Dual Boot

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bill
  • Start date Start date
B

Bill

I am running Windows XP Home SP2 - I use True Image to clone C to D as a
backup
Is there way/program to give me the option of booting to either drive?

I used VisatBootPro to do this when I was playing around with Vista, but it
doesn't do it for XP.

TIA

Bill
 
Disregard - found answer


I am running Windows XP Home SP2 - I use True Image to clone C to D as a
backup
Is there way/program to give me the option of booting to either drive?

I used VisatBootPro to do this when I was playing around with Vista, but it
doesn't do it for XP.

TIA

Bill
 
Bill

This is just a suggestion. The whole point of "Community Newsgroups" is to
help people find solutions to problems. The news are archived in many
different places to provide users the ability to search for someone having
the same problem they are experiencing.

If a community member posts a message about a problem and then simply posts
another message that says, "never mind, I figured it out" this can be very
frustrating for someone else who is experiencing the same problem. It's like
there are several people in a room having the exact same problem and one
person jumps up and says, "I found the solution" and then immediately leaves
the room, never to be seen again.

Please post the details about the solution you found in this same thread.
 
My apologies - all I did was sort the newsgroup by SUBJECT and read several
of the previous posts - which I SHOULD have done before posting. I came
across some posts by Tim Daniels on the subject. I had questioned this
procedure several weeks ago and he gave me valuable info.
After reviewing the info, I decided to leave my system the way it is and not
worry about dual booting. I will continue to clone to C to D as a back up
"just in case", but will avoid any dual booting attempts. This is not
because of any problem with the answers here on the situation, but my
brain's inability to grasp the ''dual boot' concept. I have been fooling
with computer since 1992 and for some reason this 'dual boot'' thing is my
"Waterloo".

"................everybody has his day, everybody has his way, everybody has
to meet his Waterloo"

Bill
non-dual-booter
;o)




Bill

This is just a suggestion. The whole point of "Community Newsgroups" is to
help people find solutions to problems. The news are archived in many
different places to provide users the ability to search for someone having
the same problem they are experiencing.

If a community member posts a message about a problem and then simply posts
another message that says, "never mind, I figured it out" this can be very
frustrating for someone else who is experiencing the same problem. It's like
there are several people in a room having the exact same problem and one
person jumps up and says, "I found the solution" and then immediately leaves
the room, never to be seen again.

Please post the details about the solution you found in this same thread.
 
Ronnie,

You are more than welcome - this group has been an endless source of info
for me over the years.

Bill
"dual bootly challenged"



Thanks, Bill. :)
 
Bill said:
....I decided to leave my system the way it is and not
worry about dual booting. I will continue to clone to C to D as a back up
"just in case", but will avoid any dual booting attempts. This is not
because of any problem with the answers here on the situation, but my
brain's inability to grasp the ''dual boot' concept. I have been fooling
with computer since 1992 and for some reason this 'dual boot'' thing is
my "Waterloo".
Click to expand...


Good decision. Cloning to another partition on the same HD
doesn't work well or easily with the Win2K/NT/XP OSes. As an
archive, the clone is fine. But as another independent OS, it's
full of subtle errors that become apparent long after you've
deleted the original files and/or OS.

On the other hand... cloning works fine and easily when the clone
is put on another HD. Just follow the procedure to hide the "parent"
OS when the clone is started up for the 1st time. If you are using
PATA drives, you don't even have to re-jumper the HDs to make
the clone OS boot up - just disconnect the original HD that has
the "parent" OS on it.

To really know what you're doing with dual- triple- and octo-booting
using Microsoft's boot loader, though, you have to know how boot.ini
and the boot process works. Microsoft has documented the boot
process in its description of Windows XP pretty thoroughly. But the
critical un-documented feature in boot.ini is the "rdisk()" parameter
in the entries that specify the location of each of the optional OSes.
For background on that, search Groups.Google for an article by
Timothy Daniels (moi) in January of this year in the NG
alt.sys.pc-clone.dell and some other NGs on the subject of 'meaning
of "rdisk()" in the boot.ini file'. Once you understand "rdisk()", boot.ini
is a piece of cake. Post if you have further questions.

*TimDaniels*
 
Timothy,

They are 2 separate hard drives. I'll read the info you suggested and see if
I can make some progress here. I suspect disconnecting the parent, if clone
is needed, may be the way to go.

Thanks again,

Bill



Bill said:
....I decided to leave my system the way it is and not
worry about dual booting. I will continue to clone to C to D as a back up
"just in case", but will avoid any dual booting attempts. This is not
because of any problem with the answers here on the situation, but my
brain's inability to grasp the ''dual boot' concept. I have been fooling
with computer since 1992 and for some reason this 'dual boot'' thing is
my "Waterloo".
Click to expand...


