Can I have two drives installed on EIDE with both having Boot Sect

[Guest]

I want to install a new larger Hard Drive. My old drive is too small for my
current needs but I'd like to keep it on line. I don't want to reformat the
old drive as it has many files that I want to keep. The new drive will be
formatted for NTFS file system, but the old drive is FAT32.
I am concerned about having two bootable drives installed at the same
time. One (the new drive) will be on the 1st Primary EIDE port, set for
Master and the small old drive will be on 1st Secondary set as Slave. But the
old drive does have a boot sector. Is this in any way a problem? Can the
bootability of the old drive mess up any of the system?

 

[Guest]

11:15 PM 6/2/2006

Congratulation Icnm on your retirement and happiness!!

Good for you for thinking this through before plugging stuff in and pushing
buttons.

It is quite possible and sometimes desireable to have two OS on two seperate
drives or partitions of the same system. However, unless you would have some
specific advantage in doing so, why bother with the tedious steps necesary?
Why take the added risk that complexity inevitably confers to any system? In
addition, 2 OS on one system will be prevented from "seeing" each other, so
you would not be able to view or work on files on the hdd which was not
currently active.

Based on your post, I advise against that particular arrangement but if you
feel you need a "multi-boot" set up for some reason, post back here or in a
new post anytime you like.

Callmark1 (T F H)

 

[DL]

There's no hardship in copy data files to your new hd. NB its very unlikely
you can copy apps.
Simply disconnect old hd.
Connect new as master, install win, then install mobo chipset and other hw
drivers from cd or manu sites, do not rely on winupdate.Update win, then
once up and running OK, install old hd as slave, copy data across.
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421/en-us
Once you are *really* sure you have copied all data successfully, use Disk
Management to Format the slave, then use it for backups

 

[Anna]

11:15 PM 6/2/2006

Congratulation Icnm on your retirement and happiness!!

Good for you for thinking this through before plugging stuff in and
pushing
buttons.

It is quite possible and sometimes desireable to have two OS on two
seperate
drives or partitions of the same system. However, unless you would have
some
specific advantage in doing so, why bother with the tedious steps
necesary?
Why take the added risk that complexity inevitably confers to any system?
In
addition, 2 OS on one system will be prevented from "seeing" each other,
so
you would not be able to view or work on files on the hdd which was not
currently active.

Based on your post, I advise against that particular arrangement but if
you
feel you need a "multi-boot" set up for some reason, post back here or in
a
new post anytime you like.

Callmark1 (T F H)

lcnm:
Although you didn't say, I'm assuming that your FAT32 formatted HD contains
the Win9x/Me operating system and not the XP OS, yes? If, on the other hand,
that old drive contains the XP OS and you're satisfied with the
programs/data on that drive, you might want to consider "cloning" the
contents of that old HD to your new one and then converting the new HD's
file system to NTFS. If that's of some interest to you we can cover that
process later.

In substance you can do what you propose and shouldn't suffer any conflicts
in so doing. I'm assuming in all this that you have *no* interest in booting
to the old HD and desire it *only* as a repository for backup/storage
purposes. As you've indicated, you will connect/configure the new bootable
HD as a Master on the Primary IDE channel. The system should boot to that
drive regardless of where you've connected/configured your secondary HD.

Contrary to Callmark1's comment, your primary booting NTFS-formatted HD will
have no problem accessing files/folders on your secondary FAT32-formatted
HD. (The reverse will not be true).
Anna

 

[Guest]

Anna:

Based on your assumptions, I stand righteously corrected : ) XP has much
greater flexibility than past Win OS's in co-existing with other Win OS. I
am still not in favor of maintaining two bootable drives or partitions on one
system unless there is some conctrete advantage in doing so. where is the
advantage here?

I am also in favor of a fresh, clean install using factory CD's for OS and
all apps. Then, as you say, there is no problem in accessing files from the
old drive installed as slave. With a clean install, driver issues are less
likely. Also, existing registry/config patches and potholes are not
transferred during a clean install while cloning replicates every pimple and
wart.

Either way, kudos to the OP and good luck. Let us know how it goes.

Mark



An alternative to this would be to back the entire

 

[Anna]

Anna:

Based on your assumptions, I stand righteously corrected : ) XP has much
greater flexibility than past Win OS's in co-existing with other Win OS.
I
am still not in favor of maintaining two bootable drives or partitions on
one
system unless there is some conctrete advantage in doing so. where is the
advantage here?

I am also in favor of a fresh, clean install using factory CD's for OS and
all apps. Then, as you say, there is no problem in accessing files from
the
old drive installed as slave. With a clean install, driver issues are
less
likely. Also, existing registry/config patches and potholes are not
transferred during a clean install while cloning replicates every pimple
and
wart.

