Choosing a boot sequence depending on the hard drive of your choice...

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Pccomputerdr

This pretty much depends on the bios option on the motherboard, but there is
this question I am wondering about.

Let's say you have 4 different hard drives inside your computer. The first 2
hard drives are connected to "primary master IDE" as primary master and primary
slave.

The other 2 hard drives are "serial ATA hard drives" and connected to Serial
ATA ports on the motherboard.

Let's say the first hard drive on primary master has Windows XP Pro.
The second hard drive on primary slave has Windows 2000 Pro.
The first serial ATA hard drive has Linux.
The second serial ATA hard drive has Unix.

If all 4 hard drives were connected to 2 IDE ports on the motherboard (Primary
master IDE, and primary slave IDE), I know that it would be possible to boot
from any one of the 4 hard drives by going into CMOS and choosing that hard
drive.

But the question is, do you have that option when you have 2 serial ATA hard
drives connected to SATA ports on the motherboard?

Thanks...
 
Pccomputerdr said:
This pretty much depends on the bios option on the motherboard, but there is
this question I am wondering about.

Let's say you have 4 different hard drives inside your computer. The first 2
hard drives are connected to "primary master IDE" as primary master and primary
slave.

The other 2 hard drives are "serial ATA hard drives" and connected to Serial
ATA ports on the motherboard.

Let's say the first hard drive on primary master has Windows XP Pro.
The second hard drive on primary slave has Windows 2000 Pro.
The first serial ATA hard drive has Linux.
The second serial ATA hard drive has Unix.

If all 4 hard drives were connected to 2 IDE ports on the motherboard (Primary
master IDE, and primary slave IDE), I know that it would be possible to boot
from any one of the 4 hard drives by going into CMOS and choosing that hard
drive.

But the question is, do you have that option when you have 2 serial ATA hard
drives connected to SATA ports on the motherboard?
Click to expand...

Yes, and the better motherboard bios even allow you
to select the drive to boot from using the drive model
numbers instead of some cryptic IDE(2) type labelling.

You would be better using a proper boot manager tho.
XP and 2K can be quite tricky to setup multi boot configs
with when its just done at the motherboard bios level
because they keep track of the physical drives and
partitions and it can be hard to set them up properly if you
dont know enough to manually edit the drive tables in them.

A real boot manager can hide the drives you arent
booting from and can simplify things considerably.
And you can select what boot you want with your own
descriptive text as well which can make it a lot easier to use.
 
You don't think it works if you install one hard drive as cable select and
install Windows 2000 on that hard drive. After you're done, remove the hard
drive, and put the second hard drive in there and install Windows XP. So, we
have two different hard drives. One with Windows 2000, the other one with
Windows XP. You can either put the hard drive with Windows XP as master, and
the other hard drive with Windows 2000 as slave or visa versa.

If you want to boot with Windows 2000, you go into CMOS and select the slave
first in the boot sequence. If I install either Windows 2000 or Windows XP
without the existence of another slave hard drive inside the computer, there is
no physical drive to keep track of. All that physical drive table is created if
you have another hard drive during installation. After both operating systems
are installed on two different hard drives and connected as slave and master,
the operating system on either slave or master will detect the other hard drive
just like another hard drive without any complication. Am I wrong to assume all
this?

What is your recommendation for a boot manager?

Thanks...
 
You don't think it works if you install one hard drive as cable
select and install Windows 2000 on that hard drive. After you're
done, remove the hard drive, and put the second hard drive in
there and install Windows XP. So, we have two different hard
drives. One with Windows 2000, the other one with Windows XP.
Click to expand...

Yes, that works fine up till then.
You can either put the hard drive with Windows XP as master,
and the other hard drive with Windows 2000 as slave or visa versa.
Click to expand...

It doesnt have anything to do with master/slave or cable select.
If you want to boot with Windows 2000, you go into
CMOS and select the slave first in the boot sequence.
Click to expand...

And thats when it wont necessarily boot properly when
the other drive is the first drive of the pair and is explicitly
listed in the drive data in the boot data with that OS.

The problem arises when you attempt to boot the OS on the
drive which isnt the master of the pair. The installation was
done with it as the only drive on the cable, and it will get quite
confused when its later not the first physical drive on the cable.

Its possible to manually edit the drive config info so it
works again, but its not trivial for someone like you to do.

