How to choose which drive to boot from, OUTSIDE of bios.

Question

How to choose which drive to boot from, OUTSIDE of bios.

Anonymous

Hello. I recently built a new system with dual operating systems on different internal ssd's. My question is, is there a way to choose what drive to boot before windows starts up? I have a editing side and gaming side and I would like the option to choose which drive to boot from without having to do it in bios each time turn on computer or restart it. Both Drives are installed with windows 10 pro. Thanks in advance....

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6 answers

Answer 1

Pauli O 15,375 Volunteer Moderator

You can select default boot drive using 'msconfig' (push Win key and type: msconfig).

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Answer 2

If you have installed Windows on first disk, disconnected that disk and install Windows to second disk then it's not build boot menu to select which windows to boot. If that's the case then that boot menu must build.

Easiest its done with EasyBCD:

Set your main disk to boot disk on bios
Boot to Windows
Install EasyBCD
Open "Edit Boot Menu" (Only one is shown)
Open Add New entry
Select G:\ (Another Windows disk)
Click "Add Entry"
Open "Edit Boot Menu" (Two entries shoud be seen)
Rename those entries, check "Use Metro bootloader", set time to wait boot selection
Save settings, close EasyBCD
Check with 'msconfig'
Restart, on first boot you may see some short disk check, let it run.

When everything is working you can uninstall EasyBCD if you wish.

Here is screenshots how I did this with two separate test disks on my test environment:

(See disk configuration screenshot end of this posting.)

More info about EasyBCD

https://neosmart.net/wiki/easybcd/basics/adding-entries/

Running Windows set always used boot drive as drive C: and then add next letters to another disks.

If you don't want to see another Windows disk when another one is running then right click start button and open Disk Management. Right click that disk you want to hide, select "Change Drive letter-...." and then select Remove.

Don't mind warning at this step. Now running Windows see only its own disk.

When dual boot is in use it's better to disable "Fast Startup".

Open Control panel / power options
On left click "Choose what the power button do"
Click "Change settings that are currently unavailable"
Un-check "Turn on fast statup"

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Answer 3

Brian Tillman 24,875 Independent Advisor

Hold the Shift key and restart the PC. You should get the Windows 10 boot options screen. One of the choices is "Choose another operating system" which should allow you to pick a different installation of Windows.

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Answer 4

Its only showing my default boot drive. Its not showing my other drive. It is also running Wndows 10. It is also Labled"C"when Im in that drive but it Its labled "G" when i view it from the other system. Could that be the issue?

I thought of this causing some kind of conflict but changing the main drives path from"c" to anything else i was told was going to cause problems.

Answer 5

Hello and thank you for contacting us. My name is Angelo and I am an Independent Adviser on here.

Try this program

https://neosmart.net/EasyBCD/

Install the free version

Regards

Angelo

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Thankyou. is there a way to do it without running 3rd party apps?

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How to choose which drive to boot from, OUTSIDE of bios.

6 answers