Bootloader options for 2 OS on 2 disks

[Guest]

I'm currently running XP Pro and XP Home on the same computer but on 2
physical disks and using the BIOS to select which disk to boot from when I
need to change. Although this works, I'd rather have a boot menu. Are there
options for boot.ini to accomodate for multiple disks rather than just
different partions?

Thank you for any suggestions.

 

[Guest]

Yes but there are issues, most notably that the NT bootloader doesn't set the
active partition, so you end-up with the boot-partition being other than C:

A better arrangement is to use a bootloader in the MBR of the first disk.
Ranish Partition Manager has a simple example of such. A more sophisitcated
one is XOSL.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

I'm currently running XP Pro and XP Home on the same
computer but on 2 physical disks and using the BIOS to
select which disk to boot from when I need to change.
Although this works, I'd rather have a boot menu. Are there
options for boot.ini to accomodate for multiple disks rather
than just different partions?

Yes, boot.ini's entries can designate the hard drive in
addition to designating the partition.

The partition, as you probably know, is designated by
the "partition(y)" parameter, where "y" indicates the
partition number (starting with "1").

The HD is designated by the "rdisk(x)" parameter,
where "x" is the position in the HD boot order relative
to the head of the list (the head of the list having
relative position "0").. The "HD boot order" is the
priority list of hard drives for booting, the MBR of the
HD at the head of that list being given control during
the boot procedure. For BIOSes that don't allow
the user to reset the HD boot order, the order is
fixed at: Master on ch. 0, Slave on ch. 0, Master on
ch. 1, Slave on ch. 1. That is also the default HD
boot order in BIOSes that do allow adjustment of the
HD boot order, but when the HD boot order is changed
by the user, the meaning of "x" in "rdisk(x)" follows the
HD boot order.

In the boot procedure, the MBR of the HD at the head
of the HD boot order is given control. It looks at the
partition table and selects the primary partition marked
"active" and hands control to that partition's boot sector.
That boot sector looks for ntldr at the root of its sector's
file hierarchy. The ntldr utility looks for boot.ini, and if
boot.ini has more than one entry under the
"[control systems]" heading, it will display the contents
of the boot.ini file as a menu on the screen for the number
of seconds designated by the "timeout" parameter in boot.ini .
Keyboard selection of the menu entry will cause ntldr to
load the OS at the location designated by the selected
entry. If no selection is made before the timeout, of if
there is only one entry under "[control systems]", the entry
designated as "default" will automatically be selected.

This all means that the boot load files, ntldr, boot.ini, and
ntdetect.com, must be in an "active" primary partition on
the HD at the head of the HD boot order, but that the OS
itself can be loaded from ANY partition in the system,
even from a logical drive in an extended partition.

*TimDaniels*