Either way, kudos to the OP and good luck. Let us know how it goes.

Mark

Mark:
Except in the case where the user requires a multi-boot configuration
involving different operating systems on separate internal hard drives, I
too, am not particularly enamored of establishing the same OS, e.g., Windows
XP, on two or more HDs in the system. Indeed, even where a multi-boot
capability is needed we nearly always encourage the user (where possible) to
equip his or her computer with removable hard drives so as to effectively
isolate each OS both electrically & physically.

But in the OP's case since he or she (apparently) was not planning to use
the "old" soon-to-be secondary HD as a bootable device, I felt it was
reasonable to connect/configure the two drives in the manner he/she
proposed.

As to whether the user should use a disk imaging program to clone the
contents of the old HD to the new one - as in so many cases, that depends...

To my mind, as long as the OS, programs, and created data are functioning
without problems on the "old" HD and the user expresses no dissatisfaction
with such, I see no reason why the user shouldn't clone the contents of that
drive to his or her new HD. Why go through the tedious & time-consuming
process of installing a fresh OS on the new HD and then have to install what
is probably a multitude of programs/applications and assorted data on the
new drive if it's unnecessary?

You mention "driver issues" as a potential problem. But there are no driver
issues involved in this situation. All that's involved is the addition of a
hard drive.

Of course should the user for one reason or another want to start "fresh", I
have no problem with that. I raised the disk cloning process as an
alternative since many users (as I'm sure you know) are unfamiliar with that
process and it comes as a revelation to them that this technique may be
indeed a practical & useful alternative to what they previously
contemplated.
Anna

 

[Guest]

Thanks to both Mark and Anna. I have been offline since yesterday while both
of you were doing a good job of trying to answer my questions.
Anna, you are correct in assuming that I do not need to boot from both
drives. Also, yes, I have XP as the OS on both drives. Eventually, I just
want to use the old HD for extra space, but it also has many Apps on it. If I
clone the old drive onto space on the new drive(I made two partitions) will I
be able to use any of the old applications or will I have to re-install them
all (I was trying to avoid having to do that).
Jim

 

[Anna]

Jim:
If you clone your old HD to the new one, then all the programs on your new
HD should work in the same way as they did on the old HD. You will not need
to reinstall those programs. That, of course, is the basic idea behind the
disk cloning process.

You mentioned you created two partitions on the new HD. I assume the disk
imaging program you will be using to undertake the cloning process will
allow you to clone the contents of your source HD to either one of the two
partitions you created on the destination HD, i.e., your new HD. Not all
disk cloning programs have this capability. In some cases it's a
disk-to-disk cloning process with no option to clone to a specific partition
where there is more than one partition on the destination HD. So check that
out.
Anna

 

[Guest]

I guess the Cloning SW would be one of the disk tools that came with the WD
drive. There is a Disk to Disk Copy tool that came with the drive
installation kit and it's instructions indicate that you can go from and to
particular partitions.
Does that sound like what I should do?
Jim

 

[Timothy Daniels]

I guess the Cloning SW would be one of the disk tools that came
with the WD drive. There is a Disk to Disk Copy tool that came
with the drive installation kit and it's instructions indicate that you
can go from and to particular partitions.
Does that sound like what I should do?

If that is indeed true, yes it will do. If not, you can download a free
30-day trial copy of Casper Xp, which is a dedicated cloning utility
written expressly for the WinNT/2K/XP family of Windows OSes.
There is no obligation to buy. www.FSSdev.com/products/casperxp/ .

This utility can clone either single partitions from among several
partitions and put it onto a HD that already has other partitions, or
you can clone an entire HD and make that clone the entire contents
of another HD.

Just install the utility in the current OS, and tell it to clone the OS's
partition to an existing partition on the new HD, or to make a new
partition from unallocated space on the new HD. All formatting will
be carried over as part of the cloning process. When the cloning is
complete, shut down the PC and disconnect the source HD's data cable.
Then restart the PC, and the clone should start right up. Then you can
shut down again and reverse the jumpering on the 2 HDs so that
even with the both HDs hooked up, the OS on the new HD will be the
one that boots. If you're using Cable Select and the 2 HDs are on the
same cable, you can just reverse their positions. If they are on different
IDE cannels (i.e. different cables), exchange their positions and jumpering.
(Actually, in the last case, unless there is a 3rd HD present, just
exchanging their positions will do.)

It's important that when the clone starts for the 1st time it doesn't
see its "parent" OS, or some of the entries in the new OS's file table
will actually point to corresponding files in the "parent" OS's partition.
But once the clone has run on its own once, it can be started with its
"parent" visible to it, and it will not get confused. This is true regardless
what utility you use to do the cloning.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Guest]

Thanks Tim,
That was helpful. I'll have to take a look at Casper.
Jim