Dual boot with 2 WinXP installations

[Nathan Haigh]

I have recently added a second HD to my computer, and while i swap all the
files, settings and reinstall programs on the new WinXP partition, i want to
be able to access both versions of WinXP.

I have BootIt NG installed and thought i had it setup correctly to boot
either of the two WinXP installations. However, when i do try to boot from
either of the WinXP partitions i always get the black windows boot screen
(boot.ini file) and cannot figure out haw to directly boot into either of
the WinXP partitions from BootIt NG. I have edited the boot.ini file so that
the black OS selection screen doesn't appear, but then no matter which
partition i try to boot from BootIT NG, it always boots WinXP from my C
drive. On an additional note i also have RedHat Linux installed on it's own
partition, so i either need to know how to do one of the following:

setup the boot.ini file to let me boot RedHat directly
OR
how to allow either of the two WinXP partitions to be booted directly

 

[Rich Barry]

Nathan, you may have to look at the documentation for BootItNG again.
Take a look at this site for info
http://home.houston.rr.com/move2lin/multiboot.htm

 

[Doug Knox MS-MVP]

Nathan,

You cannot simply clone an XP install to another hard disk, even with BootIt
NG. In order to create a cloned copy of your existing XP installation, load
it and log in. When you get to the Desktop, click Start, Run and enter
REGEDIT Go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices

Delete all values in this key, except the Default value. You may want to
right click on the MountedDevices subkey and select Export first, to create
a backup. Then reboot the computer. Intercept BootIt NG, and go into
maintenance mode and clone the working XP partition to the new location.

After this is done, boot into your working XP installation again. Locate
the BOOT.INI file on the "cloned" installation and open it in Notepad. You
need to adjust the entry that loads XP to reflect the new location (hard
disk/partition).

For example, if your existing installation is on the first partition of the
first physical hard disk, this line would look like this:

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

Now, you've cloned the XP installation to the first partition on the second
physical hard disk. The line needs to read:

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

Save the changed BOOT.INI file to the "cloned" copy. Reboot the computer
again. Once BootIt NG loads, choose Maintenance again. Create a new Boot
Menu item for each of the XP installations. When you choose either one from
the Boot Menu, it will still think its on the C: drive, but you will be
booting from the correct partition.

Additional note: Any time you have more than one line under the [operating
systems] section of the BOOT.INI file, the OS choices screen will always
show up.

 

[Alex Nichol]

I have BootIt NG installed and thought i had it setup correctly to boot
either of the two WinXP installations. However, when i do try to boot from
either of the WinXP partitions i always get the black windows boot screen
(boot.ini file) and cannot figure out haw to directly boot into either of
the WinXP partitions from BootIt NG. I have edited the boot.ini file so that
the black OS selection screen doesn't appear, but then no matter which
partition i try to boot from BootIT NG, it always boots WinXP from my C
drive.

Two things here:
One, unless you have very good reason otherwise, I would hide the two
partitions from each other. THen you want each to be 'seen' initially
as being in the same 'slot' of the partition table as it was originally.

You can set both of those aspects up in BING Maintenance - Boot Edit.
Having selected the one you want to boot, go to the list of partitions
on the right, select the other one and 'Hide' it. Then highlight the
one you want to boot, and move it up to the same place as where it was
when installed (probably top). That then corresponds to partition(1) in
boot.ini. What is happening is that when you boot either partition, it
is looking that partition number up in boot.ini, then loading windows
from that physical partition - so if one happens to be 3 now, you may
be booting not from it but from 1.