Dual Booting To HDDs - Secondary Master Ide Controller
Apr 12, 2008
somehow, i accidently stumbled into a method of dual-booting 2 OpSystems (WinXP/WinME specifically). I have WinXP on one HDD, set as active on the Primary Master ide controller. I also have WinME on another HDD set as active on the Secondary Master ide controller.i can choose which OS to bootup at whim, simply by going into BIOSBoot Tabhit enter on HardDrive and then choose which HDD to boot. Then i exit that tab, exit BIOS "SaveYes". Either HDD will boot. its simple, it works well. its differant from the orthodox way of setting up a dual-boot. Booting NTFS WinXP, files on the WinME FAT HDD are read by XP. But not the other way.
i put together a system the other day after my old one totally pooped out on me. i installed the hard drive from my old system into the new one as a second hard drive, and installed xp pro onto a different hard drive (primary master) in the new system. how can i use all my old programs that are installed on the old hard drive without confusing the heck out of xp? many of the applications on the old hdd are confused when i run them, i am guessing because when they reference files in locations where they think they should be, but they are not finding them. i don't even have enough room on the primary master drive to install all the programs, its a very small drive. nor do i have enough room to fit xp onto the second hard drive.
I have been trying to install Windows XP as a second OS as I already have Windows 7 Ultimate installed. Unfortunately, after I select a partition, format it, and reboot the system stalls on the screen after the BIOS that has something to do with a list of devices and such. After 10 or so seconds a few characters and letters go blank randomly on the page. I rebooted and selected my cd drive as the boot device and accidentally didn't press a button in time to boot and a bunch of highlighted numbers were thrown all over the screen and a random smiley face on one of the lines.
I'm trying to dual boot 2 different installs of xp pro from 2 drives using the Windows boot loader. I've edited the boot.ini every possible way I can think of, but nothing works. I've done this plenty of times using a linux boot loader or dual booting from a single drive but I cant figure this out. I haven't been able to find any reference to this subject anywhere, but I think it would work. Anybody have a clue as to how to do this? I know I can use a different boot manager to accomplish this, I just wanted to make the Win boot.ini work. Or, does anybody know of a good boot manager if I cant make this work?
I have dual booting on my PC with Vista home premium on a 500 Gb SATA disk and XP Pro on a 250Gb SATA, both internal. Vista no longer holds terrors for me and I'd like to get rid of XP and regain better use of the 250Gb HD. Can I just remove XP from the control panel in the XP boot or is it a lot more complicated?I don't really want to re format the XP drive as I'd have to transfer a lot of data and files
First I'll describe what I intended to do, followed by me explaining my problems, and ended with my actual question.Intentions:Fixing my Master boot record file with a FIXMBR and removing my Ubuntu installation due to lack of usage, amongst things. Merging the old Linux partitions space with one of my current NTFS partitions for the extra space (all above-mentioned partitions are on the same HDD, for the record). Would've done this with Partition Magic.
I have a dual boot system (2 hard drives) booting Suse and XP and boot up through Suse's built in boot manager which gives me the option of booting to Windows or Linux. But since I barely ever use Linux I want to delete it off the 2nd drive so I can use it for a storage drive, so I'm wondering how to replace the Windows Master Boot Record so I can just boot into my XP drive. I'm scared that once I delete/reformat the contents of the 2nd hard drive (I'll probably use Partition Magic to do this through my XP drive) that I won't be able to boot XP up anymore. So before I do anything I want to just be able to boot into XP and bypass the linux drive before I delete it to make sure everything is ok.
I currently have Windows 7 Ultimate (64Bit) installed on the primary hard drive but my question is will Windows XP work ok along with Windows 7 being installed as well like XP being on the same hard drive? Also could someone tell me what the limitations are for XP as I have 4GB RAM (Dual Channel) as I'll be installing the 32Bit of XP.
Also would XP crash at all with the high specs I'm running ? as I've overclocked my processor to 3.52GHz or doesn't the processor play a role in the stability of XP ?
During a typical dual-boot start-up, Windows provides you with a menu that allows for the selection of the desired O/S. However, after hibernating and restarting, the boot sequence DOES NOT GIVE YOU THIS OPTION! You can force things using the F8 key, but that simply generates a screen with two choices - continue with restart from hibernation, or delete the hibernation data and go to the O/S selection menu
I am trying to figure out how to dual boot Windows 2000 and Windows ME? I know that you can partition your drive but is there a way to dual boot using a Master/ slave drive?
I am thinking of running windows xp and linux on the same hard drive. I know I load windows first, but is there a boot loader that will allow me to choose which os I want to load up at start up?
I've gotten to where I can't stand windows for very long at all, and want to run Linux most of the time on my desktop. The catch being, my desktop is my gaming machine. So, is there any performance hit you take when dual booting a machine? Do the extra partitions hurt anything?
On my PC I can boot to an upgraded XP (which was 2000 and is on c:winnt) and a new installation of XP (on c:windows). I'm having trouble with the XP installation (that was upgraded from 2000) and I want to delete it. Do I only need to delete the c:winnt directory and the entry from the boot manager?
I don't want to refotmat the drive because I have lots of personal stuff scattered everywhere and I don't want to do a backup.The new XP installation is working great, and I want to keep it. And I want to erase the old installation since it was Windows 2000 which I upgraded to XP.
