Dual Boot w/ Each O/S on separate hard drive

Hi everyone:

Here is my situation: I have XP installed on a SATA drive in a computer
I just put together (AMD x2 5600+, ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe, 2Gig Ram) and I
want to install another SATA drive with Vista Ultimate 64 bit and I want
the ability to dual-boot like some people do when they have 2 operating
systems on the same drive but in different partitions.

If anyone has experience doing this I would appreciate your input.

PS - I originally install Vista Ultimate 64 bit as the O/S but it was
incompatible with many of the programs I use so I installed XP Pro.
Otherwise I liked Vista.


--
Greg81

"Greg81" wrote:
> I have XP installed on a SATA drive in a computer [that]
> I just put together (AMD x2 5600+, ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe,
> 2Gig Ram) and I want to install another SATA drive with Vista
> Ultimate 64 bit and I want the ability to dual-boot like some
> people do when they have 2 operating systems on the same
> drive but in different partitions.
>
> If anyone has experience doing this I would appreciate your input.

The simplest way to do this without getting into the 32-bit/64-bit
issue (which may not be an issue) and to avoid the procedure to
both setup the dual-boot and then later to remove it when you're done
with XP is to just install Vista on the 2nd HD while the 1st HD is
disconnected. Then re-connect the 1st HD and switch boot control
between the to hard drives by setting which HD is the boot drive in
the BIOS. Each HD will have been setup to mono-boot, and the
boot drive will just mono-boot, and the running OS will see the files
on the other HD as just data - not installed programs or an OS. Each
OS will refer to its own partition as "C:", and it temporarily rename the
other partitions, but this will not be a problem as long as each OS
does not have any shortcuts which refer to other partitions. Later,
when you want to retire XP, just remove or reformat the 2nd HD.

Manufacturers usually farm out their BIOS designs to contracting
companies, but they usually have a set of requirements for features
that they want in their BIOSes, and they're all similar in varying degrees.
Some, mostly the ones with IDE HDs, have a Hard Drive Boot Order
wherein the HD at the head of the list, i.e. with the highest priority, gets
control from the BIOS at boot time. Besides setting which HD is the
boot drive, the Hard Drive Boot Order also determined the meaning
of "rdisk()" in the boot.ini boot menu. With Vista, there is no boot.ini,
and PCs with Hard Drive Boot Orders are getting rare, there being
instead an "enablement" that specifies the boot drive to the BIOS. Muck
through the BIOS parameters, and you should be able to figure out how
to designate the boot drive.

*TimDaniels*

I just happen to read your posting. Yes, you can load both XP
and Vista in one PC. I am using both OP systems on a laptop
for some time now. Load the XP first, then load the Vista.
It does not matter, whether you are using a SATA or IDE or
SCSI drive. You have to load them on separate drives or separate
partitions in a physical drive. After you load them, you may
download a bootloader program to make any changes in booting.
Rather than using Microsoft booting system. I am using EasyBCD.

"Greg81" <guest@unknown-email.com> wrote in message
news:e47a9c02acf78aae9105fc5a2c136e2a@nntp-gateway.com...
>
> Hi everyone:
>
> Here is my situation: I have XP installed on a SATA drive in a computer
> I just put together (AMD x2 5600+, ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe, 2Gig Ram) and I
> want to install another SATA drive with Vista Ultimate 64 bit and I want
> the ability to dual-boot like some people do when they have 2 operating
> systems on the same drive but in different partitions.
>
> If anyone has experience doing this I would appreciate your input.
>
> PS - I originally install Vista Ultimate 64 bit as the O/S but it was
> incompatible with many of the programs I use so I installed XP Pro.
> Otherwise I liked Vista.
>
>
> --
> Greg81

Tim:

Thanks for the info. Yes, I was thinking of your idea. I may just
unplug the XP drive and install Vista on another drive. Then, I'll just
keep one drive plugged in depending on which o/s i want to use.

Its too bad Microsoft could not make Vista run old programs and
hardware. I think this is the source of most complaints about Vista.


--
Greg81

"Greg81" <guest@unknown-email.com> asked in message...

> Dual Boot w/ Each O/S on separate hard drive (?)


Try removable drive bays.... each OS on it's own removable drive.
All you have to do is load the motherboard and device drivers into
all the OS drives and you should be good to go and able to forget
about the dual booting and dual residency issues. It's easy and
cheap these days to move data from drive to drive if necessary.

"Greg81" wrote:
> I may just unplug the XP drive and install Vista on another drive.
> Then, I'll just keep one drive plugged in depending on which o/s
> i want to use.


Keeping just one plugged in at a time will avoid the conflict in
restore points between the Vista and XP OSes, but it can develop
into a major pain to open the case to do the unplugging and plugging
for every change of OS. David Morgan's suggestion for removable
HD trays ("mobile racks") would be a great convenience if you have
a spare 51/4" drive bay to use. Otherwise, to maintain the independ-
ence of restore points, you could use a 3rd-party boot manager that
can "hide" uneeded partitions that contain other OSes. Those boot
managers play with the MBR, though, and/or require their own
dedicated Primary partition, and you may not like the added complexity.

My personal preferences would be to just backup my files often
and forget about the integrity of restore points, leaving both HDs
connected all the time, and then use the BIOS to transition between
the OSes. Of course, the usual way to dual-boot between Vista
and XP is to use the Vista built-in boot manager, and to use EasyBCD
(a free 3rd-party applet) to adjust Vista's BCD when XP is installed
after Vista. But if you were to eventually dump XP and keep Vista,
you'd again have to employ EasyBCD to re-adjust Vista's BCD file
again. No biggie, but a potential source of confusion. There is also
the possibility that in 2 years, you will still be happily using XP, and
Windows 7 will come along to bump off Vista. :-)

*TimDaniels*

Thanks for all your help. I think I'm going to do it the old fashioned
way and just open the case and plug & unplug the drives when I swith
between o/s. It won't be that often that I switch anyway.

As for Vista 64, I really like the o/s and I dpn't know why Microsoft
could not have developed some way to run older programs.


--
Greg81