Good decision. Cloning to another partition on the same HD
doesn't work well or easily with the Win2K/NT/XP OSes. As an
archive, the clone is fine. But as another independent OS, it's
full of subtle errors that become apparent long after you've
deleted the original files and/or OS.

On the other hand... cloning works fine and easily when the clone
is put on another HD. Just follow the procedure to hide the "parent"
OS when the clone is started up for the 1st time. If you are using
PATA drives, you don't even have to re-jumper the HDs to make
the clone OS boot up - just disconnect the original HD that has
the "parent" OS on it.

To really know what you're doing with dual- triple- and octo-booting
using Microsoft's boot loader, though, you have to know how boot.ini
and the boot process works. Microsoft has documented the boot
process in its description of Windows XP pretty thoroughly. But the
critical un-documented feature in boot.ini is the "rdisk()" parameter
in the entries that specify the location of each of the optional OSes.
For background on that, search Groups.Google for an article by
Timothy Daniels (moi) in January of this year in the NG
alt.sys.pc-clone.dell and some other NGs on the subject of 'meaning
of "rdisk()" in the boot.ini file'. Once you understand "rdisk()",
boot.ini
is a piece of cake. Post if you have further questions.

*TimDaniels*
 
With just 2 OSes, each on a separate HD, dual-booting is a
piece of cake. Here is MS dual-booting in a nutshell:

1) The boot files (ntldr, boot.ini, ntdetect.com) must be in a
Primary partition, and that partition must be the one that
is marked "active" (see Disk Management to ascertain that).
2) The OS to be booted can be in ANY partition in the system,
(Primary or Extended) on ANY hard drive in the system.
The usual plain vanilla scenario has the boot files in the
same partition as the partition with the OS.
3) The OSes are pointed at by the entries under the line
"[operating systems]" in the boot.ini file. In these entries,
rdisk() represents the HD (see my posting "meaning of rdisk()"),
partition() represents the no. of the partition (starting with "1")
on the HD, and the file name (usually WINDOWS) is the folder
where the OS is to be found. The quoted text string which
follows the file name is put on the screen during boot for you
to choose which OS to boot. You can set that text string to
whatever you want. Set the TIMEOUT value to something like
"10" to give you 10 seconds to choose an OS.
4) The HD which gets control from the BIOS at startup is the one
at the head of the HD boot order (the boot order of just HDs).

The *default* HD boot order, i.e. "boot priority list", is:
Master, IDE ch. 0,
Slave, IDE ch. 0,
Master, IDE ch. 1,
Slave, IDE ch. 1.

In the case of SATA drives, the HD boot order is just the
order of the SATA ch. nos. Where there is a mix of PATA
and SATA, the HD boot order spills from one ATA form to
the other (you have to experiment).

This priority can be reset via keyboard input to the BIOS if you
want. If you do set the HD boot order in the BIOS, you can even
dispense with dual-booting and use the single-boot form of
the boot.ini file. Each HD will think it's alone in the system, and
your setting of which HD is at the head of the HD boot order will
select which HD gets control of booting.

*TimDaniels*
 
Timothy,


"This priority can be reset via keyboard input to the BIOS if you
want. If you do set the HD boot order in the BIOS, you can even
dispense with dual-booting and use the single-boot form of
the boot.ini file. Each HD will think it's alone in the system, and
your setting of which HD is at the head of the HD boot order will
select which HD gets control of booting."


Herein lies the solution - very basic - very simple. I Have 3 HDs -
SATA 0 - parent
SATA 1 - clone
SATA2 - empty - (maybe for VISTA RC1)

I turned SATA 0 OFF (disabled) and it booted to SATA 1
no muss - no fuss - no fancy footwork

I went back to setup - turned SATA 0 back on - it booted to it

After ALL of the hassle I have had with this - you solved the problem with
the mentioning of HD boot order. IF I ever need to boot to the clone, I like
the idea of the parent being disabled, at least until I can solve whatever
problem has affected it. If I opt to install Vista RC1 on SATA 2 it will
create another set of issues that I believe can be dealt with by using
Vistaboot Pro. I worry about that when the time comes - Vista is kinda cool,
but way too many doo dahs for me - I like FAST and simple :o).

Thanks again for your enormous help with this. Talk about the ability to
"complicate a ham sandwich".