I've got two hard drives, one 80gb divided into two equal partitions, and the other drive's just for storage.So my main drive has 2k on it, and nothing on the second partition. I want to install XP on that second partition but I've never even installed an OS, let alone to dual boot but I'm feeling brave (mostly because I've got an unattended setup disc. If someone could help me answer these questions, then I should be good to go -
1. Is there a difference between the second partition (which I was previously using to store video files), and a partition that can run an OS? In other words can I just install straight onto that partition or do I have to 'prepare' it for an OS?
2. I've been told that I don't need to get any extra software to help me do this. If I don't need any software then I'd rather not install some, but I might want to reorganise the partitions to add another OS at a later date. From what I've read a partition manager could be handy in that respect.The previous owner originally partitioned the drive with Partition Magic, so should I use that? He used it to partition and then discarded it, so I don't have it now. I can get it if it's needed though, would it be best to have the exact same version that he used or the new one?
3. I know I had a third question, but I can't remember what it is, so hopefully something will jog my memory.
Is it possible that having both windows xp home and pro installed on my computer could mess things up. I have this, and have noticed programs that used to work just fine crash.
I have 2 hard drives that each have an installation of windows xp on them. I was wondering how I can make it so I have a choice of which hard drive I want it to boot to without having to unplug one drive. I have two SATA drives.
I have a harddrive with Windows XP installed on, and for some odd reason decided to put in another harddrive and install vista on it. After coming to my senses and realising I didn't want vista, I took out the harddrive. But now whenever I boot, it still asks me which operating system to boot into.
I am setting up a dual boot system on my comp with two partitions. What I want to do is Lock down the partitions.
So say when I am logged into Windows XP disc C: I wont be able to read or write files on the Windows XP disc partition E: Both are parititioned as NTFS is this a possibility
i just had some problems...obviously... anyhoo, i tried to make another partition to install Windows XP on, but after installing, i don't get the option to boot into vista...which is quite worrying...i also have some "ubuntu remains" but cannot boot into the Linux OS because i deleted the files thinking that that would get rid of it. but then i have to repair my vista installation using the cd from a friends computer. (Windows Startup Repair after booting from CD)
when I had a second HD for storage and format it in Vista, everything is fine, I can move files in and out of it, no problem.Then I shut down and boot up into XP. When I go to access the drive its says its unreadable.Then I shut down and go back into Vista, it now says its unreadable. So I have to do a full reformat for it to work again
Dual boot win2000 as C:, installed fresh XP pro as 2nd OS in F: and can't boot back to C: now....??I checked the boot.ini and it's exactly right so I assume I need to re-fresh some files in the C: win2000.What's the best way to get the win2000 up and running again in C: ??
I had some failure and have recovered everything and upgraded to SP2.However, now after the POST as we go to load windows it tells me tohighlight which O/S I want to use.I always take the first (Windows XP Home Edition) and it boots andoperates fine. However, the second choice is also Window XP HomeEdition and if I take it it tells me there is a disk hardware error and it cannot boot.
I have been running my pc with XP Proffesional Edition:1.4MHZ AMD Athlon (I think!!) 700Mb RAM20GB HDD256MB Graphics CardDVD Rom Not sure what the motherboard is, my HDD has the 'old' IDE connections.Anyway, everything has been running fine, so I decided to install a DVD RW unit instead of my CD/DVD unit. That's when my problems started.PC now won't boot, asks me to install the boot device or something like that and when I check the BIOS, it says that the Pri / Sec units not installed. Even when I run the auto detection it still says the same thing. I've tried re-installing the old CD/DVD unit but it keeps coming up with the same message.
I partitioned the blank hard drive on my desktop computer into C:/ and left about half of it unpartitioned to install XP on later. I installed Vista on C:/, and a while later installed XP. Once XP installed, I couldn't dual-boot back into Vista, so I tried microsoft's commandline hack
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919529
and after that Vista ran fine but XP will no longer load (When I select the "Older Version of Windows" from the boot menu it returns an error immediately saying that a vital file can't be found). I think the problem may have something to do with how Vista thinks the drive that XP is on is F:/ and Vista is on C:/, but XP thinks the drive it is on is E:/ and Vista is still on C:/
I'm trying to dual boot Windows XP Pro 32-bit and Windows 7 with Windows 7 installed first; but this isn't the problem.
The problem is trying to boot Windows XP so it can install. I booted XP from an installation CD, then a blue setup screen appears, with some files apparently being loaded at the bottom of the screen (this is around the time pressing F6 to load drivers comes up). Then boom, I get blue screened with this error and cannot proceed:
A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.
Currenlty got an issue where i have a user who wants to dual boot with Vista and XP using sata disks.The general rule of thumb when doing dualbooting is to install the oldest operating system first, and then gradually work your way up.The way it will be setup is as so Vista - Primary partition of the 1st disk XP - Primary partition of the 2nd disk.Now, The way i was thinking of doing it was to install XP first, then install Vista, And modify the boot.ini to find the entry for XP.Is there any difference in modification of the boot.ini file when using sata drives, and is there any difference when making mods in Vista (As i have only edited the boot.ini in XP)
I have windows 98 OS installed in Drive C: . Then i have another drive and i am planning to partition it 2 partitions (D & E) and i want to install windows xp in the second drive. How should i proceed ? If i install the windows xp with a bootable disk will it detect my windows 98 OS in the C DRIVE? I want to make sure also that if i proceed installing the XP in D drive it will not in anyway overwrites or mess up my OS in DRIVE C, because i have many important programs and data in that OS
