Dual Boot on 2 HD's

sychnant

sychnant

sychnant

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14 Nov 2007
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Can anyone suggest a link or walkthrough for setting up a dual boot with Vist and XP.? I received some very good advice from forum member YIUCA but i am still not exactly sure how using 2 HD's works in a dual boot SATA array.
Does it mean that only one drive is ever regognised at a time when the OS boots, and the other HD is not even seen. Plus both OS would be installed on their respective "C:" drives on each HD? I am not explaining myself very well because i havent got my head around it yet... :-) Any advice please before my bits arrive in the post...:-)

Bits Purchased from OCUK..
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775)
Abit IP35 Pro (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2
EVGA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB Superclocked "Crysis Edition" GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (512-P2-E802-AR-CrysisUK)
HD 1.Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache
HD 2.Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache
Pioneer DVR-112DBK 18x18 DVD±RW IDE Dual Layer ReWriter
Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS II Aluminium Midi-Tower Case - Black
Corsair HX620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU(CMPSU-620HXUK)
Sony Floppy Drive - Black
 
It's simple..

Install XP on the first disk as normal.

Then attempt to install Vista but it will prompt you where the OS is to be loaded. Select the second drive (or where you would like the OS to be installed) and it will create a dual boot.

When logged into either, the OS will show as it's running from the C: drive.

You will be able to access each drive through explorer. My tip is name the volume "XP" and "Vista" so you don't get confussed.
 
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It is that simple mate, i have done it!
It is that simple, the Vista Instllation GUI is cool, But some advice, you cannot install Vista to a Dynamic Disk, So be sure to convert the disk to basic in XP, and you will have not problems.
 
How do i convert the disk to "basic" with XP if there is no OS on it?
Dont i just fdisk each disk and format as NTFS before loading each OS in turn so they are treated as seperate entities?
 
sychnant said:
How do i convert the disk to "basic" with XP if there is no OS on it?
Dont i just fdisk each disk and format as NTFS before loading each OS in turn so they are treated as seperate entities?
Click to expand...

Right click my computer -> Manage -> Disks -> Right click on drive and click delete partition. Then right click on the drive and they'll be an option to convert it to basic.
 
I am still confused about dynamic and basic HD,s ...If i am able to access My computer, i assume i have already fdisked and formatted the HD to load windows XP ,so would i not just do the same with the other HD to make it ready for vista? I intend to do all the partitioning etc in DOS with the old 98 start up floppy before loading the various OSystems..sorry if i am a bit dumb here... :-(
 
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You don't need a windows 98 startup disk with fdisk or format or anything like that anymore.

Both Vista and XP have the options to format your HDD prior to installation. Vista has a nice GUI selection screen. Just follow the on-screen instructions.
 
Use NTFS partitions when possible. NTFS partitions can be either basic or dynamic. Dynamic partitons allow you to do some clever tricks like spanning a volume across several drives, and so on. Basic is probably best for "normal" usage with one or more partitions on the same physical drive.

I don't think DOS and windows versions before 2000 can access dynamic partitions.

You shouldn't really use old tools from old operating systems when you are working with newer ones as a general rule.

Thats the way I understand it anyway.
 
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