Dual boot using 2 hard dirves

[Jack]

I have two hard drives, XP Home installed on C: and a backup drive as D: I
would also install XP Home on the D: drive and make the system Dual Boot.
The reason I want this is that I have to scanners and they won't work
together. When I install both of them, neither works. However, each works
if installed by itself?
How do I install XP Home on the D: so that I can use Dual Boot?

 

[Leonard Grey]

http://www.scanace.com/en/support/FAQ/2_scanners.htm

You can only use one at a time.

 

[Jack]

I understand that I can only use one at a time. Maybe a better statement
would be to be able to boot from the C: and reboot to the D: drive.
How do I install XP Home on the D: drive.

 

[Leonard Grey]

A computer can only boot one operating system at a time, no matter how
many copies of the OS are on the machine. Therefore, installing extra
copies of Windows does not make it possible to use two scanners at the
same time. The link explained why. You have to unplug the USB cable from
scanner #1, then plug in the USB cable for scanner #2, et. al. A pain in
the tuchus.

There are ways to have two (or more) scanners active at the same time,
but they're not exactly easy. One way is to plug each one into it's own
computer, obviously. Another way could be to have one scanner on the
network and another attached directly to a computer. Another possibility
might be two run a second copy of Windows XP in a virtual environment,
but I don't know enough about virtual computing to say whether this
would work.

 

[LVTravel]

A computer can only boot one operating system at a time, no matter how
many copies of the OS are on the machine. Therefore, installing extra
copies of Windows does not make it possible to use two scanners at the
same time. The link explained why. You have to unplug the USB cable from
scanner #1, then plug in the USB cable for scanner #2, et. al. A pain in
the tuchus.

There are ways to have two (or more) scanners active at the same time, but
they're not exactly easy. One way is to plug each one into it's own
computer, obviously. Another way could be to have one scanner on the
network and another attached directly to a computer. Another possibility
might be two run a second copy of Windows XP in a virtual environment, but
I don't know enough about virtual computing to say whether this would
work.

I must be one of the luckiest persons in the world. I have three scanners
hooked up to this Vista Home machine at one time via USB and have no issues
switching between them with the programs I use to scan (using twain
drivers). One is a Kodak AIO, one is an Epson Perfection 1660 and the third
is a Visioneer Roadwarrior. Don't know how or why they work (and I can't
scan with any two at the same time of course) but work they will. Just
change the twain driver's target before the scanning. Can even use Ominpage
Pro 16 with the three scanners.

Had the same setup when I had the XP laptop.

 

[Jack]

I still haven't got an answer to my question "How do I install a copy of XP
Home on my D: Drive?".
I realize that I cannot have two copies of XP running at the same time.
Neither can I get both scanners to work using XP including unplugging one and
plugging in the other, HP spent a week trying to resolve the issue and
couldn't. Therefore, my solution is to install XP on the D: drive, it is
already on the my C: drive. I would install one scanner on the C: drive and
the 2nd scanner on the D: drive. Then when I need to use my 2nd scanner, I
would reboot to the D: drive, scan the documents/photos/etc and when I am
done reboot to the C: drive.

 

[peter]

set BIOS so that CD is 1st boot device
Place XP CD in
Reboot and watch for message" to boot from CD push any key"
push any Key
XP installation will start....pick NEW installation and then pick the HD you
wish to install on.
Follow the instructions ....the dual boot should be automatically created
and show up when your installation is finished and you reboot.
Be sure to set an installation directory name that signifies which
installation is which...like XP2
and good luck
peter

 

[Walter Blanchard [WalterB]]

Jack,

There is a 3rd party app, Bootit NG (BING), by Terabyte Unlimited http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/ that will allow you to do this. I don't remember the cost, but it was not expensive.

Walter

 

[Tim Meddick]

Hi Jack,
it's really simple. Personally, I would disable, if possible,
your first hard-drive in the BIOS setup, so there's no "accidents" involving
overwriting of your working copy of Windows. Then, set to boot from CD as
first device in the BIOS while you're there. Bootup with WinXP installation
CD and choose the only hard-drive left. After installation completes,
re-enable your first hard drive.
Then find and open (in notepad) the file "boot.ini" in the root of C:
drive. Copy and paste the line with "Microsoft Windows XP ......" in it to
a line directly beneath so you have two identical entries. Then change the
number 0 after the word "rdisk" to a 1 that tells the system which physical
drive it's on is not the first (drive 0) drive but the second (drive 1).
Finally, change something between the quotes to reflect that it's on the
second drive - this text (in quotes) is what appears in the list of
operating systems when the system boots up. Also, you should make sure the
line Timeout=xx near the top of the file is a number that gives you time to
choose your OS at startup, where xx is in seconds.
I don't know how others do dual boot but, this method is very simple and
worked for me.