinator]

ORRR...

just take a look at virtual machines man

forget about second drives, or removing the optical drive, or anything like that,

take a look at Vmware http://www.nsaneforums.com/topic/184548-vmware-workstation-1000-build-1295980/

or virtualbox http://www.nsaneforums.com/topic/184888-virtualbox-4218-88780/

i used to dual boot for many many years, but after discovering vmware I have never dualbooted again

forget about rebooting to boot to the secondary os, forget about drivers for it, forget about repartitioning

in a virtual machine you don't need drivers, you allocate as much space as you want and can resize it later

and you never have to reboot and wait to boot to the os

everything boots up in a virtual machine and you are using two OSs simultaneously

and you can take your virtual machines with you and use it in every other pc you want (using the same program of course)

that's my advice anyway

have used them in the past. Prefer to dual boot. thx

[voodoochile]

ORRR...

just take a look at virtual machines man

forget about second drives, or removing the optical drive, or anything like that,

take a look at Vmware http://www.nsaneforums.com/topic/184548-vmware-workstation-1000-build-1295980/

or virtualbox http://www.nsaneforums.com/topic/184888-virtualbox-4218-88780/

i used to dual boot for many many years, but after discovering vmware I have never dualbooted again

forget about rebooting to boot to the secondary os, forget about drivers for it, forget about repartitioning

in a virtual machine you don't need drivers, you allocate as much space as you want and can resize it later

and you never have to reboot and wait to boot to the os

everything boots up in a virtual machine and you are using two OSs simultaneously

and you can take your virtual machines with you and use it in every other pc you want (using the same program of course)

that's my advice anyway

have used them in the past. Prefer to dual boot. thx

ok, was just trying to promote the advantages of vm versus the (nightmare in my eperience) of dual booting

good luck dude

[badrobot]

ORRR...

just take a look at virtual machines man

forget about second drives, or removing the optical drive, or anything like that,

take a look at Vmware http://www.nsaneforums.com/topic/184548-vmware-workstation-1000-build-1295980/

or virtualbox http://www.nsaneforums.com/topic/184888-virtualbox-4218-88780/

i used to dual boot for many many years, but after discovering vmware I have never dualbooted again

forget about rebooting to boot to the secondary os, forget about drivers for it, forget about repartitioning

in a virtual machine you don't need drivers, you allocate as much space as you want and can resize it later

and you never have to reboot and wait to boot to the os

everything boots up in a virtual machine and you are using two OSs simultaneously

and you can take your virtual machines with you and use it in every other pc you want (using the same program of course)

that's my advice anyway

have used them in the past. Prefer to dual boot. thx

Did you order the external DVD drive you asked me about?

[bruinator]

ORRR...

just take a look at virtual machines man

forget about second drives, or removing the optical drive, or anything like that,

take a look at Vmware http://www.nsaneforums.com/topic/184548-vmware-workstation-1000-build-1295980/

or virtualbox http://www.nsaneforums.com/topic/184888-virtualbox-4218-88780/

i used to dual boot for many many years, but after discovering vmware I have never dualbooted again

forget about rebooting to boot to the secondary os, forget about drivers for it, forget about repartitioning

in a virtual machine you don't need drivers, you allocate as much space as you want and can resize it later

and you never have to reboot and wait to boot to the os

everything boots up in a virtual machine and you are using two OSs simultaneously

and you can take your virtual machines with you and use it in every other pc you want (using the same program of course)

that's my advice anyway

have used them in the past. Prefer to dual boot. thx

Did you order the external DVD drive you asked me about?

no i did not.

