Dual-Boot & Drive Letter Control

[Glenn Livet]

I posted this question yesterday, and got some useful responses that made me
realize I didn't give enough information. (I apologize to the responders).


I want to dual-boot Win2K & WinXP such that each OS assigns itself drive
letter "C" during setup.

These are new Win2K & WinXP installations in separate partitions on a single
clean disk -- (so no problem to install, reinstall, & re-reinstall as needed).

I cannot use a 3rd-party boot manager, I must use the Windows boot manager
(long story).

So far, I've partly succeeded by installing Win2K --> then "hiding" the
Win2K partition --> then installing WinXP.

This successfully gets drive letter "C" assigned to each OS -- as I want.

However, it loses the ability to select & start Win2K at boot time --
because WinXP Setup doesn't create a Win2K entry on its list of available
OS's in "Startup & Recovery". (Which makes sense, since Win2K is hidden
during XP Setup).

To solve that problem, I've successfully edited boot.ini to add Win2K to the
OS list.

But when I try to actually boot Win2K from the (now visible) selection list
at boot time, the bootloader tells me it's missing "<Windows
Root>\system32\hal.dll".

The obvious next step is to put "hal.dll" wherever it should be, but I'm
working way beyond my base level of know-how in all this, and I wonder if I'm
headed towards a dead end when I ought to be trying something else.

Any input anybody?

TIA

Glenn

 

[John John (MVP)]

I posted this question yesterday, and got some useful responses that made me
realize I didn't give enough information. (I apologize to the responders).


I want to dual-boot Win2K & WinXP such that each OS assigns itself drive
letter "C" during setup.

These are new Win2K & WinXP installations in separate partitions on a single
clean disk -- (so no problem to install, reinstall, & re-reinstall as needed).

I cannot use a 3rd-party boot manager, I must use the Windows boot manager
(long story).

So far, I've partly succeeded by installing Win2K --> then "hiding" the
Win2K partition --> then installing WinXP.

This successfully gets drive letter "C" assigned to each OS -- as I want.

However, it loses the ability to select & start Win2K at boot time --
because WinXP Setup doesn't create a Win2K entry on its list of available
OS's in "Startup & Recovery". (Which makes sense, since Win2K is hidden
during XP Setup).

To solve that problem, I've successfully edited boot.ini to add Win2K to the
OS list.

But when I try to actually boot Win2K from the (now visible) selection list
at boot time, the bootloader tells me it's missing "<Windows
Root>\system32\hal.dll".

The obvious next step is to put "hal.dll" wherever it should be, but I'm
working way beyond my base level of know-how in all this, and I wonder if I'm
headed towards a dead end when I ought to be trying something else.

Any input anybody?

It won't be able to boot the operating system on a hidden partition.
You can hide the drive letters from within the operating system with a
Group Policy object or by registry edit, this will hide the drive letter
from Explorer.exe but the drive will still be available by other means.

John

 

[smlunatick]

I posted this question yesterday, and got some useful responses that mademe
realize I didn't give enough information. (I apologize to the responders)..

I want to dual-boot Win2K & WinXP such that each OS assigns itself drive
letter "C" during setup.

These are new Win2K & WinXP installations in separate partitions on a single
clean disk -- (so no problem to install, reinstall, & re-reinstall as needed).

I cannot use a 3rd-party boot manager, I must use the Windows boot manager
(long story).

So far, I've partly succeeded by installing Win2K --> then "hiding" the
Win2K partition --> then installing WinXP.

This successfully gets drive letter "C" assigned to each OS -- as I want.

However, it loses the ability to select & start Win2K at boot time --
because WinXP Setup doesn't create a Win2K entry on its list of available
OS's in "Startup & Recovery". (Which makes sense, since Win2K is hidden
during XP Setup).

To solve that problem, I've successfully edited boot.ini to add Win2K to the
OS list.

But when I try to actually boot Win2K from the (now visible) selection list
at boot time, the bootloader tells me it's missing "<Windows
Root>\system32\hal.dll".

The obvious next step is to put "hal.dll" wherever it should be, but I'm
working way beyond my base level of know-how in all this, and I wonder ifI'm
headed towards a dead end when I ought to be trying something else.

Any input anybody?

TIA

Glenn

What is the "long story" on why you can not use any third party boot
managers? The third party boot managers are a lot more configurable
than the Windows standard one. I know of one that will allow to hide
that other Windows version complete (fidden partition when booted.)

