Duel boot 64 32

Hi. What we have here is I am trying to do a duel boot system from diffrent harddrives. On one disk is Windows Home on the other is Windows x64. As of how we boot the diffrent systems we go into the bios and change the boot order. I know this is not the best way. and now this pc sometimes locks up when it first starts to boot. Comes up with the type of board and then stops. I hit the reset and life goes on. Also I don't know if this matters but one drive is a 7200rpm IDE and the other is a 10,000rpm SATA. Any help on this would be great. Thanks

 

choose whichever hard drive you want to be the primary drive, and then you'll want to install a Boot-Loader onto the drive.

you could just edit the default MS boot loader to show both windows installations, or you can get a 3rd part boot loader with a more appealing interface.

to access the MS boot loader, open system properties. On the Advanced tab, click 'settings' under Startup and Recovery. Here you will see system startup options, and you can click Edit to add the other windows installation to the boot loader. Of course here you will need to know the location of the 2nd Windows installation.

I havent used another boot loader, so I dont have an opinion on which is best, but there are a number of them listed here http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads8.html

perhaps someone else can help you find one that you'd like.
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on a side note, what year is your 240/silvia? I have a 95 SE that i'm savin up for either a notch-top sr20 or a rebuild of the KA to go KA-T for more torque.

 

Another way, or how I would set up mine is:

Use the 10,000 rpm drive for my OSes & the other HDD for storage.
Set up the 10,000 with multiple partitions or at least two one for each OS.
(Any HDD can be set up with Multiple partitions, an OS needs to be installed on a Primary partition, you can setup up to a maxium of 4 primary partitions per HDD)
Load the oldest version of windows first on the first Partition, in your case that would be XP home, then the 64 on the second Partition
In Bios set the 10,000 rpm HDD as the boot drive or before any other drive.
When set up this way by defaut the last OS installed will Boot first, But when you Boot your PC or restart your PC you will have an On Screen prompt to select the other OS or OSes to Boot when you Desire.
You can also change within Windows, either OS too boot first, you can also select the amount of time in which to choose from the Onscreen prompt, (Default setting allows 30 seconds to choose which OS to boot first other wise it will be the last OS Installed or what you had changed it too)
Within Windows to change which OS boots first or the time, this is done in Control Pannel/System/System Properties/Advanced Tab/Startup & Recovery

Your other HDD ( the slower speed one) you can use for storage for either OS, you can also set it up with Multiple partitions

 

Thanks for all the ideas I am gonna try them first i am gonna try messing with the MS boot loader if that fails i will reformat both and partition the 10k rpm drive and do it that way.
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I have never had a sr20 or a 240. I have driven a few 240's w/ sr20's but never owned one. I have a 06 SI on order and should be in this month. I feel so bad that i am doing this to nissan but you gotta love the new SI.

 

ok i am a bit unsure of how to edit this boot.ini in the MS boot loader this is what we have

[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="Windows XP Professional x64 Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


this is installed on the c:\ the other os win32 is on the g:\ i assume i need to add a new line like the last one but i really dont know how to point it to the other drive. if anyone could show me what this needs to look like of give me a bit of an idea that would be great.

 

no ideas?

 

Its down to disk's not partitions... (G:\ has no meaning)

so if your G:\ was the second partition on disk 3 it'd be:


[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional x64 Edition"
multi(0)disk(3)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Windows XP"

 

might be some help http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/

 

Hi Bensr20det
When you boot to XP Home edition in your usual fashion (via bios), open the boot.ini file and post the result, here. Then you can edit the boot.ini file on your XP 64 install with a greater degree of confidence. You have already posted:

[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="Windows XP Professional x64 Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

Your XP Home edition might look similar:

[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="Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

As Haydn suggests, you need to be mindful that disk(0) is now to be disk(1) for Windows Home Edition. So the boot.ini file on the Windows XP Professional x64 Edition might end up looking something like this:

[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="Windows XP Professional x64 Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

 

thank you very much it worked great now the only problem we have is that the key board we are using is wireless usb and it wont work but i think we can work around that by leaving one wired hooked up. but thanks to everyone who helped out