QUESTION: Multiple Hard Drives to Boot To??

  • Thread starter Thread starter Steve
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Steve

Hi...

First, I hope this is the right group for my question... then, I hope my
question isn't too stupid.

I 'm limited to a single PC for a fair-sized project I've been asked to
develop and test. I want to set up a "development" hard drive with XP
(first drive) and then a "client" hard drive (second) to install a "virgin
Windows" for each test segment. The "virgin Windows" will be XP and then be
Vista.

I know there's a way to set up a SINGLE drive for multi-boot... but my
drives aren't all that big... so my question is... is there any way to boot
(from HD#1, CD or even floppy) to finish the boot on HD#1 (while developing)
and then HD#2 (while testing)?? Of course I'm greedy... so hopefully a
positive answer would mean I'd want to install HD#3 (to test with Vista).

Right now... I'm physically swapping drives... royal pain but, fortunately,
that's only a 2-6 times per day goat-rope!

Thanks in advance,
Steve
 
Steve said:
Hi...

First, I hope this is the right group for my question... then, I hope my
question isn't too stupid.

I 'm limited to a single PC for a fair-sized project I've been asked to
develop and test. I want to set up a "development" hard drive with XP
(first drive) and then a "client" hard drive (second) to install a "virgin
Windows" for each test segment. The "virgin Windows" will be XP and then be
Vista.

I know there's a way to set up a SINGLE drive for multi-boot... but my
drives aren't all that big... so my question is... is there any way to boot
(from HD#1, CD or even floppy) to finish the boot on HD#1 (while developing)
and then HD#2 (while testing)?? Of course I'm greedy... so hopefully a
positive answer would mean I'd want to install HD#3 (to test with Vista).

Right now... I'm physically swapping drives... royal pain but, fortunately,
that's only a 2-6 times per day goat-rope!

Thanks in advance,
Steve
Click to expand...

Instead of swapping the drives you can just change the boot order in the
BIOS and boot to one drive or the other.

You can also add the second installation to the boot.ini file, and
select which installation to boot from the NT boot menu when you start
the computer. With more than one disk you add an extra line and change
the rdisk value so that it points to the second disk, it could look like
this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional DISK 1" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional DISK 2" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

A third alternative is to use a third party boot manager.

When you throw in Vista to the mix then you have to add the XP
installations to the Vista boot loader, the XP boot loader (ntldr)
cannot boot Vista, but the Vista loader can boot XP. There again, if
you wish you can use a third party boot manager to boot Vista or XP.

If you dual boot Vista and XP there are certain issues with System
Restore and restore points, read here:

System Restore points and other recovery features in Windows Vista are
affected when you dual-boot with Windows XP
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/dualboot.html

There can also be issues with System Restore on dual XP boot:

Dual Booting Windows XP and the loss of restore points.
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/dualbootxp.html

John
 
John John got it right for 2 Windows XP installations -

1) reset the BIOS's Hard Drive Boot Order so that the desired HD
is at the head of the list of HDs. This presumes that each OS had
been installed on a HD that was the sole HD at the time of installation.
In such case, the boot.ini (boot menu file) will be set to point to the
OS which gets installed on that solely-connected HD, and the
Primary partition containing the boot.ini file and the other boot files
is flagged as being the "active" partition; or

2) Add an entry to the boot.ini file on the "active" Primary partition on
HD which controls booting (the one currently at the head of the
BIOS's Hard Drive Boot Order) with "rdisk()" set to "rdisk(1)".

But if you install the 2nd WindowsXP on the 2nd HD while the 1st HD
is still connected, you can let the installer set up boot.ini for dual-booting
for you. That will result in the 2nd OS's partition being called "D:" instead
of "C:", but that's not a problem unless you make some shortcuts which
insist that the OS's drive is "C:".

The problem will occur when you install Vista. If it is installed with the
1st XP OS visible to the installer, the installer will also set the 2nd XP up
for dual-booting, but for loading by Vista's load manager - which has a
different scheme than for XP. Then, if you were to take Vista away, the
XP OS wouldn't be able to boot. There are ways to correct that, but you
may not want to take the time to learn how. If you were to install XP
*after* Vista (with Vista visible to XP's installer), you will have a little
harder problem getting Vista to boot.

The simplest and most consistent procedure is to always install an OS
on a HD that is the only connected HD at the time of installation, and to
select which HD's OS boots by adjusting the BIOS's Hard Drive Boot
Order. By doing so, you avoid having to make adjustments to XP's
boot.ini file or to having to locate, download (and in many cases pay for)
and install and learn how to use a 3rd-party boot manager.

*TimDaniels*
 
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