Boot sequence question...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ryan Atici
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Ryan Atici

I assume that, if not all, many of you have Serial ATA hard drives in your
computers.

I like to raise this question, rather a concern for me. I like to put 3
"Western Digital 74GB 10,000 RPM Enterprise Serial ATA" hard drives in my
new system that I want to build. I am planning to install 3 different
operating systems on each hard drive.
1- First serial ATA drive will have Windows XP Professional
2- Second serial ATA; Windows 98 Second Edition
3- Third serial ATA; Linux operating system.

In old motherboards with IDE hard drive connection, the CMOS of the
motherboard gives you an option to choose boot sequence so that you can boot
up from any one of the hard drives of your choice, which is what I have in
my old computer.

I've never had any personal experience with new motherboards with built-in
Serial ATA connection, but the information that I am getting is that the
CMOS in ASUS motherboards doesn't offer you any option to choose boot
sequence for serial ATA hard drives. Does that apply to all ASUS
motherboards? Or ASUS corrected that problem in their current motherboards?
If not, how about other motherboard like ABIT, Gigabyte, MSI, Tyan? Do any
of those motherboards offer boot-up sequence option for Serial ATA hard
drives? I mean, why not offer an option to choose boot sequence in CMOS in
new motherboards for Serial ATA hard drives? If none of the new motherboards
with built-in Serial ATA hard drive connection offer boot-up sequence in
CMOS, how do you boot up the hard drive of your choice if you have more than
one hard drive with difference operating systems?

Thanks...
 
Ryan,

Had that exact setup on my old Asus P3-4VX MB. No problem switching the the
boot sequence in the bios. The MB recognizes all possible drives and you set
the order.

-Steve
 
Ryan Atici wrote:
If none of the new motherboards
with built-in Serial ATA hard drive connection offer boot-up sequence in
CMOS, how do you boot up the hard drive of your choice if you have more than
one hard drive with difference operating systems?
Click to expand...

I have no idea whether you can accomplish what you're attempting through
CMOS. But you certainly can boot the operating system of your choice
through software. Here's how I did it:

I used FDISK to divide one 40 GByte hard drive into three partitions.
Actually, FDISK works like this:

I created a "Primary DOS Partition," C: at 5 gigabytes (For Win98). If
you're going to load Win98, *it must reside in the primary DOS partition.*

I then created an "Extended DOS Partition" filling the rest of the drive.

I then divided the "Extended DOS Partition" into two "Logical DOS
Drives:" D: at 10 gigabytes for Linux, and E: filling the rest of the
Extended DOS Partition for WinXP.

I formatted all the partitions as FAT32. The Win98 partition must be
FAT32, but the WinXP partition can be FAT32 or NTFS, whichever you like.
D: is going to be Linux a little later. Remember though, Win98 can't
see NTFS partitions, and certainly not Linux. So if you want some
communication from Win98 to your WinXP partition, format WinXP as FAT32.
It'll work fine.

So with three formatted FAT32 partitions, I clean-installed Win98 on C:
Then I clean-installed WinXP on E:, and when I booted a new simple
intro screen appeared, giving me the choice between "Windows" and
Windows XP." Just use up-down arrows to choose when you boot.

That left Linux. I reformatted D: to Linux and installed Knoppix there.
Yes, I'm running Knoppix from my hard drive, not the CD. Then when I
booted I got the Lilo intro screen, which I had to tinker with a bit to
reduce my options to two: Linux or Windows. If I chose Linux, I went
straight to Knoppix. If I chose Windows, I went to the earlier intro
screen where I chose between Win98 and WinXP. Simple.

I used my other two drives for storage of data, editing video, etc. Of
course you can divide up the partition sizes any way you like, depending
on your needs.
 
The motherboard I am thinking of getting is ASUS A8V-Deluxe. The motherboard
has two serial ATA connectors with RAID 0 (striping) and RAID 1 (mirroring),
and another two serial ATA. I am not thinking of using any RAID system such
as mirroring on Serial ATA hard drives. When I have 3 different Serial ATA
hard drives, can I use them as normal without using any RAID 0 or RAID 1
feature?

ASUS A8V-Deluxe also offers IDE hard drive connections. Even though I am not
thinking of using any IDE hard drive, just out of curiosity, I like to raise
a question.

If I choose to have two IDE hard drives and two Serial ATA hard drives in my
new system, which hard drive has the priority at boot-up, meaning (which one
is recognized as Primary Master)? The IDE hard drives or Serial ATA hard
drives?

Last but not least, does using IDE and Serial ATA hard drives in the same
system cause any complication?

Thanks...
 
Ryan
I use a ASUS A7N8X del ver 2 MOBO wich has connections for 2 Sata and 2 IDE
drives. I am using one of each plus a DVD R/RW and a DVD player.The BIOS gives
me the choice of which drive is 1st boot 2nd boot etc. Once upon a time I ran ME
on an IDE drive and XP on the SATA drive having installed them one at a time
with each drive being the only drive connected when I installed.
When I installed both the 1st boot device set in the BIOS would start whatever
OS was on that particular drive.If I set the IDE drive as 1st boot ME wouls
start if I set the SATA drive as 1st boot XP would start.But then I was not
using RAID.
peter
 
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