Would my computer be damaged if I used two different operting systems on two different hard drives?

Question

So I have two different hard drives, one is 2TB and another is 500GB. They both have windows 7 on them and Ive transferred my data from my old 500GB one to my newer one and I was looking to install Ubuntu on my older one. However I have heard that if you use two different operation systems that it can eventually damage hard ware components, i was wondering if this was true? Its probably not but i just want to be sure. Thanks!

Answer 1

Running multiple OSes on a system is normal these days. On its own this does not cause any damage to the system's hardware.

Yet, you could have heard some things in specific contexts. A couple of examples to ponder.

1. When you have multiple boot options (like Windows, Mac OSX, and Ubuntu/CentOS/RedHat etc.) the filesystems will vary (FAT, NTFS, HFS, EXT2/3/4, etc.). As a natural requirement you will find ways to access data across these boots and will end up mounting peer OS filesystems with various tools (say, mounting NTFS partition in Ubuntu). If these tools are not stable or you 'misuse' them beyond their limitations/constraints, there is a good chance you will corrupt the peer filesystem. Sufficient occurrences of such corruption will eventually break the peer OS itself.
   • Avoid mounting peer boot-partitions; keep a common data partition in a filesystem format that is easily handled by all of OSes you use.
2. When you have different OSes managing the peripherals in your system (from HDD to your fan speeds and battery management on laptops) there is a possibility that they manage these differently. Some configurations might make the HDD sleep or standby too often while others might turn up or down the fan unusually. This could be taxing on your system if not configured correctly.
   • Keep a watch on your system temperatures and the way peripherals are handled when you frequently boot with different OSes.

An important detail is the actual set of OSes you use for your different boots. If one of these is experimental or unstable or even unable to handle the hardware on your system properly (say because the necessary drivers are not available or stabilized) using that OS might trouble your system hardware. This is independent of the multi-boot nature of your system.