Dual-Boot: Both into XP-Pro w/ dedicated HDDs 2

[P220ST]

I'm rising from the ashes of a complete hardware disater. Long story. Starting anew, I desperately need swift navigation to an article or posting on dual-boot configurations where both boot-ups are into Windows XP-Pro.

I'm setting up a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) on a dual purpose computer. Its alter ego is a normal, everyday computer for running MS Office, surfing the net, doing emails, etc. and protecting itself from malware and assorted mischief.

The DAW has a unique outboard soundcard/audio interface, read/writes audio data files from a dedicated HDD, runs a very specific software set that is extremely CPU intensive, and should be isolated from the internet and unburdened from my real-time, 24/7 utilities which otherwise protect it from the internet's evils. Given that my desktop is accessing one of my three HDDs only when booted into its DAW status (that being the har drive housing my project audio data files) are there specific considerations in the initial dual-boot setup? FWIW, I've dismissed RAID arrays, SCSI and partitions from my cognitive process. "Ahh, simplicity" -Nietzsche

My en-route system components are:
Cooler Master Wavemaster (so beautiful)

Thermaltake Toughpower 750W Power
Asus P5N-E SLI Mobo
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4GHz)
3 x 1 250GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10
2 x 1GB Kit Corsair (PC2-5300) DDR2-667 SDRAM
NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT
PreSonus FIREBOX audio interface/sound card

Optimizing Windows XP-Pro: I've read several articles on this but would very much appreciate any and all links to your favorite musing on the subject. It's sort of a subset issue that is woven into the dual-boot thing. Your own opinions on both dual-boot & optimixing XP-Pro, are, of course, the most appreciated.

Thanks for your time. Boy, do I need it.

Take Care,
P220ST

 

[wahnula]

I have 2 SATA controllers on my MB as well as IDE. I have one SATA array (could also be a single drive) set up to be the first boot device, Vista on a second SATA controller as the second boot device. There is an F8 prompt that allows me to select the boot device, or, failing that, I can enter BIOS and set the boot device then. These two installs are totally independent.

If you want truly discrete OSes, get a hard-drive swap cage and physically remove the drive you are not using. Since the DAW will not need the Internet, you can disable TCP/IP in Network Device Properties, along with the other protocols and devices you will not need.

I have found the most efficient XP install is a minimalist XP install, remove Windows Components like MSN Messenger, Internet Explorer, etc. in the Add/Remove Programs dialog. Install only what you need.

You will want to update your OS and apps occasionally but it is not necessary if you are not connected. I had an NT4.0 server that did not know the Internet existed and ran for eight years beautifully without downloading a single update.

Tony

 

[vacunita]

The dual setup should just be a matter of running Windows install twice, and just pointing it to 2 different locations. XP's setup, should take care of the boot loader by itself.

You don't mention wether your drives are SATA, or IDE. SATA drives usually require you to load the drivers, for them when the windows setup starts by pressing F6. If they are IDe. he should be picked up, by themselves.


So you can have a setup without the internet, and as wahnula suggests, limit the stuff you install on the dedicated install.

----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[wahnula]

You state that you had a "disaster"...I would think entertaining a RAID1 array for the DAW would be one more way of securing your data on the fly. Partition it w/ a 20-30GB OS & apps partition (uses the outer edge of the platters, the fastest part) and use the rest for data. Disaster planning is an important component of a new build.

Tony

 

[P220ST]

vacunita, you said "The dual setup should just be a matter of running Windows install twice, and just pointing it to 2 different locations. XP's setup, should take care of the boot loader by itself."

I will have the hardware at the bottom of this post installed. All HDDs are Seagate SATA. My confusion is I can find no instruction on dual-booting the same OS, XP-Pro, on two of the drives.

Assuming I receive this computer w/ XP-Pro installed on HDD#1 and HDDs#2-4 merely NTFS formatted. Can I initiate a 2nd install off of the Windows boot CD and, as you said, point it to HDD#2 and proceed normally, ending up with a dual-booted system?

-P220ST

Asus P5N-E SLI Mobo, Thermaltake Toughpower 750W W0117RU Power, Intel® Core™2 Duo Desktop Processor E6600 (2.4 GHz unoverclocked), Corsair 2GB (2 x 1GB kit) 5300 DDR2 SDRAM, NVIDIA 8600GT Video Card, Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro External audio interface/sound card, PreSonus Firebox Firewire audio interface/sound card recording system, four Seagate 250GB 7200.10 16MB cache HDDs, Motorola SBG900 Wireless Surfboard Gateway Router.

 

[vacunita]

Assuming I receive this computer w/ XP-Pro installed on HDD#1 and HDDs#2-4 merely NTFS formatted. Can I initiate a 2nd install off of the Windows boot CD and, as you said, point it to HDD#2 and proceed normally, ending up with a dual-booted system?

