V. Frustrating WinXP dual boot problem (not the usual) 1

[Kenny2003]

Hi Guys,

Please forgive me if this is not the right forum to ask for help with my problem but I am being driven mad with frustration. I hope someone can help me with a problem that I have been trying to fix for 3 days nonstop now.

First My System:

3Ghz P4 with 2Gig Ram (MSI 865PE Neo2 Motherboard)
Two SATA Hd's set up in a RAID0 array (using the Intel IAA XP Driver)
1 X 80gig IDE HD on Primary Ch 1 (Master)
1 X 80gig IDE HD on Primary Ch 2 (Slave)
1 DVD Writer on Secondary Ch 1 (Master)
1 CD-ROM reader on Secondary Ch 2 (Slave)

I want to be able to Dual boot between two seperate installs of Windows XP on two "totally seperate" HD's. I know the normal thing is to have 1 drive and install the OS into seperate partitions but I have a specific need to do it the way I have asked.

The SATA array will be used as a purely Music Production system and I need it to be isolated from other programs and possible virus infection and the IDE HD will be used for running Office and internet programs.

My problem is this, no matter which way i try to set this up, Windows explorier always displays the IDE drive as the C:\ and shows the SATA array as E:\. It does this even when i boot into the Array system? Is this correct, should it be doing this? Of course when I go to install programs on the Array System, if the install app does not have the option to choose where you install stuff, it auto looks for the C: drive and that means it will load onto the wrong drive for the array!

I would have thought that when i boot into the array system it would show the SATA HD with the OS on as the C:\ and then when I boot into the IDE HD it should show that as the C:\ or have I got this all mixed up.

The way I installed the two OS's was like this: I disconnected the SATA HDs and installed the OS from the Win XP Install CD. Then when it was setup and working, I reconnected the SATA drives and installed the OS onto the array - have I done this wrong?

I have also tried several other ways that various people have suggested but it still produces the same result. I am at a total loss now as what to do so any help or suggestions that you can offer would be great - thank you for reading this, I appreciate it.

Yours Truley

Kenny

 

[braddds]

I may be wrong on this but... wouldn't a boot manager program like "bootit" or something similar help hide the disks/partitons of the raid array when booting to you IDE Xp drives and visa-versa!? Thereby each OS would believe it were on C: drive and elminate your install problems and potential virus migration.

To get a truly seperate dual boot (with the same OS) I believe you need some third party tool to keep the OS'es apart...at least that's what I'd try if it were me!

Just a suggestion. Check with google to find other boot managers, free or otherwise!

Cheers

 

[Blujacket]

One thing I didn't see mentioned [or missed] is that the BIOS generally sees IDE Primary Master as the boot/system drive and reports that to Windows.

Win2000 and WinXP can be installed on a second drive or a second partition but they still need to put a few files on C: when they create the dual-boot menu [boot.ini].

Maybe the BIOS boot sequence has more settings?

 

[wolluf]

Would agree a third party boot manager probably good idea - but think main problem is that BOTH installations of XP need to be done when the other is not connected. Ie, install on IDE with SATA disconnected (like you did). Then install on SATA with IDE disconnected. This will create 2 independent installations that both think they're on C:. when the other disk is connected, it should be allocated the next spare drive letter (or if you use a boot manager, you could elect to hide each installation from the other).

Then set up boot menu (third party good now - though I think the good old edit boot.ini (on the installation which the bios will boot first) would still do the job.

Have a look at

http://www.boot-us.com

for a very good, free for personal use boot manager.

 

[Nelviticus]

I have a machine where I set up two installations of XP on different hard drives, each installed when the other drive was disconnected. I can confirm that it works as wolluf says - each installation thinks it's on C. One caveat is that depending on which installation you boot into the drive letters will mean different things - D won't refer to the same drive for each installation, for instance.

However I can also confirm that the Windows boot manager will work fine. It doesn't refer to partitions by their drive letter but by which controller, channel, drive and partition number they are.

Nelviticus

 

[nirvana80]

I agree windows boot.ini will still do the job as far as the installation of the two XP are made with the other disk disconnected. Eache XP you are booting will appear as C: and the non loaded XP will be given the next available letter. The boot.ini NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM that will be used will be the one on the IDE HD on the active partition. Make sure only that the content of boot.ini to boot the SATA Array is correct. If you install XP on the array with the IDE HD disconnected you will need to insert manually the string that let you choose witch operating system you want to boot. This could be tricky though.
A standard line for an IDE HD is like this
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
When you have SCSI or non IDE Disk it may be slightly different like this
scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
I'm not telling you that the second one is what you need just advicing to try different combination and do some research.
I hope you get it working.

 

[Sympology]

A few years ago I took a totally different approach to isolating drives.
Take the power lead from each drive and extend it using a standard extender. Cut the power feed to each extender and solder in a switch. Hey presto you can turn them on and off as you want.
I eventually changed it to a ide / scsi drive and had the scsi as an exteranl one, so I could just turn it off. Set BIOS to boot of scsi first.
Not sure how it'll work on modern MOBO's after all the smarter the boards, the less you can get out of them.

Stu..

2 decades from retirement, 2 minutes from a breakdown