Dual-boot xp on two hard drives

[Matt]

I would like to dual-boot xp on two hard drives with
a thrid party boot manager (XOSL).

Drive 1: installed XP on the master drive on the second partition, the
first is used for the XOSL boot manager

Drive 2: I then removed drive 1 and used a second drive to install XP
again.

I then master and slaved the two drives while on the second hard drive I
edited the boot.ini file to reflect the change in the rdisk value to 1.

I have configured XOSL to boot drive 1 and hide drive 2 and vise versa.

The problem is that when I use XOSL to boot from the second drive it will
not
boot, it will display the XOSL title and sit, no NTLDR error nor other
boot errors.

The reason is that I want the copy on Drive 1 to be my main working copy of
XP while
Drive 2 will be my testing and development copy which can be re-imaged
as needed. I realize it may be easier to use the MS boot manager but
then both copies of XP would share the same system parition on drive 1
(master boot record) and the development copy (Drive 2) would not be
labelled as the C Drive. With XOSL (or other third party boot loaders)
you can designate which partitions are hidden on boot up. Thus both
copies of XP would be labelled C drive and would be invisible to the
other.

So basically I am asking how to boot two XP's on two hard drives with a
thrid party boot manager.

 

[Doug Knox MS-MVP]

The problem occurs because when you made the slave drive the "master" drive,
and it was installed by itself, XP now thinks that it was installed on
rdisk(0). This information is stored in other places, besides BOOT.INI. Its
doubtful that XP would even boot.

You need to use the same scenario, as you wish your final setup to be.

HD1, Partition 1 = Boot Manager
HD1, Partition 2 = XP
HD2, Partition 1 = XP

Hide HD2, Partition 1 from the first install.

When you go to do the install on HD2, hide HD1 Partition 1 and 2 from the
second install. Also ensure that your boot manager is making the system
think that HD2, Partition 1 is the active partition. Then proceed with your
install. XP will still know that's its on the second physical disk, but
will also use it as drive C:, since it can't see the other two partitions.

 

[Duncan McNutt .[BSDM]]

Or you could run VMWare and run BOTH at the SAME TIME!

I have 2000 Advanced server native , and running 2000 Pro and another
instance of 2000 advanced server too!

Runs reasonably well on a 2ghz maching and 1gb ram. Wait for it on 64bit,
it will run like the clappers.

 

[Matt]

Thank you for your response.

What I have tried was to use ptedit.exe to hide:
HD1: Partition 1
HD1: Partition 2

and set active:
HD2: Partition 1

I then booted from the XP install CD and it recognized the C drive as the
HD2: Partition 1 but when I tried to install to that partition XP setup said
that it needs to write files to the partition on HD1 (which it read as
Inactive). This is the reason why I attemped to install HD2: Partition1
when set as master. I had also tried to install to this disk when set as
slave and the other drive disconnected and the same problem arised, XP wants
to install its boot loader files to the master disk's first partition.

Any further ideas?

Thanks,
Matt

 

[Matt]

I have posted a follow-up to Doug's post, but in regards to VMware I need
access to my accelerated video card and full speed of my system.

Matt

 

[Doug Knox MS-MVP]

Matt,

You may want to consider BootIt Next Generation as your boot manager.
www.bootitng.com Its 30 shareware, and works very, very well, and will
allow to do exactly what you want to do.

 

[Matt]

Thanks a lot everyone for your help.

I was able to resolve the problem by using the 'Swap' option in either XOSL
or BootIT NG with rdisk(0) after the installation process I described in the
the first post.

Matt