Bootmagic 8, XP on second HD. Possible???

[jmc]

Can not seem to get XP to boot off of 2 Hard drive. So far it will
ONLY boot
off of the booting HD. (switching in Bios works... what a pain!)

Upgraded to new bootmagic, still no luck

Thoughts Welcome!
thanks,
jmc

 

[Rod Speed]

Can not seem to get XP to boot off of 2 Hard drive.
So far it will ONLY boot off of the booting HD.
(switching in Bios works... what a pain!)

Much too cryptic. Try again.

Its certainly possible, and the XP install will set it
up like that if you install it correctly in the first place.

Do you want to be able to boot more than just XP ?

Upgraded to new bootmagic, still no luck

Its possible to edit the XP boot.ini to do what you want.
You dont state clearly what you actually want to do tho.

 

[Michael Kimmer]

Can not seem to get XP to boot off of 2 Hard drive. So far it will
ONLY boot
off of the booting HD. (switching in Bios works... what a pain!)

Upgraded to new bootmagic, still no luck

Thoughts Welcome!
thanks,
jmc

What error message(s) are you running into while booting the 2nd XP from
your 2nd HDD?

--
M.f.G.
Michael Kimmer

"Ein Tag an dem Du nicht lächelst ist ein verlorener Tag"
"Eine Nacht in der Du nicht schläfst ist eine verschlafene Nacht"

 

[jmc]

Error message none, just reboots computer. If I put the second HD as
the boot drive in bios
XP boots. but no luck using bootmagic.

I have 6 boot partitions, 5 win98se (3 on HD0 and 3on HD1) and 1
XP(to experiment with).
Win98se boots off 2 HD but XP won't.

Also using fat16 for primary partitions for max compatibiilty.

 

[jmc]

SNIP
Ok, I have 2 HD, 6 boot partitions. 3 on each. 5 boot Win98se no problem.
But trying to boot XP off the first partition on the second HD
(using BootMagic) just reboots the computer. Boot magic is on first HD.
(again... win98se No Problem)

If I change the second HD (HD1) in the bios as the first boot drive then
XP will boot no problem.(no bootmagic menu tho.)
My older bootmagic would boot XP with no problem but it HAD to be on
the first boot drive. Was hoping the new bootmagic upgrade would fix
that.

So... what I am trying to do is have several(6-7) boot partitions on
2 physical hard drives
to experiment with.
I may have my virus and burner software one one partition, my games
on another.

Trying to keep thing clean. I image the partitions, experiment with
audio and
video drivers, demos etc. and restore the image when I am finished.

Don't want to HAVE to move XP to my main HD. I'm just playing with it
to see if
it is worth moving to. In the software that is "important to me" it
is SLOWER by 17 percent.

I installed XP Pro over a basic win98se install. FAT16 for max
compatitbility.

So I just want BootMagic to boot the partition of my choice off my 2
HDs.(XP or win98se)
Hope that covers it, Heh... probably not

Thanks very much for your thoughts!
jmc

 

[ted msn]

Error message none, just reboots computer. If I put the second HD as
the boot drive in bios
XP boots. but no luck using bootmagic.

I have 6 boot partitions, 5 win98se (3 on HD0 and 3on HD1) and 1
XP(to experiment with).
Win98se boots off 2 HD but XP won't.

Also using fat16 for primary partitions for max compatibiilty.

Why use boot magic? will not XP give you the multi boot options. I know it
will let you boot XP Pro, XP home, W2K, W2k server, all at a startup menu NO
bios tweeks needed, but I don't use 98 so YMMV!.

regards
ted

 

[John]

Can not seem to get XP to boot off of 2 Hard drive. So far it will
ONLY boot
off of the booting HD. (switching in Bios works... what a pain!)

Upgraded to new bootmagic, still no luck

Thoughts Welcome!
thanks,
jmc

If you can't do it with software, you can do it with hardware. Just wire up
a switch to the front of your case so that in one position drive1 is master
and drive2 is slave, and in the other position drive2 is master and drive1
is slave. This way you can decide which drive you want to boot off without
mucking around in the bios.

Another way is to mount both drives in removable drawers (caddies), and use
cable select on both drives. Connect both caddy outers to the same IDE
cable. The system will boot off the outer that's at the end of the IDE
cable. So you can decide which drive you want to boot off by putting that
drive in that outer.

 

[Rod Speed]

SNIP
Ok, I have 2 HD, 6 boot partitions. 3 on each.
5 boot Win98se no problem.
But trying to boot XP off the first partition on the second
HD (using BootMagic) just reboots the computer. Boot
magic is on first HD. (again... win98se No Problem)

OK, some stuffup with boot magic presumably.

Cant say I use it that way myself, but it should be able to do it.

If I change the second HD (HD1) in the bios as the first boot
drive then XP will boot no problem.(no bootmagic menu tho.)

That might well be the problem. In the sense that the XP boot.ini
has been setup for that particular config and when BM attempts
to boot it with the first HD being booted by the bios, XP gets royally
confused because its boot.ini isnt setup for that physical config.
There's physical drive and partition numbers in that XP boot.ini

My older bootmagic would boot XP with no problem
but it HAD to be on the first boot drive. Was hoping
the new bootmagic upgrade would fix that.

You should be able to manually edit the XP boot.ini to fix
it. Are you capable of doing that at that level ? There is
reasonable documentation on the format of the XP boot.ini

So... what I am trying to do is have several(6-7) boot
partitions on 2 physical hard drives to experiment with.
Fine.

I may have my virus and burner software
one one partition, my games on another.

Trying to keep thing clean. I image the partitions,
experiment with audio and video drivers, demos
etc. and restore the image when I am finished.

I do the same thing myself on the test system.
I dont actually multiboot that machine tho, I
basically just run the OS I want to play with
into the first partition on the first physical
drive and boot off that. Thats obviously not
as quick as multibooting but more viable for me
because I have quite a few different configs,
all the older Win9x and multiple copys of those
too, some with Office included and not etc.

Don't want to HAVE to move XP to my main HD.
I'm just playing with it to see if it is worth moving to.
Fine.

In the software that is "important to me"
it is SLOWER by 17 percent.

Which software is that ? Games ?

One of the kids has just gone back to Win98SE
because he was getting too many hangs in XP.
He does tend to thrash around a bit tho, and he
doesnt appear to have carefully checked if the
problem is just with a stable video driver in XP.

I installed XP Pro over a basic win98se
install. FAT16 for max compatitbility.

So I just want BootMagic to boot the partition
of my choice off my 2 HDs.(XP or win98se)

It should be quite feasible to manually edit the
current XP boot.ini to get the result you want.
See if you can understand the documentation
on the MSKB site, and if you cant, say so
and I will spell it out in more detail.

Hope that covers it, Heh... probably not

Nar, thats fine, understand exactly what you want to do now.

Thanks very much for your thoughts!

No problem, thats what these groups are for.