Wanted dual boot - I think?

[rogert]

Before I had just a WD120 gig HD that was/is a 5400 rpm drive. I added a new
WD160 gig HD at 7200 rpm. I was/am running XP Home and wanted to keep data
and OS seperate on the old and new HD, copy, at my leisure all the data I
wanted to keep from the old to the new HD -THEN- "wipe" the old and use it
simply as an archive storage drive. Western Digital support directed me to
use master/slave configuration. Fine but that just combined the 2 drive,
essentially into 1 280 gig drive w/1 XP os. I had files I wanted stuff from
but didn't want to inherit all the settings, adware, bulls%^t etc. I wanted
to use some settings on some programs and not some on others. Now it's kinda
all in the same "mess"
My question is; is it too late to change configurations, whatever to go to
the type of setup I wanted in the first place?
In other words go to the configuration that will allow me to boot from
either drive I want to, copy selective data back and forth then in the end
keep the second HD as just an archive/storage drive? Still seperate from the
new 160 gig primary drive?
Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Tom]

Before I had just a WD120 gig HD that was/is a 5400 rpm drive. I added a new
WD160 gig HD at 7200 rpm. I was/am running XP Home and wanted to keep data
and OS seperate on the old and new HD, copy, at my leisure all the data I
wanted to keep from the old to the new HD -THEN- "wipe" the old and use it
simply as an archive storage drive. Western Digital support directed me to
use master/slave configuration. Fine but that just combined the 2 drive,
essentially into 1 280 gig drive w/1 XP os. I had files I wanted stuff from
but didn't want to inherit all the settings, adware, bulls%^t etc. I wanted
to use some settings on some programs and not some on others. Now it's kinda
all in the same "mess"

Well, if you haven't stuffed it up yet, you can do this easily. First, be sure that your setup when in Windows can see the whole 160gigs of drive space. With the new WD hard drive, you should have gotten a utlity disk with it, which will allow you to fromrat, make partitions, and copy directly over the system onto the new drive from the old.

Take your new drive, set it as slave, then boot with thw WD disk, format the drive, aprtition (i would recommend that even if you want it whole). Then copy over the entire system. Then switch the drive as master and slave and boot from it. Now you can use the new drive as you want, and do what you want with the older, now slave drive.

My question is; is it too late to change configurations, whatever to go to
the type of setup I wanted in the first place?
In other words go to the configuration that will allow me to boot from
either drive I want to, copy selective data back and forth then in the end
keep the second HD as just an archive/storage drive? Still seperate from the
new 160 gig primary drive?
Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

Unfortunately, you cannot do this, as only one drive can be the boot drive and primary (you can make the other one a boot drive, but it will be secondary, until you change the jumpers). You can have only one at a time, short of modifying the jumpers with a switch that would allow you to switch back and forth, without having to open the case, and switch jumpers. It simply cannot be setup the way you want as having two primary drive with the system boot configuration on them, short of my suggestion above, or doing a dual-boot, which will not serve your purpose.

Do a google search for switches made for making an easy way to make separate drives primary boot devices.

 

[Pegasus]

Before I had just a WD120 gig HD that was/is a 5400 rpm drive. I added a new
WD160 gig HD at 7200 rpm. I was/am running XP Home and wanted to keep data
and OS seperate on the old and new HD, copy, at my leisure all the data I
wanted to keep from the old to the new HD -THEN- "wipe" the old and use it
simply as an archive storage drive. Western Digital support directed me to
use master/slave configuration. Fine but that just combined the 2 drive,
essentially into 1 280 gig drive w/1 XP os. I had files I wanted stuff from
but didn't want to inherit all the settings, adware, bulls%^t etc. I wanted
to use some settings on some programs and not some on others. Now it's kinda
all in the same "mess"
My question is; is it too late to change configurations, whatever to go to
the type of setup I wanted in the first place?
In other words go to the configuration that will allow me to boot from
either drive I want to, copy selective data back and forth then in the end
keep the second HD as just an archive/storage drive? Still seperate from the
new 160 gig primary drive?
Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

If I understand you correctly then you will have two disks, each
with its own operating system, and you would like to be able to
boot from each and at all times be able to access the other.

