Multiboot 2x WinXP Home in 2 primary partitions

[BRASILROL3]

HI!
I have install winXPHome in 1 HD.
This HD have 2 primary (NTFS)partitions.
Each Partitions starts with WinXP Home.
I can change between 1.XP Partition and the second with a PartitionsMagic Floppy. I set one Active, the oder is hidden.
Its works, no problems.
The problem is, when I make a new user in the frist XP Partition, this new user apers too in the second XP partition!!!
Why?
The logical partitions take no changes.
Thanks for any answer!
Sérg

 

[wolluf]

Sounds odd. You definitely have 2 independent installations of XP? When you say 'this new user apers too in the second XP partition' - does this mean you can log on to second copy of XP with the new user credentials, without setting this user up in the second copy?

 

[BRASILROL3]

You definitely have 2 independent installations of XP? Thats right.


does this mean you can log on to second copy of XP with the new user credentials, without setting this user up in the second copy?
Yes. And if I delete a user in a installation, its disappers in the second too.

I never had this "Phenomen" in my technical live.

 

[BRASILROL3]

Your questions,

Thats right. I definitely have 2 independent installations of XP.


Does this mean you can log on to second copy of XP with the new user credentials, without setting this user up in the second copy?
Yes. And if I delete a user in a installation, its disappers in the second too.

I never had this "Phenomen" in my technical live.

 

[rifleman]

Can I ask why you have done this in the first place? I can't see any advantage or reason at all in doing that!

 

[wolluf]

It sounds more like mirroring. Are you sure the noot manager is working properly (that is, is it really switching between the partitions, or does it just appear to - so you in fact always get access to the SAME installation). If you look in disk management (run diskmgmt.msc) from the second installation, the first partition should appear as hidden. From the first installtion it should not (the display should definitely be different). So could you just check that please, and post back.

 

[BRASILROL3]

Very simple:
We have 2 boys that love play games... very much...

Than, my idea was to separete the systems. I work with one Partition, and they play only in their partition.

Normaly it's works well, with win9x (win98, winme). But I have a new pc with XPHome pré-installed and would like to have the same dual boot system.

Do you have same idea?
Thanks
Sérg

 

[BRASILROL3]

I ran diskmgmt.msc and can see the 2 primary partitions and the extendet too.

The primary activ one is called C:.

The second primary had no letter, no errors. The partitions are NTFS and have diferents sizes, 4,88GB and 2,96GB.

Thanks,

Sérg

 

[wolluf]

Ok, that's what you could see from installation one (what/how big is extended partition? Is the second one hidden or just not having a drive letter)?

Now log on to installation 2, and run diskmgmt.msc again. What do you see now?

 

[BRASILROL3]

All NTFS
Disk 0
Basic online
Primary 1: 4,88GB
Primary 2: 2,96GB
Extendet:
D: 9,77GB (Swap file)!!!
E: 9,77GB
F: 9,77GB
G: 9,77GB
H: 29,42GB

May be the problem is the swap file! The partitions have the same swap file locations, in D:.
I will try to change the swap file location.
May be its works?!!!
Thanks

 

[BRASILROL3]

Bad news!
I change the swap file to C:, but the problem persits.

Sugestions?

Thanks
Sérg

 

[wolluf]

Sérg,

I still think both your boot options are accessing the same installation of XP (on the first partition/C: drive).

Also, why all those logical drives and small system partition(s)?

I don't use Partition Magic's boot manager (I use one at

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

so don't know how to check out how it boots partitions and how to audit what its doing. If it wasn't so much work, I'd suggest starting again!

One thing you could try - assuming that second primary partition has got an XP installation on it. Make sure its not being shown as hidden (Partition Magic can show you this and allow you to change it). Then make an XP boot floppy like this. Copy the files ntldr, ntdetect.com and boot.ini from root of C: to newly formatted floppy (they're all hidden, system, read only files, so set view options in explorer to be able to see them). Then edit the boot.ini file on the floppy so it looks like this (use notepad):-

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home - 1" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Mi8LÙhÏ9a9É™UßÈÎQ[;¥Éñö;îy@¤r‚$ߌ|µmµq'‰‰YgtЩÞ1²³^Ô–Û‹×ÑâG7#ym»{A—¥LfÛœ’ZÃ5¾ïsü
ñž7´ÊÑÍHiÛî] Ð_—pàZ6ã<Lºíag>¶,ä»ù_i'øê44|‹_÷Îçxèó¶yL5S[ò ÍçwAÇó§’gœØ)µ4@È}ã‚RfY©½×ÿ‘åˉVWˆe–…˜ÚÅ¢f?óðià¨$|v½5cÉö²0[þ1w¢
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[muffinresearch]

Hello there, I came across this issue recently an it's caused by the boot ini file in the second o/s install pointing to the wrong partition.

What you need to do is modify the boot ini to correctly reflect the partitions you are booting from eg:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS=&quot;Microsoft Windows XP Professional&quot; /fastdetect

change &quot;partition(3)&quot; to reflect the partition you are trying to boot from.

the above example boots this xp installation from partion three. Check which partition your installations boot from I suspect that your second xp install should be booting from 2 but instead is booting from partition one and that is affecting your first install. this happens because although you haven hidden the partitions xp can still &quot;see&quot; them.

Hope this helps.