Dual Booting OS' on 2 Different HDD's

Discussion in 'Software' started by Trussman, Jun 23, 2010.

  1. Trussman

    Trussman Private First Class

    I know how to Dual, Triple or Quad Boot OS', when I partition a single HDD for the job. I want to put Win 7 on a different hdd, and it's the 1st time I've seen the way in loads, a lot different than what I 'm use to seeing.

    I have XP Pro on my 500GB hdd, and I've installed a copy of Win 7 on the other 400GB hdd. I pulled the XP hdd out of PC then installed Win 7 on the new one, but when I put the XP hdd back in, I don't get the option on boot screen as to which OS I want to load. I have to go into Boot menu and tell it that way which is annoying.

    I tried to leave the XP hdd in with the reformatted hdd to load Win7 again. As I go into Boot menu and have it load from CD/DVD, it starts up copying files, but didn't give me the option as to what hdd to load it too, so I panic cause of not wanting to lose 200 GB of info from the XP hdd, so I aborted it.

    Guess my question is would it had given me a chance to choose which hdd and would it had messed up files on my XP hdd.
     
  2. Earthling

    Earthling Interplanetary Geek

    It does offer you the choice of disk providing there are partitions big enough to accept it. It will not cause any damage to your XP installation on the first disk, and will set up a dual boot for you.
     
  3. Trussman

    Trussman Private First Class

    @ Earthling. Thanks for the Info, After I did it and let it go through a couple of windews it then asked for which hdd to install. I do thank you for the help, as I wasn't 100% sure.
     
  4. Earthling

    Earthling Interplanetary Geek

    Thanks for the feedback, but be aware that because of the peculiar method M$ chose for dual booting, the Win 7 installation on disk 2 is dependent on booting files which are located on the first disk. Personally I think it's quite ridiculous that Windows, after all its development, still works this way, and because of it I use a third party boot manager which makes the OSs truly independent of and invisible to each other.

    In your case you need to protect both your drives through regular use of an imaging program and an external drive, because if you lost or had to reinstall XP you would also lose Win 7.
     
  5. Trussman

    Trussman Private First Class

    Earthling. I wasn't sure about the boot files. See what you mean, I disconnected the XP hdd and it doesn't boot. So I have too keep the XP hdd as is, with the boot.ini files intact, no reformating or removing from system. I thought that WIn7 didn't load with the boot.ini files but used a Win7 bootloader instead.

    Is there any way to repair the Win7 bootloader on the Win7 hdd in order to avoid this conflict later. or do I need to find a good Third Party Boot Manager to use so even if the XP hdd fails, I'm not stranded without complete restore

    I might have to rethink this way of dual booting. My goal was to eventually phase out the XP hdd after I got the Win7 up and running with all my files and needed programs copied over. I did planned on keeping the XP around for the Microsoft Office 2007. I have on it for the kids use for school, cause of a lost disk.

    Do you think I might be better of to reformat the Win7 hdd. then remove the Xp hdd from system then load the Win7 on the newly cleaned hdd. I know that means having to F12 system to tell which hdd to load when I want to change from one to the other
     
  6. itmortiz

    itmortiz Corporal


    To get the automatic Boot loader when you install windows, you must have connected anydrive with other windows installations.

    ¿Why? Simple, when you start an instalation of Windows, he detects other installations in other drives and save it in the Boot file.

    If you disconnected you XP HDD, how you want he detect it if at the moment of install were not there?

    Now, you have to use other software to detect installations and save them into the Boot File.

    There's a lot of tools in internet, check searching in google.

    GL. morti<
     
  7. Earthling

    Earthling Interplanetary Geek

    We could move you onto Grub4DOS and it would completely address your concerns. It is very simple to set up, and you can have any OS on any partition, even on logical partitions. Every installed OS is completely independent of every other and as you are using separate disks it shouldn't be too difficult to set up.

    I've been using it for three years now and the longer I use it the more convinced I become that it is the Holy Grail of boot managers. It even boots most bootable ISOs straight off the hard disk, yet it is very simple and straightforward to configure and use.

    You can read more HERE, but I can support you as you set it up if you would like to go down this road. The first step would be to do as you suggest and reinstall Win 7 with XP disconnected, requiring an F12 to select the booting drive.

    I regard it as essential to have and be familiar with an imaging program before embarking on any system reorganisation.
     
  8. Earthling

    Earthling Interplanetary Geek

    Just to be clear, the same situation applies in any Microsoft dual boot, whether on separate drives or on partitions of the same drive. If the first system goes down (XP in your case), it will take the others with it. Daft or what? rolleyes
     
  9. Trussman

    Trussman Private First Class

    Thanks Earthling. I went ahead and used MiniTool Drive Copy to clone my XP hdd onto another drive I had laying around, just incase the original goes out. So I can keep from losing Win7 operations.
    I'm going to try the Grub4DOS program after I redo the Win7 hdd
     
  10. Earthling

    Earthling Interplanetary Geek

    That's an imaging program I haven't heard of, but pleased to hear you are doing all the right things at this stage. Living with a boot manager that isolates installs from each other has implications for data file organisation, since data files on XP won't be accessible from Win 7, and vice versa. If you want the two systems to be able to share files you will need to setup a communal data partition.

    Let me know when you are ready to start with Grub4DOS and I'll point you to the superb guide I used when setting my own system up.
     

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