This is easily achieved with some third-party boot loaders.
I would use XOSL: It's got a very nice user interface, and it's
free.

Post again if you require more details.

 

[Tom]

If I understand you correctly then you will have two disks, each
with its own operating system, and you would like to be able to
boot from each and at all times be able to access the other.

This is easily achieved with some third-party boot loaders.
I would use XOSL: It's got a very nice user interface, and it's
free.

Post again if you require more details.

If I read his post correctly, that isn't what he wants, and what you suggest cannot work with what he wants. He wants to be able to switch back and forth making each drive the master drive (as opposed to master to secondary/slave as shown in the BIOS). In this case, your suggestion won't work, as the jumpers need to be switched for separate hard drive to load up. Yes, you can make both drive a bootable drive (i.e. primary partiton, so to speak, with their own boot loaders), but the physical setup inside the tower needs to be changed from master to slave, adn vice-versa for that to work in his case, meaning, changed the jumpers. I am fairly sure, that one can make a jumper switch for their box on the outside that would do such a thing.

 

[Pegasus]

If I understand you correctly then you will have two disks, each
with its own operating system, and you would like to be able to
boot from each and at all times be able to access the other.

This is easily achieved with some third-party boot loaders.
I would use XOSL: It's got a very nice user interface, and it's
free.

Post again if you require more details.

If I read his post correctly, that isn't what he wants, and what you suggest
cannot work with what he wants. He wants to be able to switch back and forth
making each drive the master drive (as opposed to master to secondary/slave
as shown in the BIOS). In this case, your suggestion won't work, as the
jumpers need to be switched for separate hard drive to load up. Yes, you can
make both drive a bootable drive (i.e. primary partiton, so to speak, with
their own boot loaders), but the physical setup inside the tower needs to be
changed from master to slave, adn vice-versa for that to work in his case,
meaning, changed the jumpers. I am fairly sure, that one can make a jumper
switch for their box on the outside that would do such a thing.
===============
XOSL has the capability of switching drives on the fly, without modifying
the master/slave jumpers. When the OP selects disk 1 as his boot drive then
the machine will boot off disk 1, and it will appear as drive C:. Disk 2
will appear as drive D:. When he selects disk 2 as his boot drive then the
machine will boot off disk 2, and it will appear as drive C:. Disk 1 will
now appear as drive D:.

Whether this is exactly what the OP wants, I do not know. His post was not
very clear in this regard.

 

[Tom]

If I read his post correctly, that isn't what he wants, and what you suggest
cannot work with what he wants. He wants to be able to switch back and forth
making each drive the master drive (as opposed to master to secondary/slave
as shown in the BIOS). In this case, your suggestion won't work, as the
jumpers need to be switched for separate hard drive to load up. Yes, you can
make both drive a bootable drive (i.e. primary partiton, so to speak, with
their own boot loaders), but the physical setup inside the tower needs to be
changed from master to slave, adn vice-versa for that to work in his case,
meaning, changed the jumpers. I am fairly sure, that one can make a jumper
switch for their box on the outside that would do such a thing.
===============
XOSL has the capability of switching drives on the fly, without modifying
the master/slave jumpers. When the OP selects disk 1 as his boot drive then
the machine will boot off disk 1, and it will appear as drive C:. Disk 2
will appear as drive D:. When he selects disk 2 as his boot drive then the
machine will boot off disk 2, and it will appear as drive C:. Disk 1 will
now appear as drive D:.

But that will not work if the BIOS sees those drives as Primary(master)/Secondary(slave), and the BIOS needs to set one as the primary device from the IDE/SATA controller. The BIOS will not recognize two primary drives to load, unless there is a MOBO that does that. I tried doing that with my previous PC, and tried setting up both a boot devices. Yes, I made them both boot devices, but the the BIOS when it posted would only take one as the boot device. Otherwise, I would get an error that there was no OS to load because i didn't have the jumpers set properly. Now, whether there is a IDE/SATA controller card for a PCI slot that will do this, I don't know, but there are such controller cards.

Any boot loader will do what you say, but not as Master/Slave setting in the BIOS connected to the controllers on the MOBO itself, AFAIK.