Yes. As long as the Windows Setup picks up the first installation, the Setup will take care of the bootloader.

When you boot into the Windows CD, and supply the proper drivers for the SATA drives by pressing f6 at the moment setup starts copying files. With the drivers loaded it will proceed with setup, at that point it should show you a list of drives where you can install. It should also tell you that one of them already has Windows Installed on it, once it does that, it means it recognizes the install. When you point it to the other drive which is to house the new install, it will take the first drive as the boot drive and configure for dual booting the existing boot.ini form the original install.

This will then allow you to have two installs. Its the same process as if you where to install Win2000 and WinXP, or Win Xp home and Xp Pro.









----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[P220ST]

vacunita, thanks for your response.

At this point the exectable, etc. for my driver set will be in a folder on HDD#1. Is it best to point the new installation in-process for HDD#2 to that folder (given that the drives are identical) or stick the CD-ROM into my other bay and update the drivers when it's done with the 2nd XP installation?

Did that question make any sense?

-P220ST

 

[vacunita]

I'm not sure i understood your question? coudl you rephrase it, i think you are mixing up things.

The drivers I mentioned, are for the XP install, to be able to recognize your drives, and are usually in a floppy. not a location on a hard drive.

The MFG should have provided them.

----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[firewolfrl]

I wrote in both these posts

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1375928

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1370154

I don't and maybe never will use the boot loader supplied by MS to load multiple OS's

I can load an OS and have it totally separate and unable to see any other harddrive if I want...I have done this for software I need to test on my system that does not work in a virtual enviroment.

currently I am testing software based on the UNIX system for running s HOTSPOT type server....

so I run at the moment (it does change)
drive 1 XP (ntfs) and an XOSL (fat32)
drive 2 Vista ultimate
drive 3 clone of drive 2
drive 4 the UNIX drive
drive 5 Ubunta
drive 6 just a data drive



so I kinda know what you are asking. I have set up music studio type server computers for the type of software you are running.
I don't recommend vacunita method...it will create issues for you
I do recommend you buy the cheapest Windows 2003 server software you can find. It uses the memory different than XP and you may find that it is a bit more stable for the recording software...this site helps you enable the audio

http://www.msfn.org/win2k3/

 

[P220ST]

Vacunita - thanks for replying. I was refering to the Seagate HDD drivers. I didn't know if at this point in the 2nd installation of XP-Pro on HDD#2, it would be blinded to the existence of HDD#1 which already has the drivers for the seagates on it (all HDDs are identical). You're right, they will be on a floppy so who cares.

Thanks,
-P220ST

 

[P220ST]

Firewolf, I appreciate you taking the time to respond. Unfortunately, for several reasons I have to stick w/ XP-Pro and make the best of it. It may have weaknesses as an OS orchestrating a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), but it's used by thousands of folks every day and I know it's doable, if not the best.

My Drive Setup is as follows:

HDD#1 = Drive C: = Regular workstation (OS/Apps/Data) for paying bills, using MS Office, doing emails, surfing the net, playing the occasional round of Quake

HDD#2 = Drive D: = DAW (OS/Apps) no data, no internet strictly DAW applications/drivers

HDD#3 = Drive E: = Audio Library (Data) Audio data files - samples and working tracks only. No OS, just NTFS formatting.

I read your threads. Thanks for providing them. I have a unique issue that I cannot get addressed however and that is installing the same copy of the same OS twice, first on drive C: then on drive D: . Can you point me to, or tell me how you would proceed with a parallel installation of XP-Pro? That is, installing it on drive C:, then Drive D: and as Vacunita discussed, when do I install the drivers for the second HDD?

Again, thanks,
P220ST

 

[P220ST]

Vacunita - all my HDDs are Seagate 7200.10s, brand new and identical in every rspect going onto a new Asus P5N-E mobo.

Are you sure about the F6 thing?

-P220ST

 

[firewolfrl]

Actually the parallel install is quite easy
what I do is install and setup the xp drive the way I want it with all the drives you listed the way you want them set up.
I shut down and have installed just the one harddrive that I want to be the clone of the xp (no other drive connected)

I use powermax to do a quick zero(format) of the bootsector and the the last part of the drive that holds the ntfs info

then I plug in the xp drive

Then I use the boot cd I created from Acronis True Image 9.1 Workstation

http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/products/ATICW/

I clone the xp drive

remove the original drive and boot for the first time the clone
let it detect the drive and reboot
shut down the system and set up like it was only with the new clone in place too
if you followed the directions on the previous links for the xosl install
when you first boot the system you will set up the two xp drives to boot from. both xp's are exact clones and will read the drive configuration the same as you listed.

when you boot and you don't like the drive letter assingments go to the windows diskmanager and reassign the drive letters to your liking

have to go for now...hope this helps

 

[P220ST]

It does help and thanks. I have a zip of XOSL on CD-ROM in my hot little hand w/ a bunch of .txt files about what it is, how it works, et cetera.

