Dual Boot XP Pro + Vista 64

[Denis Mahony]

Hi,

I installed XP after Vista to achieve dual boot.
On boot up I'm now offered XP or Vista - OK

I have only one physical drive... 400Gig

Vista is on drive C:
XP is on drive E:
I can see both drives which ever OS I'm in.

Is this safe ?
Would it be best to hide whichever OS I'm not using ?
I'm a little concerned that installs might write to C: instead of E: and
cause corruptions.

In a previous dual boot scenario - long ago - maybe Win98 + XP - I used
Partition Magic's
boot manager and it did the clever hiding bit.....

Regards

Denis

Intel DualCore 6600
WinXP Pro , Vista 64
MSI P965Neo
Seagate 400Gig HD
Gainward Bliss 7600GS PCX 256Meg video card

 

[Richard Urban]

You need a 3rd party boot manager to have the advanced capabilities of
hiding the system that you are NOT booted into.

I have used System Commander successfully since 1993 with all versions of
Windows. It does what you want.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

 

[JCO]

The best option is to make a small investment and get another drive. Make
the drive swappable (purchasing a hot-swap Cradle). Then you simply turn on
the drive you want to use and turn off the one you don't use. Both drives
in a Hot Swap Cradle will have an electrical on/off switch.

That works much better than dual booting on the same drive and messing with
a 3rd party software to hide the partition that is not being used. Although
I know the Dual Boot/Single Drives seems to be a popular thing to do.

 

[Denis Mahony]

Sound like a good idea ...

Is a hot-swap cradle one that takes a single drive, and you insert the one
you wish to boot from ?
Or does it have a capacity for two drives, and you switch on or other off ?

Pics I've seen seem to indicate the drives are prewrapped in adaptor sleeve
.....and slide into a slot on the PC ..
Does that mean you have to buy a specially packaged drive ?
Is there one that takes a bare drive(s) ?
Googling hot swap cradle left me a little puzzled

Denis

 

[JCO]

In case I did not answer all of your questions:
Not sure what you mean by drive being pre-wrapped. The Rack is in two
pieces where one part is permanently installed internally and the other part
slides into the first part. Connection is made simply by sliding one part
into the other. No special packaged drive. Google Mobile Rack or look on
ebay. You will see what I'm talking about.

 

[JCO]

Note:
I tried to send an earlier response with a ebay link that has an example of
a these Mobile Racks but the message did not make it to the newsgroup.
Maybe because of the link. So I'm resending the information in this post.

A better name is a Mobile Rack. You can get a mobile rack for either SATA
or IDE drives, so you must know which type of harddrive you have. The
connections are different for IDE Drives vs SATA drives.

The racks are designed in two parts. Part "A" is installed (internally) in
the computer's 3.5" bay. Part "B" has a handle on it and slides in and out
of part "A". This part "B" is the part that holds the harddrive. The two
parts mate together, creating the connections. One mobile rack is designed
to hold one harddrive. Usually there is an on/off switch or a key, that not
only locks the parts together but also turns the unit on (electrically)

If you want to be able to switch one drive off and the other drive on, with
out changing out the drive in the rack, you will need two Mobile Rack Units
(which is what I have). Both drives are set up as a primary and you only
switch on the drive you want to boot to and switch off the drive your not
using. If you only purchase one mobile rack, you will have to pull out part
B, switch drives, then put part B back into part A. This is easy to do.

An advantage of 2-mobile racks is no only for convenience but also so that
you can have both drives running at the same time. In this situation, one
drive is configured as primary and the other drive is configured as Slave.
This configurations is popular if your doing backups from one drive to the
other (such as doing a clone or an Image with third party software...
Acronis True Image).

Hope this makes sense.

 

[Denis Mahony]

Good
Now it makes sense ...
Thanks

Denis

Note:
I tried to send an earlier response with a ebay link that has an example
of a these Mobile Racks but the message did not make it to the newsgroup.
Maybe because of the link. So I'm resending the information in this post.

A better name is a Mobile Rack. You can get a mobile rack for either SATA
or IDE drives, so you must know which type of harddrive you have. The
connections are different for IDE Drives vs SATA drives.

The racks are designed in two parts. Part "A" is installed (internally)
in the computer's 3.5" bay. Part "B" has a handle on it and slides in
and out of part "A". This part "B" is the part that holds the harddrive.
The two parts mate together, creating the connections. One mobile rack is
designed to hold one harddrive. Usually there is an on/off switch or a
key, that not only locks the parts together but also turns the unit on
(electrically)

If you want to be able to switch one drive off and the other drive on,
with out changing out the drive in the rack, you will need two Mobile Rack
Units (which is what I have). Both drives are set up as a primary and you
only switch on the drive you want to boot to and switch off the drive your
not using. If you only purchase one mobile rack, you will have to pull
out part B, switch drives, then put part B back into part A. This is easy
to do.

An advantage of 2-mobile racks is no only for convenience but also so that
you can have both drives running at the same time. In this situation, one
drive is configured as primary and the other drive is configured as Slave.
This configurations is popular if your doing backups from one drive to the
other (such as doing a clone or an Image with third party software...
Acronis True Image).

Hope this makes sense.