Whether this is exactly what the OP wants, I do not know. His post was not
very clear in this regard.

I agree, he was not clear at all.

 

[Pegasus]

If I read his post correctly, that isn't what he wants, and what you suggest
cannot work with what he wants. He wants to be able to switch back and forth
making each drive the master drive (as opposed to master to secondary/slave
as shown in the BIOS). In this case, your suggestion won't work, as the
jumpers need to be switched for separate hard drive to load up. Yes, you can
make both drive a bootable drive (i.e. primary partiton, so to speak, with
their own boot loaders), but the physical setup inside the tower needs to be
changed from master to slave, adn vice-versa for that to work in his case,
meaning, changed the jumpers. I am fairly sure, that one can make a jumper
switch for their box on the outside that would do such a thing.
===============
XOSL has the capability of switching drives on the fly, without modifying
the master/slave jumpers. When the OP selects disk 1 as his boot drive then
the machine will boot off disk 1, and it will appear as drive C:. Disk 2
will appear as drive D:. When he selects disk 2 as his boot drive then the
machine will boot off disk 2, and it will appear as drive C:. Disk 1 will
now appear as drive D:.

But that will not work if the BIOS sees those drives as
Primary(master)/Secondary(slave), and the BIOS needs to set one as the
primary device from the IDE/SATA controller. The BIOS will not recognize two
primary drives to load, unless there is a MOBO that does that. I tried doing
that with my previous PC, and tried setting up both a boot devices. Yes, I
made them both boot devices, but the the BIOS when it posted would only take
one as the boot device. Otherwise, I would get an error that there was no OS
to load because i didn't have the jumpers set properly. Now, whether there
is a IDE/SATA controller card for a PCI slot that will do this, I don't
know, but there are such controller cards.

Any boot loader will do what you say, but not as Master/Slave setting in the
BIOS connected to the controllers on the MOBO itself, AFAIK.

Whether this is exactly what the OP wants, I do not know. His post was not
very clear in this regard.

I agree, he was not clear at all.
========================
I tested my proposed configuration with the two disks connected as primary
master/primary slave. XOSL does not care whether a given disk is a master or
a slave. If you include a given partition in its menu then it will boot from
it. XOSL even allows you to boot into a logical drive!

 

[Teilhard Knight]

data to

But that will not work if the BIOS sees those drives as
Primary(master)/Secondary(slave), and the BIOS needs to set one as the
primary device from the IDE/SATA controller. The BIOS will not recognize two
primary drives to load, unless there is a MOBO that does that. I tried doing
that with my previous PC, and tried setting up both a boot devices. Yes, I
made them both boot devices, but the the BIOS when it posted would only take
one as the boot device. Otherwise, I would get an error that there was no OS
to load because i didn't have the jumpers set properly. Now, whether there
is a IDE/SATA controller card for a PCI slot that will do this, I don't
know, but there are such controller cards.

Any boot loader will do what you say, but not as Master/Slave setting in the
BIOS connected to the controllers on the MOBO itself, AFAIK.


I agree, he was not clear at all.
========================
I tested my proposed configuration with the two disks connected as primary
master/primary slave. XOSL does not care whether a given disk is a master or
a slave. If you include a given partition in its menu then it will boot from
it. XOSL even allows you to boot into a logical drive!

This is right. I have in one computer as many as 6 OSs in two disks, one
primary master and the other secondary master. In another machine I have 5
OSs, in two disks, both masters, but one in the ordinary primary channel and
the other in the primary RAID channel. Xosl, can boot almost anything
whenever the OS supports booting from the partitions allocated. For example,
it cannot boot Win XP from a logical partition, but it boots all right Linux
from such a partition.

What I think Rogert wants is simply to have his old HD as storage device.
For that he must first create a partition for the whole HD and then format
it with the same file system (or lower) where the OS resides. In that way it
will appear in Windows as drive "D" or something. In this way, he simply
drags and drops files from one disk to the other. No need to dual boot.

Teilhard.

 

[Wauna]

-----Original Message-----

rpm drive. I added a
new files I wanted stuff
from bulls%^t etc. I
wanted others. Now it's
kinda configurations, whatever to go
to Still seperate from
the

If I understand you correctly then you will have two disks, each
with its own operating system, and you would like to be able to
boot from each and at all times be able to access the other.

