having two separate operating systems on 2 separate hdds

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maq_

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Sorry to be a noob but i just wanted to find out if it is possible to swap out a hard drive without affecting original os.

So basically got a laptop with a genuine windows on the hard drive. Would like to replace it with a ssd with linux but when i need to (which won't be often) i just want to be able to plug back the old original hdd and run my laptop with windows. will it work or will the bios read it as a new drive which i will have to format or perhaps there is a risk of the drive getting corrupted, etc? i don't want to run a partition and i don't want to have to go through the whole route of reloading the os again,etc.
 
Install one OS on the one drive. Unplug that drive and install another on the other drive.

Plug both in and set the boot priority in BIOS. If you need to boot from the other drive, change the priority in the BIOS again.

Hope this is what you asked :o
 
it should work,as long as the drivers your laptop needs are on both will work fine
 
Yes setup everything on the one HDD as normal. Power down laptop and swap out to SSD, install linux as normal. Swap HDD's whenever needed and it'll work fine.

Obviously anything saved to the one HDD won't be transferred to the other.
 
Definitely possible.
I have a laptop I use for work and home with 2 separate HDDs.

At work - Use the internal drive.

At home - Boot off my Hybrid in a USB3 enclosure.
 
Yup, been doing it for years...hell I still have the old hard disks I can boot up now with WinXP on them...
 
Another option if your laptop has a removable optical drive is to replace it with a hdd drive caddy, this way you can have both drives installed & select which one to boot from at startup. Who uses a optical drive anyways?
 
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