Two seperate windows installations

Jono8 · 25 May 2007 at 20:15

Hi guy

I have a windows xp installation on one sata hard drive and i would like to buy a another sata drive and install a seperate installation on that. Basically i would like to leave the original installation on my exsisting hard drive for all my music,downloads, internet surfing and generally all the crap its accumulated over the years and use the new installation on the seperate hard drive for gaming and possibly an upgrade to vista in the future (basically i dont want years of crap clogging up my performance in games).

I could probably have a go at doing it myself through trial and error but i don't want to screw up and lose all the stuff i have on my existing hard drive.

cheers

jt

supernova9 · 25 May 2007 at 20:59

Why not connect the new hard disk, copy data files onto it, then reformat the first hard disk? Rather than having two side by side?

Jono8 · 25 May 2007 at 22:52

supernova9 said:
Why not connect the new hard disk, copy data files onto it, then reformat the first hard disk? Rather than having two side by side?

because i don't want to lose all my installations of stuff aswell. Surely i can just have two seperate windows installations?

BuToNz · 25 May 2007 at 22:53

You can but why you could want to boggles the mind.

supernova9 · 25 May 2007 at 22:56

I think the effort of reinstalling whatever software you have at the moment would be nothing compared to rebooting your computer every single time you were browsing the internet and then wanted to play a game.

Yes your idea is possible. Whether it's the most sensible option is mostly definitely debatable.

Jono8 · 25 May 2007 at 23:14

well could someone help me on how to do it, so at least i have the option?

gunner · 26 May 2007 at 11:11

I think "Acronis OS Selector" may be able to help you. It allows you to choose which OS you want to use at start up. I think this may do what you want.

sidefxv1 · 26 May 2007 at 11:14

Or just install windows on the new drive, then edit boot.ini to allow you to select which one you want on boot... Think that should work.

noxidjkram@hotm · 26 May 2007 at 12:15

When you install Windows, just choose your second HDD that you have just put in.

It'll be easy to see, as the current drive will show up as having Windows installed - just pop a partition onto your new drive, format and then install windows.

Windows will automatically add the new OS to the boot options, and every time you boot up you will need to select the OS to boot (or wait until it boots whichever is default).

M