This is easily achieved with some third-party boot loaders.
I would use XOSL: It's got a very nice user interface, and it's
free.

Post again if you require more details.

Hi,
I'm not the original questioner but I would like more
info on using XOSL. We have 2 hard drives, one with
Winows 98 and one with XP Professional.
We want to be able to put them into one cpu and be able
to boot to either one of them. We tried setting the one
with 98 as a slave but we can not get into it that way.
When I was reading about XOSL, it seemed to be wanting to
just partition one drive, but this is not what we want to
do at this point. Will XOSL let us boot to either of
these drives and will the instructions be understandable
by someone that is not a computer genius? Thank you for
your help.
Wauna

 

[Pegasus]

Hi,
I'm not the original questioner but I would like more
info on using XOSL. We have 2 hard drives, one with
Winows 98 and one with XP Professional.
We want to be able to put them into one cpu and be able
to boot to either one of them. We tried setting the one
with 98 as a slave but we can not get into it that way.
When I was reading about XOSL, it seemed to be wanting to
just partition one drive, but this is not what we want to
do at this point. Will XOSL let us boot to either of
these drives and will the instructions be understandable
by someone that is not a computer genius? Thank you for
your help.
Wauna

XOSL lets you boot from either drive. The product comes
with help files but they may be insufficient for a novice.
Remember that it's a freeware product (but a terrific one!).
Post your exact setup here (i.e. an exact map of all your
partitions, their type and their purpose), plus your exact
requirements, and we'll step you throuth the process.

 

[Guest]

-----Original Message-----



XOSL lets you boot from either drive. The product comes
with help files but they may be insufficient for a novice.
Remember that it's a freeware product (but a terrific one!).
Post your exact setup here (i.e. an exact map of all your
partitions, their type and their purpose), plus your exact
requirements, and we'll step you throuth the process.


I downloaded XOSL onto a floppy because the computer we

want to use it in is not online.
I hope the following is the information you need to help.
We have a new Dell Dimension 8300, Pentium 4 @ 3.2GHz
with 1024 MB DDR SDRAM @ 400mz.
The first hard drive is set to Master, 80 gb, NTFS has XP
Professional and is a basic disk. This will be the main
drive used for most of the work done with the newer
programs.
The second hard drive is set as primary slave right now,
40gb, Windows 98, Fat 32. It has old programs and files
from an older Gateway computer. It is a new drive that we
had just put in the Gateway. It worked there but now we
just want to have it in the Dell and be able to boot to
that drive periodically to access and work with the
programs and file that are there.
I know I have been missing something because we aren't
able to boot to the second hard drive.
Thank you for all your help.
Wauna

 

[Pegasus]

want to use it in is not online.
I hope the following is the information you need to help.
We have a new Dell Dimension 8300, Pentium 4 @ 3.2GHz
with 1024 MB DDR SDRAM @ 400mz.
The first hard drive is set to Master, 80 gb, NTFS has XP
Professional and is a basic disk. This will be the main
drive used for most of the work done with the newer
programs.
The second hard drive is set as primary slave right now,
40gb, Windows 98, Fat 32. It has old programs and files
from an older Gateway computer. It is a new drive that we
had just put in the Gateway. It worked there but now we
just want to have it in the Dell and be able to boot to
that drive periodically to access and work with the
programs and file that are there.
I know I have been missing something because we aren't
able to boot to the second hard drive.
Thank you for all your help.
Wauna

There are a couple of ways to go about this:

a) The modular way. Reduce the FAT32 partition on your
second disk by a small amount, then create a 7 MByte
FAT partition at the far end. Label it "XOSL". Now load
XOSL into this partition. This method depends on you
having access to a partition manager.

b) The direct way: Load XOSL into the Win98 partition.
Take care not to delete it - although it's not a great
catastrophy if you do - you would simply have to re-install
it.

My preferred way would actually go like this:
1. Reduce the Win98 partition to 4 GBytes.
2. Create a 7 MByte XOSL partition at the far end.
3. Assign the remaining disk space to a FAT32 data partition.