 

[Ian D]

I posted this question yesterday, and got some useful responses that made
me
realize I didn't give enough information. (I apologize to the responders).


I want to dual-boot Win2K & WinXP such that each OS assigns itself drive
letter "C" during setup.

These are new Win2K & WinXP installations in separate partitions on a
single
clean disk -- (so no problem to install, reinstall, & re-reinstall as
needed).

I cannot use a 3rd-party boot manager, I must use the Windows boot manager
(long story).

So far, I've partly succeeded by installing Win2K --> then "hiding" the
Win2K partition --> then installing WinXP.

This successfully gets drive letter "C" assigned to each OS -- as I want.

However, it loses the ability to select & start Win2K at boot time --
because WinXP Setup doesn't create a Win2K entry on its list of available
OS's in "Startup & Recovery". (Which makes sense, since Win2K is hidden
during XP Setup).

To solve that problem, I've successfully edited boot.ini to add Win2K to
the
OS list.

But when I try to actually boot Win2K from the (now visible) selection
list
at boot time, the bootloader tells me it's missing "<Windows
Root>\system32\hal.dll".

The obvious next step is to put "hal.dll" wherever it should be, but I'm
working way beyond my base level of know-how in all this, and I wonder if
I'm
headed towards a dead end when I ought to be trying something else.

Any input anybody?

TIA

Glenn

The way I've done this is with two hard drives. Install each
OS on its own drive with the other disconnected. Before
connecting the Win2k drive, you can modify XP's boot.ini
for a dual boot with Win2k. The rdisk(x) value will be (0)
for XP and (1) for Win2k. Then, in BIOS set the XP drive
as the boot drive. Now, when you boot up, whichever OS
you select will be on C: and the other will be on D:. If you
have multiple partitions on each drive, you can set their drive
letters the way you want from within each OS.

 

[Glenn Livet]

Thank you, Ian.

That is not exactly what I had in mind, but I may be able to work with it.

Glenn

 

[Ian D]

Thank you, Ian.

That is not exactly what I had in mind, but I may be able to work with it.

Glenn

Re-thinking it a bit. You could edit the XP boot.ini with the Win2k
drive attached. You just wouldn't be able to boot into Win2k
immediately. That way you would be able to copy the boot.ini
boot line from Win2k to XP, and change the rdisk(0) to rdisk(1),
then you're all set for the dual boot. If you have IDE drives the
physical process is a bit cumbersome, but with SATA drives it's a
snap. If you also reverse the process from XP to Win2k, you
could then boot into either OS from either drive. Since a lot of
apps like to install on C: by default, this dual boot method makes
that easy. Also, if you later decide you don't one of the OS's, the
other one is fully functional on C:.

 

[Andy]

1. Boot from Windows 2000 CD.
2. Create first partition (primary).
3. Create second partition (logical).
4. Delete first partition.
5. Quit setup (F3-F3).
6. Boot from Windows 2000 CD; second partition is now C:.
7. Create first partition again (primary, becomes E:, optical drive is
D.
8. Install Windows 2000 on second partition C:.
9. Boot from Windows XP (first partition is C:, second partition is
D:, optical drive is E.
10. Install Windows XP on first partition C:.

 

[Glenn Livet]

Andy,

Wow! That's impressive!

I'll give it a try & see if I can make it work.

Glenn

 

[Glenn Livet]

Thank you, Ian.

This is very useful stuff.

Glenn

 

[Glenn Livet]

Andy,

In case you are still monitoring this thread…

Your method worked. You are clearly a Master Practitioner possessing The
Deep Knowledge of the Arcane Mysteries of the mighty Windows Boot Process .

A further question: Is it possible to adapt your method such that Win2K ends
up on the first HD partition with WinXP on the second?

I have tried 2 possibilities so far and can think of a couple more that
might work, but Windows has quirks that passeth the understanding of all but
the Elect, and I’d like to avoid “questing†to possibly non-existent lands.

TIA, Glenn

P.S. – Thanks also for “step-by-stepping†your original explanation. That
always cuts “time-to-understanding†down to about a 10th of what a pure
narrative explanation requires.

 

[Andy]

Just swap 2000 and XP in the instructions. Then,
11. Copy files ntdetect.com and ntldr from folder i386 on the Windows
XP CD to C:\. You probably have to change the file attributes to make
them writable (command prompt c:\attrib -h -s -r nt*.*).

 

[Glenn Livet]

Thank you, Sir!

I often post questions in various technical newsgroups.

I rarely get answers as direct, succinct, and effective as yours.

Glenn