Win XP on two hard drives

[korran]

I have two hard drives that I would like to load win XP on both. I want to create a seperate environment (dual boot) for both hard drives (one to use for programming/business, and the other to use for games). I don't want any games to cause conflicts with any of my programming/business programs. Any ideas on the best way to set this up or is this even something worth doing. Also, my system came only with a system restore disk and not the win XP cd. Any help would be appreciated!

 

[wolluf]

If your restore disk will work with either drive, I'd just use it twice (assuming nothing installed currently - just once otherwise) on each disk, with the other disk disconnected. When you're happy both will boot on their own, connect the 2 drives at once. After it boots, edit the boot.ini file on the primary master disk so it has 2 entries - something like this:-

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional Disk 1" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional Disk 2" /fastdetect

(You can do this from system properties, advanced tab, settings button for startup and recovery, click on Edit button (to edit the start up options files manually).

Should now have a dual boot.

 

[korran]

Thanks for the info. One more question. The system restore disk is setup to have two partitions (C&D), if I don't setup each hard disk with two partitions then the setup errors when trying to restore the D drive. So, if I setup a small partition on each drive, would I still change the boot.ini to say partition(1) & partition(2) or would I need to say something like:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional Disk1" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional Disk 2" /fastdetect

And what is rdisk?

Thanks for all your help.

 

[wolluf]

Sorry, my boot.ini was wrong - it was for 2 partitions, not drives. For 2 drives:-

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional Disk 1" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional Disk 2" /fastdetect

rdisk(0) is disk 1
rdisk(1) is disk 2
partition is partition n

supply appropriate values for the partition(s) where your \windows folder(s) are (eg, partition 4 on disk 2 would be

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(4)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional Disk 2 Part 4" /fastdetect

 

[RoryBlag]

Hi.... apologies for rejuvenating a thread this old, I came via Google...

I have two hard drives on my system, one with Windows XP and the other with 2000, both bootable. I have been selecting which o/s to use by just swapping the jumpers between the drives to set the master before booting.

Since this is a pain, I tried to set up a dual boot system following the advice here, with the XP drive set to master and as the default o/s. XP still boots fine, however if I try to boot 2000 this way I am told it cannot as the following file is missing:

<windows root>\system 32\hal.dll

Is the procedure different if using XP/2K instead of XP/XP?

Thanks in advance.

 

[BuckeyeComputers]

interesting wolluf, but i have a question to clarify something here... what about product activation? running 2 complete xp os on the same computer....

 

[RoryBlag]

Managed to work out what my problem was. I was using this boot.ini:

[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=&quot;Microsoft Windows XP Professional&quot; /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS=&quot;Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional&quot; /fastdetect

Where WINDOWS is the system root. On my 2000 disk the system root is WINNT. Once I'd realized this I corrected boot.ini as follows:

[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=&quot;Microsoft Windows XP Professional&quot; /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT=&quot;Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional&quot; /fastdetect

All is good now

 

[aldog]

WARNING! Microsoft only allows ONE copy of Windows XP per system. This means that if you want to have two copies of Windows XP, they have to be on different computers.

I tried to install two copies of Windows XP on different hard drives on the same computer and Microsoft kept on destroying the partition table on my secondary hard drive and or/ I could NOT activate it... with a message saying the license for the computer is invalid!

I would suggest you can just create a separate extended partition to store youe games/apps. But if all the free space has already been partitioned, you cannot create another partition.

You can use many programs, like Boot Magic, system commander that can resize your existing partition and create other extended partitions and many more!

But I'm warning you, you MAY be able to successfully install another Windows xp, but it is against the Microsoft's agreement.

 

[bryansd]

I just found this forum. I have a problem similar to this. First is it possible to dual diffrent language windows xp? Second will it be the same setup as any other dual boot system would be? Thanks for the help.

 

[wolluf]

bryansd - I've never tried that combination, but can't see why it shouldn't be the same as any other dual boot.

 

[otheipion]

I have a related problem. I've setup WinXP Pro on partitions 1 and 2 on my first hard disk. Both are NTFS format. I edited the boot.ini as wolluf suggested above:

System > Advanced > Startup and Recovery > Edit:

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=&quot;Microsoft Windows XP Professional (Main)&quot; /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS=&quot;Microsoft Windows XP Professional (Music)&quot; /fastdetect

At bootup, NTLDR appears to run just fine, although there is about a 25 second delay between the bios run-through and when it appears. When the first partition is selected it loads perfectly, but the system hangs (error reported) when the second partition is selected at bootup. Seems rather odd. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[wolluf]

otheipion

How did you set up the 2 XP installations? (because if 'normally', XP should have created that boot.ini (apart from the main/music bit) itself when you installed the second time.

