I would like to set up a simple dual boot system by installing Win xp pro on two different drives on separate ide controllers.

I plan on connecting only one drive at a time and formatting each drive as "C" drives.

Then I plan on using the boot sequence in the BIOS to determine which "C" loads.

Will I be able to access the other "C" partition?

Will the other "C" be assigned a different letter?

Any downsides?

Thanks,

Bob Shem

If you do it like that the drive you choose to boot from will be c and the other will get some other letter and then when you boot from the other that one will be c it gets quite confusing. so you could manually assign drive letters to drives but cannot have two c drives. On the other hand an standard dualboot is much easier to use with no need to access bios setup to change booting os just install the os twice (and to different locations) and the installation will create a dual boot menu for you. If the wron installation is default you can edit the Boot.ini file on the C: drive or the partition where you installed first.

You might want to look into a HD bay for the front of your case. (5.25"). Then you can slide whichever drive in that you want to use. "C" is reserved by Windows for the volume that contains your boot files. Windows boot manager will take care of the multi-boot, nothing much you need to do but be there during bootup to select which one you want to boot to.

rdgrimes solution appears to be the most practical. Mobile Racks or Removable Drive Bays are an effective and inexpensive solution.

I'm not sure if this product is still available but the Romtec Trios would also be another solution, though more expensive.

Neither setup would allow access to the unmounted drive.

I use multiple removable racks with multiple Operating Systems.
I also have an internally mounted 200 GB storage drive that is accessible to all Operating Systems via the inserted removable racks.

It was my guess that using the dual-boot system I suggested would result in the "other" C drive being assigned a different letter.

It would be confusing unless I gave each "C" its own unique volume name (like Drive1 and Drive2). Could I not use both OSes to assign the same letters to the other non-boot partitions - eliminating that source of confusion?

I understand that front mounted racks and removable drives would be cool, unfortunately, I am on a limited budget, so I am trying to find a way to do a dual boot that had the least amount of overhead. I want the two OSes to be as "clean" and as "unmarried" as possible.

I figure that with a system like what I have suggested I could access either drive in the event that the other is un-bootable.

I am currently repairing my desktop computer. My boot hard drive corrupted - big time - and I had to do a low level format to access the drive, otherwise I got stuck in a continual reboot cycle and ultimate BSOD. By doing a low level format I lost all of my partitions and my data. Fortunately I have a backup on a One-Touch drive, so I still have my data.

If I have OSes on two different drives in theory I can repair the corrupted drive from the good drive, or at least retrieve data from the corrupted drive.

Will what I have suggested work???

Bob Shem

The bigger question is why did the drive get corrupted. It could be a dying drive.
You can only one ONE C drive in any OS, the second drive will be seen as D or some other letter. This will be true in both OS, so in the 1st install, it will see it's own drive as C and the other as D. The same will be true of the 2nd install. You can do the same thing with one drive and 2 partitions. If you want fast and safe data recovery, just use the second drive to store images of the OS drive, (you can also copy any data from a saved image), or even better, go with RAID-1 and either mirrored drive is immediately accessable in the event that one fails. "Repairing" a corrupted OS is generally not worth the trouble and risk, either restoring from a good image or a fresh install is a lot safer. Having a collection of old drive images is like having a time machine.
But, to answer your question, yes you can access each drive from the OS on the other.

I repartitioned my hard drive into several primary C partitions. Put W98SE, W2K Pro, and WXP Pro into each primary C partition. Note that only one primary C partition can be active at one time. Therefore, I use a boot loader like BootMagic to set one of the three primary C partitions ACTIVE, and boot to that partition. The other two C prmary partitions are invisible. You can also add an infinite number of extended logical partitions AFTER the primary C partitions. Use extended logicals to store data, programs, etc....

I dual boot XP PRO/ME. ME is on the Primary master as C: (Installed first). XP PRO on Primary Slave as D:.

As I understand, just put one drive in first on Primary master install Xp to it, (will be C: drive) then switch off, put the other hard drive on the Prim as a slave, insert Install disc, tell it to install to "D:" drive and "Bob's Your Uncle".

A boot screen will be created (With XP PRO anyways, don't know with Home version) after the second installation to choose which one to boot to.

You will be able to "see" each drive (If both NTFS Format, if one is FAT32, you will not see the NTFS drive from that OS, But NTFS will see FAT 32) and they WILL be seen as seperate. (When installing, most progs go to %systemroot%, the drive you booted from).