Bill






*TimDaniels*
 
Bill said:
"This priority can be reset via keyboard input to the BIOS if you
want. If you do set the HD boot order in the BIOS, you can even
dispense with dual-booting and use the single-boot form of
the boot.ini file. Each HD will think it's alone in the system, and
your setting of which HD is at the head of the HD boot order will
select which HD gets control of booting."


Herein lies the solution - very basic - very simple. I Have 3 HDs -
SATA 0 - parent
SATA 1 - clone
SATA2 - empty - (maybe for VISTA RC1)

I turned SATA 0 OFF (disabled) and it booted to SATA 1
no muss - no fuss - no fancy footwork

I went back to setup - turned SATA 0 back on - it booted to it

After ALL of the hassle I have had with this - you solved the problem with
the mentioning of HD boot order. IF I ever need to boot to the clone, I like
the idea of the parent being disabled, at least until I can solve whatever
problem has affected it. If I opt to install Vista RC1 on SATA 2 it will
create another set of issues that I believe can be dealt with by using
Vistaboot Pro. I worry about that when the time comes - Vista is kinda cool,
but way too many doo dahs for me - I like FAST and simple :o).

Thanks again for your enormous help with this. Talk about the ability to
"complicate a ham sandwich".
Click to expand...


Glad to help with the ham sandwich. Take a byte for me.

*TimDaniels*
 
Timothy,

I had the rdisk() thing running around in my head - did a Google search on
editing the boot.ini file, came up with this article:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=289022

I read it - did it - and now when I reboot I get the choice of which drive
to boot to - which is basically what you told me many weeks ago. :o)

--------------------
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="XP Home" /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN
/FASTDETECT
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS="XP Home Edition"
/NOEXECUTE=OPTIN /FASTDETECT
-----------------------

this is the text in boot.ini now - I added the bottom line and changed the
text in quotes to identify each drive.

that ham sandwich is now a filet mignon, well down, with a side of pecan
pie - YUMMY

Bill




Bill said:
"This priority can be reset via keyboard input to the BIOS if you
want. If you do set the HD boot order in the BIOS, you can even
dispense with dual-booting and use the single-boot form of
the boot.ini file. Each HD will think it's alone in the system, and
your setting of which HD is at the head of the HD boot order will
select which HD gets control of booting."


Herein lies the solution - very basic - very simple. I Have 3 HDs -
SATA 0 - parent
SATA 1 - clone
SATA2 - empty - (maybe for VISTA RC1)

I turned SATA 0 OFF (disabled) and it booted to SATA 1
no muss - no fuss - no fancy footwork

I went back to setup - turned SATA 0 back on - it booted to it

After ALL of the hassle I have had with this - you solved the problem with
the mentioning of HD boot order. IF I ever need to boot to the clone, I
like
the idea of the parent being disabled, at least until I can solve whatever
problem has affected it. If I opt to install Vista RC1 on SATA 2 it will
create another set of issues that I believe can be dealt with by using
Vistaboot Pro. I worry about that when the time comes - Vista is kinda
cool,
but way too many doo dahs for me - I like FAST and simple :o).

Thanks again for your enormous help with this. Talk about the ability to
"complicate a ham sandwich".
Click to expand...


Glad to help with the ham sandwich. Take a byte for me.

*TimDaniels*
 
Bill

This is just a suggestion. The whole point of "Community Newsgroups" is to
help people find solutions to problems. The news are archived in many
different places to provide users the ability to search for someone having
the same problem they are experiencing.
Click to expand...
You are correct in the above assessment. So please tell us why you're top
posting? That certainly doesn't help others down the road get help or
properly follow threads in these newsgroups.

The better dedicated newsgroup clients drop everything at a sig line, as
just happened with this post. So having a sig at the end of a top post
complete destroys the goodwill you espouse. Please learn how to post to
Usenet. It starts by not top posting.

If a community member posts a message about a problem and then simply
posts another message that says, "never mind, I figured it out" this can
be very frustrating for someone else who is experiencing the same problem.
It's like there are several people in a room having the exact same problem
and one person jumps up and says, "I found the solution" and then
immediately leaves the room, never to be seen again.

Please post the details about the solution you found in this same thread.
Click to expand...

--
WGA is the best thing that has happened for Linux in a while.

The ULTIMATE Windoze Fanboy:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2370205018226686613

Is this a modern day equivalent of a Nazi youth rally?:

http://www.ntk.net/media/developers.mpg

A 3D Linux Desktop (video) ...


