Reinstalling Dual Boot System - Maybe

Edwin · 18 May 2015

Wynona said:

I just thought of one more thing . . .

My hard drive has several small "partitions" with this or that on it. Since I won't need the OEM stuff any more, would it be a good idea to just go to bare metal and make it one large hard drive again, deleting all the stuff Windows has added? Once that's done, I'd format the hard drive, partition it and then install Windows in its own partition, allowing it to create whatever it wants to.

Am I thinking right?

That's what I do, mind you, mine is strictly a Legacy BIOS with MBR Partition types.
So many machines can be very different.

Reinstalling Dual Boot System - Maybe-1.jpg

Charlie · 18 May 2015

Yep, I would boot Partition Wiz and delete and add it all back together then make a couple of partitions. Boot 8 and let it install on the 1st one. It should make the 300 mg system partition. Then do ten on the next one. Is that what you was thinkin?

Wynona · 18 May 2015

Charlie said:

Yep, I would boot Partition Wiz and delete and add it all back together then make a couple of partitions. Boot 8 and let it install on the 1st one. It should make the 300 mg system partition. Then do ten on the next one. Is that what you was thinkin?

Yup.

What's Partition Wiz, please?

Wynona · 18 May 2015

No hurry in answering my questions. I probably won't get to it until late tomorrow . . . that is if I'm not too exhausted from all the stress. :)

Wynona · 18 May 2015

Edwin said:

That's what I do, mind you, mine is strictly a Legacy BIOS with MBR Partition types.
So many machines can be very different.

It's amazing, Edwin, how easy it is once I figured out how to read the 'structions. :)

Charlie · 18 May 2015

Wynona said:

Yup.

What's Partition Wiz, please?

http://www.partitionwizard.com/download.html

alphanumeric · 19 May 2015

On a clean install I delete all partitions except my Data partition where my pictures and music etc is. On my laptop it will have the extra EFI partition as it has UEFI BIOS. Windows will just recreate the ones it needs during the install. I do it all from Windows during the install, I just select advanced to get the option to the disk tools and the option to delete partitions. What boot menu you get may depend on what OS you set as default. Example, if you were dual booting with Windows 7 and set it as default, you'd get the older Windows 7 style boot menu. Switch it to Windows 8 and after a reboot it toggles over to the Windows 8 boot menu. I think that's how it went. Haven't dual booted in a long time. Dual booting 8 and 10 you may not even see a difference. It used to be install the oldest OS first, not sure that still applies though.

CountMike · 19 May 2015

When you BOOT with Win 8 media you get options to kill or change all the partitions, You can define a partition to W8 and leave the other for Win 10 when you start installing it. Just make sure you install 10 on right partition and go for New Installation and not Upgrade.

Wynona · 19 May 2015

CountMike said:

When you BOOT with Win 8 media you get options to kill or change all the partitions, You can define a partition to W8 and leave the other for Win 10 when you start installing it. Just make sure you install 10 on right partition and go for New Installation and not Upgrade.

Speaking of which, Rufus does work with Windows 8 on a flash drive? Build it just the same as Windows 10?

I'm about ready to get this ball rolling down the hillside.

alphanumeric · 19 May 2015

I just do it with Diskpart, works with UEFI and legacy BIOS.