Anyways, I have no problems and have been running for several months, I use NTFS reader to see the XP Drive from ME, but mainly just boot to XP and transfer files from there.

Have Fun!!!

The solution with having an image of one drive stored on the other suggested by rdgimes seems like a better way than having dualboot just to be able to recover and if all hell brakes loose just pop in a bootable cd like BartPE and run the ghost program from there.

I think that I narrowed down the boot problem to one of two sources:

Failing power supply

or

Partition Magic.

I read a number of posts on the BSOD errors I was getting and narrowed the choices to the two above. In any event, the NTFS file system was so messed up that I got a BSOD every time I tried to re-install Windows or access the disk in any fashion with the XP install disk - System Recovery, etc.

Normally I would simply "format C" whenever the OS got messed up. That way I could clean my C partition while leaving my data on a second partition untouched. Unfortunately in this case I could not re-format the C partition using a high level format. That meant that I had to lose everything - partitions, data, formatting, etc. - in a low-level format.

When this problem reared its ugly head I had considered installing a copy of XP onto my second IDE hard drive. By doing so I think that I could have accessed my data - had accessing my data been necessary. Fortunately I had my data backed up on a One Touch drive, so installing XP on the drive on the second controller was not necessary.

This problem got me to thinking that I would like to have a second copy of XP on a separate drive so that I can have access to the "main" drive if it were to get corrupted.

BTW, I low-level formatted the troublesome drive and it appears that the drive is (and probably always was) very healthy. I think that the problems had to do with a corrupted formatting and not the physical media. Time will tell if my suspicions are correct.

Bob Shem

Hi Bob,

I wish to do exactly what you mentioned in the opening Post -

I do not mind the drive letter results (eg If I boot into either one I don't mind if each says it is C and the other F)

Did you succeed ?
Does XP try to 'cross pollinate' ?

How do you handle booting (choosing which is running) ?

Can you see the other drive, when you boot into either ?


I wish to do this as well -
'This problem got me to thinking that I would like to have a second copy of XP on a separate drive so that I can have access to the "main" drive if it were to get corrupted.'

Thanks,
Rob

Edit the boot.config of the OS you intend to use most often & add the old installation into it. You can use notepad to do this.
You will need to to unhide hidden/system files.

Or (the hard way)

Make a small (primary) partition for linux on one of the HDD's.
1) Install WinXP on HDD 1. Remove HDD 1
2) Install WinXP on HDD2. Re-install HDD2
3) Install a basic install of linux on the partition & the boot manager will autodetect both windows installations. Set the boot manager to default to the winxp of choice.

Thanks debro for responding.

I wish to report that I have achieved what Bob originally requested.
I have two drives (60GB and 30 GB)

I disconnected one and used W98SE Dos floppy to format the drive (used Fat32).
I then used the floppy to install W98SE
I then used XP Pro CD to replace W98 with XP
Installed SP1 then SP2
(Probably SP2 could have gone in without SP1, but I was not intending to put SP2 intil I noticed some app problems that needed SP2)
Turned off Swap File, and turned off System Restore.

I disconnected that drive and did the identical process with the other drive.

I then connected both and booted into one of them.
I could see the other but I could not boot into it.
Fiddled around a bit in the Bios menu pointing it to Master/Slave (or whatever).
Then went to the Boot order in the Bios menu.
Only one of the 4 lines(floppy, cd, etc) would recognise the drives, but that one would let me choose which one I wanted to boot into.
Thus any time I wish to boot into the other drive, I just catch the Bios menu, and choose which of the drives I want.

I boot into the 60 and copy all the files/folders in the 30, into a Folder in the 60GB drive. I also burn that to a DVD.

I then restart the computer and boot into the 30 and do the same exercise.

I can now boot into say the 30, and try out programs etc.
If I get into a mess, and want to 'go back in time', I boot into the 60, and delete all the files/folders in the 30. (NB I do not reformat)
I then copy the snapshot from a healthier time in the past.
All that takes about 5 minutes, and when I boot into the 30, it is all clean again.

The same exercise can be done in the opposite direction, if one chooses.

I think this achieves all of Bob's wishes (not to mention my wishes).

The swap file may not have to be switched off, but mine has stayed off.
(I have ordered more memory.)
I do believe that the System Restore should be left OFF permanently, when you are doing what I have described.
My two reasons are -
a) This is a far better restore process.
b) The 'cross talking' that I was worried about, definately happens if you have System Restore switched on.


Regards,
Rob