Problem w/ cloning for me: My 2nd HDD, the one destined to become a digital audio workstation, must be limited in function and scope from the outset. HDD#1 is going to arrive w/ multiple drivers and their consequent registry modifications that HDD#2 doesn't need. I'd prefer not going back over my tracks uninstalling superfluous drivers from HDD#2 and tidying up the registry mess left in its wake. For that reason alone, I'm opting to lay down a virgin installation of XP-Pro again on my 2nd HDD and installing only the drivers it needs.

The basic philosophy with DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) is to keep them simple, isolated and clean. I may have less than ten commercial applications installed onto HDD#2 (the DAW drive). The problem is the diminutive market. There are relatively few of us out there to provide the corporate impetus to make every app and driver cross-sompatable for the masses. So, they often aren't and the less stuff on your dedicated drive, the better.

Keep it comin' though. Every bit of info I get here is like gold and very much appreciated. I'm a researcher by training, so I love the distillation process with information, first illuminating my ignorance so as to convert the ignorance into a small but vital knowledge base.

Thanks to you folks, that is happening with this project and it's very cool.

Take Care,
-P220ST

 

[vacunita]

Yeah the f6 thing should bring up the load drivers screen. Once you provide the drivers, it should be able to see all drives connected to the machine at that point.

As for firewolf's suggestion that it might cause problems. I've been using Xp's bootlader for 3 years now. Before that i had Win2000 provide the boot loader with win98.

To this date I have my home machine triple booting Windows 98, Windows XP Pro and Windows 2003 server.

Without a hitch.

Win98 can't see either of the other 2 Os's drives, but the other 2 can see everything, and everything works fine. The only time i had a problem was when the XP drive suffered a drive corruption, but i had made a backup image of it, so i just re imaged the drive and presto its back online.


I know of people that like to switch out drives to boot from, or change boot order from bios each time they run on the PC. Why go through all that, when a simple menu selection is all it takes. Besides the boot loader can be set up such that if no selection is made in a given amount of time it boots into a default selected OS.

In my experience, its been the simplest and most straight forward way of doing it.

----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[P220ST]

vacunita, thanks.
And fiewolfrl, I wish I could just clone the stupid thing and be done with it. Copy/Paste a HDD sounds soo nice right about now. Sadly, it cannot be done.

Do y'all have experience with Acronis' Boot Manager or Disk Manager, I forget its name, their software for partitioning and associated tasks. What's the word 'round the campfire regarding its utility? If it were freeware, would you consider using it? I don't know, for what it does, its cost seems rather steep to me. Versus True Image which is a fair deal in my book.

-P220ST

 

[P220ST]

Soory, forgot one. Do folks around here stick their Operating Systems into their own small partitions?

If so, what is the advantage to doing that?

Thanks,
-P220ST

 

[vacunita]

Many people around here swear by Acronis. Acronis actually produces 2 distinct pieces of software. Acronis Parition Manager, to create and manage partitions . And Acronis Boot Manager. Which is a boot loader. I've never used any of them personally so can't say anything about them.

I myself like ParitionMagic. previously produced by Powerquest now owned by Norton. I have an old version that works great under DOS.

There is also Paragon, and a few others.

Also The Windows Setup disk provides a tool for partitioning and formatting.

I Have on my home machine. Win98 and WinXP on the same Hard drive, each in its own partition, with 2003 server on a separate hard drive of its own.

You should never install 2 OS'es unto the same partition. Because although it can be done and made to work. it usually causes trouble between OSes, and can ultimately lead to a non functional system. Its is recommended to have each OS on its own hard drive. But having each Os on its own partition is also acceptable, and desirable, when you don't have access to additional hard drives.



----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[firewolfrl]

vacunita brings up some good points. I personally don't like the MS bootloader because I like to hide the drives from each other and I like to have the drive read as C:\ for what ever drive I happen to boot from.

It's all in the tech's preference to what is useful or liked

and P220ST it sounds like you already know what you want to do.

at this point it's just what flavor you want for a bootmanager....I like mine in vanilla....LOL


I do alot of research too...that and I am a tinkerer....so...I see something to do and do it.....through trial and error I think I have a pretty good system setup. But, boy did I ever crash my systems learning...lol

 

[wolluf]

http://www.boot-us.com/

is a good boot manager - and if you use it from a floppy drive, you get full functionality free, AND no chance of hosing your hard drives (which some boot managers I've played with have done!). The selected version of XP will always be on C:, if you install as firewolfrl suggests - and you can hide the one not in use or not very easily (I think XOSL is probably good now too - though I did have problems with earlier incarnations years ago).

I would also agree with firewolfrl about independence of the o/s - and not using the MS boot loader.