2 HDD on 1 IDE controller/2 Windows OS

[Larry Roberts]

I have a 40GB Seagate ATA100 HDD on my primary IDE port. A
DVDRW drive on the secondary IDE port. I'm wanting to add a second HDD
as a Win98SE OS boot drive for older games that don't work under
WinXP. This HDD is ATA66. Should I add it to my primary IDE, or to the
secondary IDE? Not sure if it would cause performance problems with my
primary HDD, or the DVDRW.

 

[Mike T.]

I have a 40GB Seagate ATA100 HDD on my primary IDE port. A
DVDRW drive on the secondary IDE port. I'm wanting to add a second HDD
as a Win98SE OS boot drive for older games that don't work under
WinXP. This HDD is ATA66. Should I add it to my primary IDE, or to the
secondary IDE? Not sure if it would cause performance problems with my
primary HDD, or the DVDRW.

If you put it on the same cable as the ATA100, the ATA100 will run at ATA66
speed. But, you won't notice a difference in performance at all. Oh, and
it won't affect the DVDRW drive if it is on the same IDE cable. However,
you are going to have to change some jumpers somehow. As a minimum, you
will have to set the ATA66 drive jumper to "slave". -Dave

 

[Robbie McFerren]

If you put it on the same cable as the ATA100, the ATA100 will run at ATA66
speed. But, you won't notice a difference in performance at all. Oh, and
it won't affect the DVDRW drive if it is on the same IDE cable. However,
you are going to have to change some jumpers somehow. As a minimum, you
will have to set the ATA66 drive jumper to "slave". -Dave

I had a similar decision on my hands, but the consequences would have
been very dramatic. I decided to put my ZIP drive (Original IDE spec)
on the secondary channel for two reasons. The first is the fact that I
will not use the DVD drive at the same time as the zip drive. I have
yet to burn a DVD, but I doubt it would be a problem.

 

[Thomas Wendell]

Skip the speed problems, they're non-existent nowadays.

You're about to run into problems with dual-booting W98 and XP, unless
you're ready to fully re-install XP also..???
(Maybe can do with BootMagik or some such utility to hide either disk FULLY
from the other)


For now, you have XP installed on C: , but IIRC you can't install W98 on D:,
regardless the file system on C: (has to be FAT/FAT32) as it likes to put A
LOT of stuff on C: , so.....
And you can't make the now-C to new-D , because your XP installation would
end working due to path references etc in registry (A LOT, not editable)...


My recommendation would be to backup all your DATA, from the existing disk
and physically install the new disk. Next install W98 1st, deleting all
partitions on C: , (must do if it's NTFS now), create new partition on 1st
HD. Install W98 on that....

Now boot the XP CD and install, making sure you specify NOT upgrade,
choosing the 2nd HD as target. File system on 2nd disk is irrelevant, *)
This will automatically make it dual boot.



*) Remember that W98 can't read NTFS, but XP can read FAT32. So if you make
the 2nd disk NTFS, that stuff/data is in-accessible from W98
Or, if space allows, make a partition on either disk just for data, file
system as FAT32, and store there from both OS's




--
Tumppi
=================================
Most learned on these newsgroups
Helsinki, FINLAND
(translations from/to FI not always accurate
=================================