Its rather simpler for someone like you to use a real boot
manager which can hide the drive you arent booting from etc.
If I install either Windows 2000 or Windows XP without
the existence of another slave hard drive inside the
computer, there is no physical drive to keep track of.
Click to expand...

Yes, but when you boot the slave, with the master visible
and not being the drive with the OS being booted installed
on it, the OS being booted can get seriously confused.
All that physical drive table is created if you
have another hard drive during installation.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily. It just keeps track of
the physical drive it was installed on.
After both operating systems are installed on two different
hard drives and connected as slave and master, the operating
system on either slave or master will detect the other hard
drive just like another hard drive without any complication.
Click to expand...

Thats actually what happens if you do the
install with both drives physically present.
Am I wrong to assume all this?
Yes.

What is your recommendation for a boot manager?
Click to expand...

http://www.osloader.com/ looks interesting. I havent actually
attempted to setup the config you are talking about with it tho.
 
Pccomputerdr said:
This pretty much depends on the bios option on the motherboard, but there is
this question I am wondering about.

Let's say you have 4 different hard drives inside your computer. The first 2
hard drives are connected to "primary master IDE" as primary master and primary
slave.

The other 2 hard drives are "serial ATA hard drives" and connected to Serial
ATA ports on the motherboard.

Let's say the first hard drive on primary master has Windows XP Pro.
The second hard drive on primary slave has Windows 2000 Pro.
The first serial ATA hard drive has Linux.
The second serial ATA hard drive has Unix.

If all 4 hard drives were connected to 2 IDE ports on the motherboard (Primary
master IDE, and primary slave IDE), I know that it would be possible to boot
from any one of the 4 hard drives by going into CMOS and choosing that hard
drive.

But the question is, do you have that option when you have 2 serial ATA hard
drives connected to SATA ports on the motherboard?
Click to expand...

That depends on whether these SATA ports are part of the MoBo chipset
or added locally to the PCI bus like those Promise/HighPoint_et_al chips.

Added chipsets usually don't have bootsequence support.
 
Its possible to manually edit the drive config info so it
works again, but its not trivial for someone like you to do.
Click to expand...

This is rather an intriguing subject for me. Do you have any idea where can I
find some info about editing drive config?

Thanks
 
Pccomputerdr said:
This pretty much depends on the bios option on the motherboard, but there is
this question I am wondering about.

Let's say you have 4 different hard drives inside your computer. The first 2
hard drives are connected to "primary master IDE" as primary master and primary
slave.

The other 2 hard drives are "serial ATA hard drives" and connected to Serial
ATA ports on the motherboard.

Let's say the first hard drive on primary master has Windows XP Pro.
The second hard drive on primary slave has Windows 2000 Pro.
The first serial ATA hard drive has Linux.
The second serial ATA hard drive has Unix.

If all 4 hard drives were connected to 2 IDE ports on the motherboard (Primary
master IDE, and primary slave IDE), I know that it would be possible to boot
from any one of the 4 hard drives by going into CMOS and choosing that hard
drive.

But the question is, do you have that option when you have 2 serial ATA hard
drives connected to SATA ports on the motherboard?

Thanks...
Click to expand...

You might want to consider keeping all your drives in removable caddies
(drawers). Set all the drives as cable select.
Put two drawer outers in the PC's 5 inch drive bays. Connect the end
connector of the IDE cable to the top outer, and the middle connector to the
lower outer.

Whatever drive you put into the top outer will be the boot drive. Secondary
drives can be put into the lower outer.
 
You might want to consider keeping all
your drives in removable caddies (drawers).
Click to expand...

Not feasible since he has a mixture of PATA and SATA drives.

And nowhere near as convenient as a properly
setup system with a decent boot manager either.
Set all the drives as cable select. Put two drawer outers in the
PC's 5 inch drive bays. Connect the end connector of the IDE
cable to the top outer, and the middle connector to the lower outer.
Click to expand...
Whatever drive you put into the top outer will be the boot
drive. Secondary drives can be put into the lower outer.
Click to expand...

And he will likely still have a problem with the
config of the XP and 2K boot drives anyway.
 
TargetDirect has a gadget that seems to answer your question..it cost about
$59. its called Trios. They had a $10 rebate..don't know if the rebate expired
 
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