A couple of suggestions

[Kennya1]

A couple of thinks

First on new machines you DO NOT HAVE CHANGE Jumpers Setting to boot
to a simple Drive. On Intel motherboards (the only ones I know) just
hit F2 and in the bios you can select which drive (master Slave, Sata,
etc) should be the boot drive. We do it all the time

Second YOU DO NOT Need a Second drive...Try Virtual PC..we use it to
test software we develope on other operating systems. Not best for a
second version of XP but since Win98 was designed to run on a 600 mHZ
machine the speed of the emulation on a fast new machine is finee.
DOS Flies...think about it it was designed for 4.8 MHz and you are
running it on a slow emulatot that is running 125000x times faster

FInally it solves the emuletion problems

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/default.mspx

 

[Infosink]

Thank you very much .. and I'd like to add the new SATA type drives don't
even have external jumpers.

 

[Michael Wayne]

First on new machines you DO NOT HAVE CHANGE Jumpers Setting to boot
to a simple Drive. On Intel motherboards (the only ones I know) just
hit F2 and in the bios you can select which drive (master Slave, Sata,
etc) should be the boot drive. We do it all the time

On new machines, jumpers are No longer required because ALL SATA Drives do
not use the jumber system. It is no longer configured as master & slave
drives. It is configured now as 0,1,2,3 and so on which is determined by
where it is attached to the motherboard and not how the hard drive is
jumpered.

Most motherboards with SATA only have 1 IDE feature connector as so you can
attach a couple of IDE CD- ROMs. Some have an additional IDE feature
connector and this is nice as so you can use your old IDE hard drive in the
absent of a SATA hard drive.

That is why in the bios you can change the boot sequence. If you use the
bios settings for boot up, booting will only be allowed if the second drive
has been setup as a primary drive. That is, it has to set to active with
regard to the partition settings.

The only drawback to this type of setup is that you are entering the bios
each time that you want to change the OS. This is not what the bios is
designed for. It is designed to be set when a computer is built and left
alone after that. If multple users are using this machine, then each one
would have to enter the bios just to switch between OS's. Bad idea.

It would be better to Dual Boot from a menu upon boot up and your system
would be more stable in the long run leaving the bios like it was designed
to be. Left alone.

Hope this helps..
Michael Wayne

 

[Jeff]

How you enter Bios is not dependent on your processor Mfg., but on the Bios
type (Award, Phoenix, etc...) or the PC manufacturer (Dell, HP, IBM, etc).
Here is a list of Bios access keys.

Acer: - Ctrl+Alt+Esc
ALR PC: (F2) or (Ctrl)(Alt)Esc)
AMI BIOS: (Del), (F1) or (F2)
AST, Advantage, Award, Tandon: - Ctrl + Alt + Esc
Award BIOS: (Del) or (Ctrl)(Alt)(Esc)
Compaq: (F10) (do this when the cursor is in the upper right corner of the
screen blinking)
Dell: - F1 or Del.
Dell: - Some require pressing reset twice
Dell: - Ctrl + Alt + Enter
DTK BIOS: (Esc)
Gateway 2000: - F1
Hewlett Packard: - F1
IBM:
Older Models - In order to get into the configuration of the IBM setup
screen (CMOS) screen you need to hold down both mouse buttons during bootup.
Aptiva - Press F1
IBM PS/2: (Ctrl)(Alt)(Ins) after (Ctrl)(Alt)(Del)
IBM PS/2 with reference partition: - Press Ins during boot
Some PS/2s, such as 75 and 90: - Ctrl Alt ?
Some PS/2s when pointer at top right of screen: - Ctrl + Ins
NEC: - F2
Packard Bell: - F1 or F2
Phoenix BIOS: (F1), (F2), or (Ctrl)(Alt)(Esc)
Phoenix BIOS: - Ctrl Alt S
Phoenix BIOS: - Ctrl S
Phoenix BIOS: - Ctrl Alt Ins
Sharp Laptop 9020: - F2
Sony: (F3) while you are starting the PC, then (F2) or (F1)
Tandon computers: - Hold down the key after turning on power
Tandon: - Ctrl + Shift + Esc
Toshiba Laptops: - Toshiba Utility
Toshiba: - Press Esc during boot
Toshiba, Phoenix, late model PS/1 Value Point and 330s: - Press F1 during
boot
Olivetti PC Pro: - Shift Ctrl Alt + Num Pad Del
Miscellaneous PC's: - Ctrl + Esc or Ctrl and Alt and +
Zenith: - Ctrl Alt Ins

Most newer PC motherboards or mainline Mfg. PC's will automatically
recogonize new HD's with configuring the Bios, But it never hurst to check.
If you want to change the boot order you must access the Bios and set the
order desired.

Jeff

 

[Plato]

A couple of thinks

First on new machines you DO NOT HAVE CHANGE Jumpers Setting to boot
to a simple Drive. On Intel motherboards (the only ones I know) just

But, one would first have to set it to lets say D:, then install the os,
to make it bootable, so later on one can do as you say to boot from it.