Can I install XP on a second drive and keep W2K on first drive ?

[Sebastia Altemir]

Hi !
..
I have a nice W2K running on a 60 GB disk.
Now I got a 200 GB disk for the children's games, andI plan to install
there an XP.
..
But I remember that when I tried to install a W98 few years ago on a
secondary disk, it did not like it and always insisted to install on
the Master disk of the Primary IDE. Maybe XP is also such stupid ...
..
My question is : can I install an XP on a Secondary IDE, Slave Hard
disk,
and not to touch the Master hard disk on the Primary IDE, that has a
running W2K ?
..
Thanks a lot. Sebastian.

 

[Patti MacLeod]

Hi Sebastian,

Yes, XP can be installed on a secondary drive. During XP Setup, you will be
presented with a screen that shows existing partitions and unpartitioned
space on all drives that are detected (screenshot here:
http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPpro3setup.jpg). Ensure that you opt to
install XP on the secondary drive when you get to that portion of Setup.



Regards,

 

[Sebastia Altemir]

Thanks a lot, Patti.
I expected some kind of "first hide primary, second install, third
(before IPL) unhide, then reboot" magic list of steps.
..
Also W98 was very disgusting : i had to unplug the disk from the
secondary IDE and install it, then back to secondary (reached
perfectly by Boot Magic).
..
My children will be playing thanks to your advice.
Cheers. Sebastian.

 

[Patti MacLeod]

You're very welcome, Sebastia

Unlike W98, XP natively supports booting from a "non-primary" disk.

I hope your children enjoy their playtime!



Regards,

 

[Sebastia Altemir]

Hi again, Patti, and thanks for your time ...
..
You say "XP support booting from non-primary drive",
but up to now all I have done (and succeeded, thanks)
is to INSTALL Xp on Secondary IDE, Slave device.
..
The XP is OK, because if I unplug all the devices and put the 200 GB
drive as Master in Primary IDE, it boots fine.
..
Now, I want this disk to be on Secondary IDE, Slave device.
..
How do I do to boot this XP ?
..
On Primary IDE, Master device, I have a nice W2000 Pro,
and it has to stay there (it has Visual C++ 6.0, and it gives me the
money to pay the bills).
..
What would you sugest ??
..
I plan to use Boot Magic 8.0 ... What do you think ?
I am having some problems with it right now ...
..
I see you are a "Windows Shell User", so maybe you can tell me
a "precise" line to include in "BOOT.INI" to reach the XP from W2K
Boot ...
..
Any clue is welcome.
..
Sebastian.

 

[Patti MacLeod]

You shouldn't have to use a third-party boot manager, as XP's boot loader
files should give you the option of booting into either operating system.
After you installed XP to the Secondary drive, did you not then (and
currently, following startup or restart) receive the "Please select the
operating system to start" screen where you are given the choice of booting
into either operating system?

What the boot.ini file should look like depends on which drive controller
each disk is on and the disk's placement (i.e., Master or Slave) on that
controller. Have a look at Reviewing and Correcting Boot.ini Settings on
x86-based Systems:
http://tinyurl.com/2aezd

Instead of manually editing the boot.ini file, you might try running the
bootcfg /rebuild command using Recovery Console.
Description of the Windows XP Recovery Console
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=314058
A discussion about the Bootcfg command and its uses
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=291980

Also, it is imperative that the XP versions of NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM be on
the boot (WIN2K) drive. The XP versions will boot WIN2K, but the WIN2K
versions will not boot XP. The WIN2K files should have been overwritten with
the XP versions during XP Setup. Just in case, you may want to copy these
two files from the I386 folder on the Windows XP CD-ROM to the root
directory of the boot (WIN2K) drive. Follow the instructions here:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=315233



Regards,

 

[Sebastia Altemir]

Patti ... with such an advice, I will stop using BootMagic, read all
the articles you pointed, and start using BOOT.INI ... as fast as I
can.
..
Thanks a lot !
..
Also for pointing me to a very important specs : NTLDR and
NTDETECT.COM XP/2000
..
Now, I will place the XP disk as Master on Primary IDE, and W2000 will
become Slave on Secondary IDE, as I dont like to mess/mix XP and W2K
files ...
..
Sebastian owes you a beer !
..

 

[Patti MacLeod]

Hmmmm.........I've never tried that one (putting XP on Primary and 2K on
Secondary when they were originally installed in the opposite
configuration). Let me know how it works out for you.

Oh, and thanx for the beer!



Regards,

 

[Timothy Daniels]

If XP had been installed on the Secondary HD and the BIOS'
boot sequence designated the Primary HD as the boot drive,
the rdisk() parameter in the XP boot.ini file would point to the
wrong HD for booting. It probably says to boot WinXP from
"rdisk(1)", meaning "the second device in the boot sequence".
This can be remedied in either of two ways:
1) Enter the BIOS and switch the positions of the two HDs
in the hard drive boot sequence, or
2) change "rdisk(1)" in the boot.ini file of the 2nd HD (the one
that contains Windows XP) to "rdisk(0)", and change
"rdisk(0)" to "rdisk(1)". While it is connected as the non-
booted HD, that boot.ini file will probably be assigned the
name "Local Disk (D" or something NOT "Local Disk (C".
If it has the letter "D", the boot.ini file for Windows XP is at
D:\boot.ini . It will look something like:

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows 2K" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP" /fastdetect

Just change "rdisk(1)" in lines 3 and 6 (starting from 1) to "rdisk(0)",
and change the "rdisk(0) in line 5 to "rdisk(1)".
Then switch the positions of the two HDs on the IDE cable, or just
switching the jumpers on the HDs from Master-Slave to Slave-Master
*might* change the positions in the BIOS' boot sequence, too.
(Position on the cable for Master/Slave is irrelevant, and a Slave can
be the boot HD just as well as the Master HD.)