This configuration allows you to keep your OSs and your
data strictly apart (which is great when backing up things,
or reloading OSs!). Furthermore, the data partition will
be visible both to WinXP and Win98.

After installing XOSL, add WinXP and Win98 to its menu.
Post again if you need more detailed instructions.

 

[Teilhard Knight]

I know I have been missing something because we aren't

able to boot to the second hard drive.
Thank you for all your help.
Wauna

Microsoft OSs can only boot from the master in the primary channel. Xosl
cannot help about that. It is one of Bill Gates' whims. He wants control of
the main disk.

 

[Pegasus]

Microsoft OSs can only boot from the master in the primary channel. Xosl
cannot help about that. It is one of Bill Gates' whims. He wants control of
the main disk.

What you say is what most people believe. The facts say otherwise.
I have several machines that have various flavours of Windows fully
installed in logical drives, that is boot files + Windows directory +
apps directory all residing on a logical drive, on the primary or
secondary master or slave disk. They boot very nicely. I recommend
you try it for yourself - it works extremely nicely!

 

[Teilhard Knight]

What you say is what most people believe. The facts say otherwise.
I have several machines that have various flavours of Windows fully
installed in logical drives, that is boot files + Windows directory +
apps directory all residing on a logical drive, on the primary or
secondary master or slave disk. They boot very nicely. I recommend
you try it for yourself - it works extremely nicely!

Huh. Perhaps if you tell me with a little more detail what you do, I will
learn something I'll be delighted with. I tried to install Win 98 SE in my
master HD in the secondary channel, and it didn't boot, even using a primary
partition. I am using Xosl. The first problem I face with logical partitions
is that the installer sees the partition and that accepts to install there.

Teilhard.

 

[Pegasus]

Huh. Perhaps if you tell me with a little more detail what you do, I will
learn something I'll be delighted with. I tried to install Win 98 SE in my
master HD in the secondary channel, and it didn't boot, even using a primary
partition. I am using Xosl. The first problem I face with logical partitions
is that the installer sees the partition and that accepts to install there.

Teilhard.

There are two issues here:
a) What the installer will do
b) What the boot process will do.

a) The Installer
Win9x products will cheerfully install into drive C:, regardless of whether
it is a primary or logical partition. The trick then is to use XOSL to hide
all partitions BELOW the target partition before installing Win9x. In other
words, the target partition MUST be visible as drive C:.

WinNT/2000/XP is different: AFAIR, it will not install in a logical drive.
This can be overcome with a little trick: Install it into a primary
partition,
then port it into a logical drive, using imaging techniques. DriveImage,
TrueImage or even ZIP can be used. Again you must make sure that
the target partition is the FIRST visible partition. The shared data
partition
must always come AFTER the OS partition.

b) The Boot Process
You need to consider two points:
- If the OS partition resides on a disk other than the primary
master disk then you must instruct XOSL to swap disks. It's
a tick box in the XOSL setup menu.

- If the OS partition resides on a logical drive then you must
use a tool such as ptedit.exe (ftp://ftp.powerquest.com/pub/utilities/)
to adjust the number of hidden sectors of this partition. This sounds
daunting, but it is actually very easy and harmless. Post again if you
would like full details on how it's done.

If you spend some time playing with this then I'm sure you will be
pleased with the newly gained freedom of being able to install any
Microsoft OS into any partition on any drive!

 

[Pegasus]

Huh. Perhaps if you tell me with a little more detail what you do, I will
learn something I'll be delighted with. I tried to install Win 98 SE in my
master HD in the secondary channel, and it didn't boot, even using a primary
partition. I am using Xosl. The first problem I face with logical partitions
is that the installer sees the partition and that accepts to install there.

Teilhard.

Further to my previous post: If you move WinNT/2000/XP partitions
about then you will have to adjust boot.ini in order to reflect the correct
partition number. When dealing with an NTFS partition then you could
edit this file in a number of ways:
- By booting from a WinXP installation in a primary partition;
- By using the Command Console
- By running the disk as a slave disk in some other WinXP PC
- By booting with a Bart PE CD (which is a very handy tool to have!)