Dual booting two drives

DeadLOK · 28 Mar 2006 at 16:43

I have two hard disks in a machine that both have XP pro installed on each - both are the master on their own channel. If I point the bios towards either to boot first it will work but I'd like to change the boot.ini on the first drive to show both OS's on startup.

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

Here's the boot.ini on the first drive, the second drive is the same :confused:

What do I need to change to get it to boot from the second drive off that boot.ini?

UKDTweak · 28 Mar 2006 at 16:46

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Disc 1" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(1)disk(1)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Disc 2" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

Wait for somebody to confirm first though before trying, unless you know how to edit the boot.ini in dos.

DeadLOK · 28 Mar 2006 at 17:54

doesn't matter anymore, the guys happy with selecting the hdd in bios.

would like someone to confirm just so i know though.

errata · 30 Mar 2006 at 13:06

the Xp recovery console program bootcfg.exe will let you scan and add an operating system on another partition or disk to your boot.ini if you dont want to edit it manually.

Control panel>System>Advanced>Startup & Recovery settings> 'time to display list of OS lets you enable and set a default time to display the XP boot select screen before the default OS is loaded.

Use bootcfg /add or possibly bootcfg /rebuild

AFTER doing bootcfg /copy to make a boot.ini backup!

see

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/bootcons_bootcfg.mspx?mfr=true