View Some Common Linux Desktops ...
http://shots.osdir.com/
 
Wow - looks like I broke the Cardinal Rule of posting by top posting - seems
to me it is more of an opinion thing than fact - but what do I know,

Bill



Bill

This is just a suggestion. The whole point of "Community Newsgroups" is to
help people find solutions to problems. The news are archived in many
different places to provide users the ability to search for someone having
the same problem they are experiencing.
Click to expand...
You are correct in the above assessment. So please tell us why you're top
posting? That certainly doesn't help others down the road get help or
properly follow threads in these newsgroups.

The better dedicated newsgroup clients drop everything at a sig line, as
just happened with this post. So having a sig at the end of a top post
complete destroys the goodwill you espouse. Please learn how to post to
Usenet. It starts by not top posting.

If a community member posts a message about a problem and then simply
posts another message that says, "never mind, I figured it out" this can
be very frustrating for someone else who is experiencing the same problem.
It's like there are several people in a room having the exact same problem
and one person jumps up and says, "I found the solution" and then
immediately leaves the room, never to be seen again.

Please post the details about the solution you found in this same thread.
Click to expand...

--
WGA is the best thing that has happened for Linux in a while.

The ULTIMATE Windoze Fanboy:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2370205018226686613

Is this a modern day equivalent of a Nazi youth rally?:

http://www.ntk.net/media/developers.mpg

A 3D Linux Desktop (video) ...


View Some Common Linux Desktops ...
http://shots.osdir.com/
 
....please tell us why you're top
posting? That certainly doesn't help others down the road get help or
properly follow threads in these newsgroups.

The better dedicated newsgroup clients drop everything at a sig line, as
just happened with this post. So having a sig at the end of a top post
complete destroys the goodwill you espouse. Please learn how to post to
Usenet. It starts by not top posting.
Click to expand...


The Microsoft.public.etc NGs generally top-post - bizarre as it is and
contrary to Internet tradition. It's probably because Microsoft always
HAS to do everything differently.
Hmmm... where did I see this:
Glum smiley: :-/
Microsoft glum smiley: :-\

*TimDaniels*
 
Yup. When you have just 2 HDs, "rdisk(0)" and "rdisk(1)"
mean basically just "this HD" and "the other HD". I, OTH,
have 3 HDs, and I usually keep 4 or 5 clones on the 3rd HD,
1 or 2 on the 2nd HD, and I can boot TO any of them FROM
any of them. For that, ya gotta unnerstan "rdisk()" and
the boot process.

*TimDaniels*


Bill said:
Timothy,

I had the rdisk() thing running around in my head - did a Google
search on editing the boot.ini file, came up with this article:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=289022

I read it - did it - and now when I reboot I get the choice of which drive
to boot to - which is basically what you told me many weeks ago. :o)

--------------------
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="XP Home" /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN
/FASTDETECT
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS="XP Home Edition"
/NOEXECUTE=OPTIN /FASTDETECT
-----------------------

this is the text in boot.ini now - I added the bottom line and changed the
text in quotes to identify each drive.

that ham sandwich is now a filet mignon, well down, with a side of pecan
pie - YUMMY

Bill



:

Bill said:
"This priority can be reset via keyboard input to the BIOS if you
want. If you do set the HD boot order in the BIOS, you can even
dispense with dual-booting and use the single-boot form of
the boot.ini file. Each HD will think it's alone in the system, and
your setting of which HD is at the head of the HD boot order will
select which HD gets control of booting."


Herein lies the solution - very basic - very simple. I Have 3 HDs -
SATA 0 - parent
SATA 1 - clone
SATA2 - empty - (maybe for VISTA RC1)

I turned SATA 0 OFF (disabled) and it booted to SATA 1
no muss - no fuss - no fancy footwork

I went back to setup - turned SATA 0 back on - it booted to it

After ALL of the hassle I have had with this - you solved the problem with
the mentioning of HD boot order. IF I ever need to boot to the clone, I
like
the idea of the parent being disabled, at least until I can solve whatever
problem has affected it. If I opt to install Vista RC1 on SATA 2 it will
create another set of issues that I believe can be dealt with by using
Vistaboot Pro. I worry about that when the time comes - Vista is kinda
cool,
but way too many doo dahs for me - I like FAST and simple :o).

Thanks again for your enormous help with this. Talk about the ability to
"complicate a ham sandwich".
Click to expand...


Glad to help with the ham sandwich. Take a byte for me.

*TimDaniels*
Click to expand...
 
Wow - looks like I broke the Cardinal Rule of posting by top posting -
seems to me it is more of an opinion thing than fact - but what do I know,

Bill
Click to expand...
Sorry, but as I've already tried to explain it's not an opinion. Rather it
is reality that top posting is problematic if the top post has a sig. It is
also nonsensical because no one converses like that where a question is
answered before the question is posed.
You are correct in the above assessment. So please tell us why you're top
posting? That certainly doesn't help others down the road get help or
properly follow threads in these newsgroups.

