Hi, ba'heid.
There are two ways to set up dual-boot: the Microsoft way and the
third-party boot manager way. I know nothing about third-party solutions,
but I've been using the MS way for several years, with varying combinations
of Windows versions, hard drives and partitions, so that's what I will
discuss.
No matter how many HDs you use or how many partitions, Windows always starts
the boot from the Root of the System Partition, which is almost always the
first primary partition on the first physical drive, which must be Active
(bootable). This is almost always C:\. The NT-style boot sector for this
partition loads C:\NTLDR, which reads C:\boot.ini to locate the various
copies of Windows on your computer's drives, and then C:\NTDETECT.COM finds
the copy you've chosen, loads it and starts it running.
Each installation of Windows creates is own "boot folder" (\Windows, by
default) on whichever volume (primary partition or logical drive) you choose
on any HD in your computer. Setup creates (or updates) C:\boot.ini to point
to that location (using HD and partition NUMBERS, not LETTERS).
So, your computer will always start in C:\, but will branch from there to
D:\Windows (or X:\Windows in the 3rd partition of your second HD - or
wherever you choose) and load and run Win98 or the second (or 5th) copy of
WinXP from there.
No third-party solutions are needed, unless you choose to use a different
system.
RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(E-Mail Removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
"ba'heid" <ba'(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:8F677130-0734-44A5-881F-(E-Mail Removed)...
>I have installed XP on my C drive and also on my second hard drive, for
>games etc, to keep them separate. However I am not getting an option to
>boot into my D drive at start up. I have read all about dual booting in
>the articles and it does not seem to either apply or make sense to a
>novice. Can someonse please help or do i need something like OSL boot that
>I had when i was running 98SE?