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I have windows 7 installed on my hard drive (installed it in BIOS mode not UEFI), and I want to buy another hard drive and install ubuntu 16.04 on it through UEFI. When I have both hard drives connected to my motherboard will I be able to choose which OS to boot into when I turn on my computer or would I have to always go into my BIOS and change the boot order?

I was thinking of just installing ubuntu 16.04 on my current hard drive alongside dual boot but I don't know if I can install it in BIOS mode instead of UEFI?

idknuttin
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    Firstly, don't install the two OSs in different boot modes; that will only cause headaches. – wjandrea Aug 17 '17 at 01:56
  • @wjandrea even if they are on different hard drives? – idknuttin Aug 17 '17 at 01:58
  • The short answer is yes, you can install two OSs on different HDDs. I'll try to find you a link for more details. I'm sure a similar question has been asked before. – wjandrea Aug 17 '17 at 01:59
  • yes, even if they are on different HDDs – wjandrea Aug 17 '17 at 01:59
  • @wjandrea then my best option is trying to figure out how to install ubuntu on the same hard drive in bios mode – idknuttin Aug 17 '17 at 02:00
  • @OrganicMarble in that question the op is talking about windows 8.1 which is installed in UEFI mode and in my question I am saying that I have windows 7 installed in BIOS mode and trying to install Ubuntu in UEFI mode. – idknuttin Aug 17 '17 at 02:53
  • It's best if you install both OSs in the same mode. There are many questions on this site from people who didn't do that and ran into problems. – Organic Marble Aug 17 '17 at 03:00
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    What hardware do you have? Some UEFI firmware allows booting either mode, setting a preference for which to boot if both are present. Lenovo W520 has this, so first hard disk as BIOS boot, and the second hard disk as UEFI, select at power on which device to boot. – ubfan1 Aug 17 '17 at 03:27
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    While you can install in different modes, you cannot use grub to dual boot only the UEFI boot menu. And grub only installs to an ESP on drive seen as sda. If Windows is first drive, grub will not correctly install. You could possibly disconnect Windows drive to get Ubuntu to install. Better to reinstall Windows 7 in UEFI mode. You have to copy to flash drive and edit a couple of files to make it UEFI bootable. Or install Ubuntu in BIOS mode on gpt drive with both an ESP and bios-grub partition. Then it could later be easily converted to UEFI boot. – oldfred Aug 17 '17 at 04:06

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