Hardware Dual Boot on separate HDD for GAME/WORK?

[Shokan]

Hi everyone!


Yesterday I was planning to do some change in my PC setup in order to accommodate two specific and conflicting usage:

work: visual design, 3DS MAX, Zbrush, photoshop etc..

and gaming: mainly cracked, torrents, possibly not clean games..



I need my PC to stay stable : I can't wake up a morning with a weird/unclear bug with my software or simply losing performance over time from accumulate bloatware.


So my question is, could there be a safe and clean way to have 2 separate ecosystem in the same PC, one for serious work and the other for gaming/torrents?


I was thinking of using 2 HDD activated/deactivated at boot in which both would have a copy of windows. One would be running serious working programs backed with antivirus and the other would be running the cool stuff.



On paper it seems fine..

 

[boomario]

Yes, you can, you can even use the same HDD if you need to (though if it's reliability you want it's better use different HDD's)
Just use install disk and install OS to another partition/HDD and you will be able to dual boot between them.

 

[Originality]

Option A, as mentioned, is to install an OS to a different drive/partition (e.g. W10 for Work and W7 or W10 for games). You may want to hide the non-active drive/partition for a little safety.
Option B, create a virtual machine for your second OS (presumably to play games, since that'll be the riskier OS). The virtual machine will be isolated from the main OS which keeps you safe.

There's also fun things you can do with vhd's but let's keep things simple.

 

[Shokan]

Thanks to both of you!

Think that I'll go for the hardware-based ecosystem separation. Yes, I heard of virtual machine but a friend told me that you are more likely to get performance/compatibility problem with a virtual space emulation.