The better dedicated newsgroup clients drop everything at a sig line, as
just happened with this post. So having a sig at the end of a top post
complete destroys the goodwill you espouse. Please learn how to post to
Usenet. It starts by not top posting.
Click to expand...

--
WGA is the best thing that has happened for Linux in a while.

The ULTIMATE Windoze Fanboy:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2370205018226686613

Is this a modern day equivalent of a Nazi youth rally?:

http://www.ntk.net/media/developers.mpg

A 3D Linux Desktop (video) ...


View Some Common Linux Desktops ...
http://shots.osdir.com/
 
NoStop said:
Sorry, but as I've already tried to explain it's not an opinion. Rather it
is reality that top posting is problematic if the top post has a sig. It
is
also nonsensical because no one converses like that where a question is
answered before the question is posed.
Click to expand...

Does your news reader display the reply or the top of the message?
Also, if you click on a reply, do you have to scroll to see the reply?

Ron Sommer
 
Bill

Any thread about top vs bottom posting is a no win conversation for everybody involved. :) These threads never end up convincing anyone to change their posting habits.

While it's true that top posting does not follow the correct order for a vocal conversation, ie: providing the question before the answer, it's also true that in a vocal conversation you do not need the question repeated prior to contributing to the conversation. :)

Bottom posting can also be very frustrating when you have a thread that goes on for 50 or 100 messages and nobody snips anything to make the post smaller. Of course, if you do snip, then nobody would know what the question was anyway? :)))

There is nothing more irritating than scrolling through 12 screens of a thread just to read a 2 word post by the current contributor.
 
Top posting or bottom posting does not matter much,
but in a past post everyone bottom posted and you top
posted and I had to scroll down to the through the post
to see what you were refering to. I think that this type
of posting is downright rude.

Ronnie Vernon MVP wrote:
| Bill
|
| Any thread about top vs bottom posting is a no win conversation for
| everybody involved. :) These threads never end up convincing anyone
| to change their posting habits.
|
| While it's true that top posting does not follow the correct order
| for a vocal conversation, ie: providing the question before the
| answer, it's also true that in a vocal conversation you do not need
| the question repeated prior to contributing to the conversation. :)
|
| Bottom posting can also be very frustrating when you have a thread
| that goes on for 50 or 100 messages and nobody snips anything to make
| the post smaller. Of course, if you do snip, then nobody would know
| what the question was anyway? :)))
|
| There is nothing more irritating than scrolling through 12 screens of
| a thread just to read a 2 word post by the current contributor.
|
|
| || Wow - looks like I broke the Cardinal Rule of posting by top posting
|| - seems to me it is more of an opinion thing than fact - but what do
|| I know,
||
|| Bill
||
||
||
|| || On Tuesday 18 July 2006 02:02 pm, Ronnie Vernon MVP had this to say
|| in microsoft.public.windowsxp.general:
||
||| Bill
|||
||| This is just a suggestion. The whole point of "Community
||| Newsgroups" is to help people find solutions to problems. The news
||| are archived in many different places to provide users the ability
||| to search for someone having the same problem they are experiencing.
|||
|| You are correct in the above assessment. So please tell us why
|| you're top posting? That certainly doesn't help others down the road
|| get help or properly follow threads in these newsgroups.
||
|| The better dedicated newsgroup clients drop everything at a sig
|| line, as just happened with this post. So having a sig at the end of
|| a top post complete destroys the goodwill you espouse. Please learn
|| how to post to Usenet. It starts by not top posting.
||
||
||| If a community member posts a message about a problem and then
||| simply posts another message that says, "never mind, I figured it
||| out" this can be very frustrating for someone else who is
||| experiencing the same problem. It's like there are several people
||| in a room having the exact same problem and one person jumps up and
||| says, "I found the solution" and then immediately leaves the room,
||| never to be seen again.
|||
||| Please post the details about the solution you found in this same
||| thread.
|||
||
|| --
|| WGA is the best thing that has happened for Linux in a while.
||
|| The ULTIMATE Windoze Fanboy:
||
|| http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2370205018226686613
||
|| Is this a modern day equivalent of a Nazi youth rally?:
||
|| http://www.ntk.net/media/developers.mpg
||
|| A 3D Linux Desktop (video) ...
||
||
||
|| View Some Common Linux Desktops ...
|| http://shots.osdir.com/
 
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