two hard-drive boot, how to ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jason
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J

Jason

Hello, I now have WIN XP and WIN 2K running on one drive on C and D

Would it be a good idea to put one on one hard drive and the other OS on
another hard-drive? Is this possible? How would the computer boot? How
would it know what drive to access?

thanks
 
Jason said:
Hello, I now have WIN XP and WIN 2K running on one drive on C and D

Would it be a good idea to put one on one hard drive and the other OS on
another hard-drive? Is this possible? How would the computer boot? How
would it know what drive to access?
Click to expand...

You can do this. Basically there will be a file (Boot.ini I think) on
your C drive that lists the bootable partitions to present to you. Your
installer should take care of the particulars.
 
Hello, I now have WIN XP and WIN 2K running on one drive on C and D

Would it be a good idea to put one on one hard drive and the other OS on
another hard-drive? Is this possible? How would the computer boot? How
would it know what drive to access?

thanks
Click to expand...

Good idea? Depends on the goal. Two drives can often be
faster than one, but we don't know how much you need the
extra storage or the use of the system. If the box has
plenty of memory you might find it better to leave both OS
on the same HDD and use a 2nd for
applications/games/workspace/swapfile/etc.
 
Jason said:
Hello, I now have WIN XP and WIN 2K running on one drive on C and D

Would it be a good idea to put one on one hard drive and the other OS on
another hard-drive? Is this possible? How would the computer boot? How
would it know what drive to access?

thanks
Click to expand...

Oen the System Control panel applet in either WinXP or W2K and select the
Advanced tab.
Next Startup and Recovery > Settings.

Here you can select the default OS to boot.

Also the Edit button opens BOOT.INI for manual editing of the boot sequence.

Martin.
 
Martin said:
news:g2pBd.11809$hc7.6836@trnddc06...
Click to expand...
Oen the System Control panel applet in either WinXP or W2K and select the
Advanced tab.
Next Startup and Recovery > Settings.

Here you can select the default OS to boot.

Also the Edit button opens BOOT.INI for manual editing of the boot sequence.

Martin.
Click to expand...

Does this procedure change the boot option for subsequent startups? Also,
what info/changes would be needed in Boot.ini?

I checked my settings. While my 'general' system properties indicate that I
have Windows XP, startup and recovery states that my boot option is "MS
Windows XP Professional Edition"/fastdetect. Why the discrepancy?

My HD (250 GB) has a single NTFS working partition (there is a small FAT32
recovery partition). Could I run a double boot system without adding a
second partition, using this procedure?

HankG
 
HankG said:
Does this procedure change the boot option for subsequent startups? Also,
what info/changes would be needed in Boot.ini?
Click to expand...

The applet makes changes in Boot.ini that controls which OS is loaded on subsequent startup.
I checked my settings. While my 'general' system properties indicate that I
have Windows XP, startup and recovery states that my boot option is "MS
Windows XP Professional Edition"/fastdetect. Why the discrepancy?
Click to expand...

There is no discrepancy. The system properties GUI displays Windows XP, "MS Windows XP Professional Edition"/fastdetect is the entry in Boot.ini. The data on the beginning of the line in Boot.ini i.e. disk, partition and path is what actually specify the OS to be loaded.
My HD (250 GB) has a single NTFS working partition (there is a small FAT32
recovery partition). Could I run a double boot system without adding a
second partition, using this procedure?
Click to expand...

You can have more than one OS on the same partition, but it is not recommended.
 
Mike Walsh said:
The applet makes changes in Boot.ini that controls which OS is loaded on subsequent startup.


There is no discrepancy. The system properties GUI displays Windows XP,
Click to expand...
"MS Windows XP Professional Edition"/fastdetect is the entry in Boot.ini.
The data on the beginning of the line in Boot.ini i.e. disk, partition and
path is what actually specify the OS to be loaded.
You can have more than one OS on the same partition, but it is not recommended.
Click to expand...

Mike: Thanks for the info.

HankG
 
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