If during boot-up, you need more than 10 seconds to make up your
mind about which OS to boot, change "timeout=10" to something
more than 10.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Sebastia Altemir]

..
Thanks for the indication, Tim.
..
In fact, all my Operating Systems (W98, W2K and now WXP) are installed
with the new disk as Master on Primary IDE. I do unplug the "oldies",
and boot from the CD, format the disk, and install the OpSys.
..
Now comes the time for them to be on the same machine : XP for the
children (games and homework, as PowerPoint), W2000 for me.
..
As Patti indicated, the XP will have to go to Master on Primary IDE
(as NTLDR will boot W2000, not in reversed). Then, W2000 goes to
Secondary IDE, and probably will be Slave, as the DVD is a nice Master
by now.
..
I will edit BOOT.INI with your indications ... next Friday.
..
Cheers ! Sebastian.
..

 

[Patti MacLeod]

I think you may have misunderstood what I wrote. In a dual-boot situation
with Windows OSes, the XP OS does not have to be on the boot drive or
partition.............its bootloader files need to be there, though.



Regards,

 

[Timothy Daniels]

In a dual-boot situation with Windows OSes, the
XP OS does not have to be on the boot drive or
partition.... its bootloader files need to be there,
though.

Is it possible to move just the bootloader files
there? Could you provide file names, where
to get them, where to put them, and how?

*TimDaniels*

 

[Sebastia]

..
No problem, Pat - I can place any disk as Master on Primary IDE, and I
DO choose XP to be there. W2K will be Slave Secondary IDE, and both
will keep their bootloader files on their own disks ...
..
Sebas.

 

[Patti MacLeod]

Is it possible to move just the bootloader files there? That depends on the
situation and the OS that is being dual-booted with XP. For example, if the
other OS is WIN2K (as is the case with the op), and it is being installed
after XP has already been installed, 2K Setup will overwrite XP's NTLDR and
NTDETECT.COM files, rendering XP unbootable for the time being (as 2K does
not recognize the XP OS). The XP version of the NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM
files, found in the root directory and are hidden files, can be copied to a
floppy disk prior to the 2K install. Once 2K is installed, boot into 2K and
copy the XP NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM files from the floppy disk to the root
directory of the boot drive/partition. Alternatively, you could use XP's
Recovery Console to copy the NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM files from the i386
folder on the XP install CD to the root directory of the boot
drive/partition. Now, if the other OS is a 9x version of Windows, simply
copying those two files to the root directory will not make XP bootable. In
that case, you could either perform a repair install of XP, or follow the
instructions documented on Doug Knox's site:
http://dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_repair_9x.htm



Regards,

 

[Timothy Daniels]

So how can the original poster (who had installed Win2K
after having installed WinXP) get copies of NTLDR and
NTDETECT.COM so that he can copy them to his XP's
root directory? After somehow doing this, would he also
have to mark the WinXP partition "active" in order for
WinXP's boot loader to run and to put up the boot menu
at boot time? And if the WinXP boot manager did run,
wouldn't it need an updated boot.ini file that points to
the two partitions in order to select the OS to load?

*TimDaniels*


"Patti MacLeod" replied:

 

[Patti MacLeod]

The original poster was wanting to install XP with Win2K having already been
installed, not the other way around. He was successful in getting XP
installed on the second physical drive, with 2K already installed and
running on the first physical drive, but what happened that rendered XP
unbootable unless hooked up as Primary Master I do not know. I asked him if
he was or was not receiving the boot manager menu, and he did not answer
that question.

As to how to get copies of NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM in order to copy them to
the root directory of the boot drive, I have answered that question at least
twice in this thread.

As to the updated boot.ini file, I already posted the suggestion for him to
run the bootcfg /rebuild command from XP's Recovery Console.



Regards,

 

[Sebastia Altemir]

..
Sorry I didn't answer that precise question ...
..
No, I did not receive the message, because the "new" hard disk (where
XP was to be installed) was moved to be the "only" disk in the PC -
the disk with W2K was physically removed.
..
(I did this way because with W98 it was the only way to install W98,
who always wanted to be Master and Primeary IDE).
..
After I had 2 disks with 2 Op Sys, I wanted them to be bootable
together ...
..
What I did first, was to place W2K as Master on Primary IDE - W2K
"saw" XP on the second Hard Disk (Slave on Secondary IDE), but was not
able to boot it (I was using Boot Magic ...).
..
Now I have seen the light (under Patti's indications), and will move
the geometry all the way around : XP disk will be Master on Primary
IDE, W2K will be Slave on Secondary IDE, and I will use the BOOT.INI
file under XP to reach both of them.
..
All I need is a quiet (maybe rainy) weekend in Barcelona, so I can
test the "final" configuration ...
..
The nice moment comes when W2K boots ... Boot Magic again ... as there
I have another W98 and a SuSE !!!
..
Sebastian.
..