Try using an XP 'boot floppy' (copy ntldr, ntdetect.com & boot.ini to newly formatted floppy & boot from that - see if that works.

PS. Would help if you posted the error you get.

 

[otheipion]

Hi wolluf!

I used PartitionMagic to create the new NTFS partition (second primary on disk 1) and to hide my active partition (first primary on disk 1) and then rebooted. WinXP Pro installation requested that I reformat the partition with NTFS, so I did. At no time during the installation of the second OS did I receive an option to configure a multiboot system.

I will attempt to use an XP boot floppy, but I certainly don't want that to be my long term solution.

I'll post back within the hour - thanks!

 

[wolluf]

Right - if you hid the 1st partition while installing second copy, then second has its own boot sector on its own partition (but should still boot from boot sector on first) - and that's why no multiboot.

If you hide the first partition again (and set second active), will the machine boot second partition?

I'd still like to know the error message!

PS. Is the 'second' partition really the second? (I'm just wondering as you created it with PM then XP reformatted it - just wondering if its not partition 3 (or even 4!). You could test that out by editing boot.ini on the floppy - just add 2 entries for partitions 3 and 4.

PPS. I use

http://www.boot-us.com

to multiboot (free for personal use) - you could just try that too - see if it has any more luck booting bot. One thing - it will use the second copy's own boot sector (boot.ini, ntldr, ntdetect.com). Boot-us has option to install boot menu to floppy (for testing purposes - normally stored in mbr (my choice) or spare partition slot).

 

[otheipion]

Right, I see and will check to see if it will boot into the second OS when I hide the first and unhide the second. I am unable to locate the files that you cited above (ntldr, ntdetect.com and boot.ini) so I'll have to get to that later. Just curious, will fdisk allow me to view NTFS partition info?

Here is the error message you were curious about (note: it boots with the initial splash screen, but then the following sequence results...):

&quot;Autochk program not found - skipping autochk&quot;

Then the screen changes to a darker blue (fatal error) variety:

&quot;STOP: C000021a (Fatal System Error)
The system manager initialization system process terminated unexpectedly with ... error.
The system will now shut down&quot;

The latter error message wasn't displayed long enough for me to get all the info down (even through two reboots) so I just hope it gives you enough of an idea.

Will try the hide/unhide thing now...

 

[otheipion]

Okay, the second OS boots through just fine. Kind of perplexed... I guess the easiest thing to do would be to reinstall the second OS without hiding the first partition. I'll wait to hear back, however, because this is the more time-consuming option!

 

[wolluf]

If second boots fine with 1st hidden - can I suggest you try that boot manager (

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

Its very good - easy to install and set up. Boot.ini etc are hidden, system, read only files, so you either need to change their attributes or set explorer view options accordingly to be able to see them (there should be copies in the root of both your partitions).

PS. Google on your Stop error produces a number of hits.

 

[otheipion]

wolluf: I'll post back in a day or so to let you know how I made out. Thanks for your kindness and help!

-otheipion

 

[otheipion]

Well, I'm not having any success with boot-us program. The documentation is terrible (I'm guessing that English is not the author's first language!) and the interface is very primitive. I got as far as trying to install the command line version but then just gave up because I (apparently) couldn't get the syntax correct - should the installation be from the hard disk to the floppy or from the floppy back to itself? What should I call the installation file? I tried the given example formats and got nothing but errors. Grrrrrr...

I'm starting to get quite bothered that I have two, fully independent XP NTFS partitions that both boot just fine when the other is hidden but which cannot be managed easily by the NT boot loader. Surely, this shouldn't be so difficult to get working! I also find it odd that the configuration I'm attempting isn't well documented.

PS - I did a Google search on the error code I cited above. Seems it is quite a general error code and of little use in pinpointing an application specific issue.

 

[otheipion]

Okay, I've finally figured things out. I was under the impression that the installation routine for the win32 version was only for the gui interface. Since I wanted to test via diskette, I was stuck trying to figure out the command line switches, etc. I must admit that I was kind of paranoid :chuckle: but once I got the DOS installation working and gained some confidence in the program, I then went for the win32 installation. It was then that I discovered that I could have used it from the very beginning. The documentation inside the program is far clearer and immediately useful than any of the help files on the website - jeez!

Anyway, I'll be going through with the full installation tomorrow. Of course I will have to purchase a license since I want to make use of the fuller features like passwords and true hiding of various partitions.

Now that I've finally got it running, it looks like exactly what I've been looking for. Thanks for the head-up, wolluf!