[badrobot]

ORRR...

just take a look at virtual machines man

forget about second drives, or removing the optical drive, or anything like that,

take a look at Vmware http://www.nsaneforums.com/topic/184548-vmware-workstation-1000-build-1295980/

or virtualbox http://www.nsaneforums.com/topic/184888-virtualbox-4218-88780/

i used to dual boot for many many years, but after discovering vmware I have never dualbooted again

forget about rebooting to boot to the secondary os, forget about drivers for it, forget about repartitioning

in a virtual machine you don't need drivers, you allocate as much space as you want and can resize it later

and you never have to reboot and wait to boot to the os

everything boots up in a virtual machine and you are using two OSs simultaneously

and you can take your virtual machines with you and use it in every other pc you want (using the same program of course)

that's my advice anyway

have used them in the past. Prefer to dual boot. thx

Did you order the external DVD drive you asked me about?

no i did not.

How much did you get that HP for? Is it new?

[bruinator]

ORRR...

just take a look at virtual machines man

forget about second drives, or removing the optical drive, or anything like that,

take a look at Vmware http://www.nsaneforums.com/topic/184548-vmware-workstation-1000-build-1295980/

or virtualbox http://www.nsaneforums.com/topic/184888-virtualbox-4218-88780/

i used to dual boot for many many years, but after discovering vmware I have never dualbooted again

forget about rebooting to boot to the secondary os, forget about drivers for it, forget about repartitioning

in a virtual machine you don't need drivers, you allocate as much space as you want and can resize it later

and you never have to reboot and wait to boot to the os

everything boots up in a virtual machine and you are using two OSs simultaneously

and you can take your virtual machines with you and use it in every other pc you want (using the same program of course)

that's my advice anyway

have used them in the past. Prefer to dual boot. thx

Did you order the external DVD drive you asked me about?

no i did not.

How much did you get that HP for? Is it new?

1.5 yrs $300...Y?

[badrobot]

ORRR...

just take a look at virtual machines man

forget about second drives, or removing the optical drive, or anything like that,

take a look at Vmware http://www.nsaneforums.com/topic/184548-vmware-workstation-1000-build-1295980/

or virtualbox http://www.nsaneforums.com/topic/184888-virtualbox-4218-88780/

i used to dual boot for many many years, but after discovering vmware I have never dualbooted again

forget about rebooting to boot to the secondary os, forget about drivers for it, forget about repartitioning

in a virtual machine you don't need drivers, you allocate as much space as you want and can resize it later

and you never have to reboot and wait to boot to the os

everything boots up in a virtual machine and you are using two OSs simultaneously

and you can take your virtual machines with you and use it in every other pc you want (using the same program of course)

that's my advice anyway

have used them in the past. Prefer to dual boot. thx

Did you order the external DVD drive you asked me about?

no i did not.

How much did you get that HP for? Is it new?

1.5 yrs $300...Y?

Nothing. I just can't believe there is no room for expansion on that system. I also bought a mini-ITX a year ago (Acer -quad-core- $350-Win 8 ) and it has 1 PCIe x 16, 1 PCIe x1, 2 extra RAM (4 Total) available expansion slots plus an extra SATA port (3 SATA ports total). And the CPU is upgradable. I am using it as an HTPC.

Edited September 13, 2013 by badrobot

[intel_outside]

So hard to answer your question with so little info. You've not mentioned which 2 OS'es you want to dual boot with? Is there any OS already installed?

By some of the results that I've come across on net it appears that MBR does support uefi boot.

As far as using virtual machine or another hdd, I would suggest you that if you're trying to install Win 7 or 8 you can go the vhd way. Just create a new vhd and install OS on it using "imagex" tool. You can google "Installing Win7/8 on vhd using Imagex". Add the vhd to boot menu of existing os installation. You can use Technet help on "Add a Native-Boot VHD to the boot menu" or google "Adding vhd to boot menu" for more. The advantage of vhd would be that 1. Your system would consider it as a separate hdd. 2. You would be able to access all your hardware natively. No performance loss unlike virtual machines. 3. If you are dissatisfied with the vhd os you could just remove it from the boot menu and then delete the vhd file and you are back to your previous single os boot state.

However, as far as my knowledge goes VHD still does not support UEFI. So can't help it on that. Maybe you could set your mb bios to use "Legacy only" or "Legacy first" option instead of UEFI if your mb bios does have those option.

Good Luck.