Two Different hd's, two different o's

George_K · #1 26-12-2004, 17:11

No one seems to have a sensible answer. Right now I have 98se on the hard drive as c:

I'm thinking of putting xp pro on a second hd as maybe d:

Since bios has option to boot from floppy, hd, cd rom, etc., could I not be able to enter bios on startup and tell it to boot c: (98se) or d: (xp)?

I realise that is a pretty drastic matter but it could possibly avoid any problems with boot ini in a dual boot system.

Or does any os insist on being drive c: ? If not, seems like either should boot, unaware of the other os. All opinions welcome.

Quall999 · #2 26-12-2004, 18:35

edit: sry, I missed the line about the boot.ini

Anyways, if you don't see an hdd choice in your bios, then it probably can't be done. Editing the boot.ini shouldn't have any problems. As long as you only add, and not delete anything, there should never be a problem.

IF you have the OS on another driver, then there shouldn't be any problem. The boot ini is only used to boot with, not for anything else in the os. I just suggest you don't install programs on C if you are running the OS off of D. Otherwise, deleted files might messup another OS's registry.

If you need help editing the boot.ini, i will be glad to. I personally just edit mine to boot to different boot logos since I have no other OS.

George_K · #3 26-12-2004, 20:14

Thanks for reply. Mostly in the thinking stage right now. What would really be failsafe would be a switch for ribbon cable and power wires to switch to whatever os hd desired before turning on computer!

JPunisher · #4 01-01-2005, 11:31

You could get a removable hard drive bay. You put the hard drives each in a little box that is the size of your cd rom tray and you can turn them on or off with a key or remove them like a pullout radio. You can set both drives to master and have one on and the other off. This will boot the hard disk that is on. If you don't have 2 5 1/2 bays free you can get a hard disk rack which is an external rack but it cost alot. Here is an example of the first option http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...Tab=1&NoMapp=0 The key has 3 settings on off and remove. Hope this helps.

H|LLJD00 · #5 01-01-2005, 12:28

Why dont you install both o/s to the same disc, as it will then give you a msg at the begging to choose which one you want to load.

And put all other files on the other HDD. I have 2x HDD's, one for programs and the o/s. One for all my stuff.

George_K · #6 06-01-2005, 15:22

Solved OS problem. I simply upgraded to XP Pro. Then there was a major problem of norton speed disk running slow in XP on a fat32 partition.

Bought newest version of system works but speed disk still slow (hours).

Turns out that xp doesn't like progs such as sd on fat32. After converting to ntfs, sd runs much faster!!

Grumpy · #7 06-01-2005, 19:03

Hey George, try the program 'Diskeeper'. Its heaps quicker than all other programs! I to have Xp Pro (ntfs) and Norton Systemworks 04 but still I prefer Diskeeper.

George_K · #8 11-01-2005, 10:31

By the way, any progs installed in 98se, some cannot be uninstalled or re-installed once you upgrade to XP, specifically A120%. I've tried editing registry keys pertaining to A120% and deleting any relevant drivers. So I figured the devil with it.

Nero upgraded just fine. I think the next release of A120% will address problems of not installing after os upgrades. Maybe sometime I'll try Cloce again, or maybe Blindread/Blindwrite, but darnit, I liked A120%. It's big problem is the setup.msi file, which I edited with Orca.exe but it still returns the 1606 error.