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From: bobster on 23 May 2010 19:00
Domenick, Anna has given you some excellent advice. Several years ago, she
gave me some similar advice and it has served me well.

"Dual boot" to most people means having two operating systems on the same
physical HD -- just on different partitions. In the days when HDs were very
limited in size and were costly, this made sense but with 320+gig HDs
available now for under $50, dealing with the hassle of a same HD, dual boot
configuration doesn't make sense unless one is really strapped for cash.

Here's the configuration I have and it works fine for me:

Two internal SATA300 HDs and one external one mounted in a Vantec SATA
enclosure ($30). All three are WD 320gig units ($50 each). My computer (a
low end Dell Inspiron 530) gives me a pre-boot option to boot to any one of
the three. In my case, they all have identical contents, XP/SP3 systems but
they could just as well be 3 different OSs, XP, W7 and Obuntu e.g.. In my
case, I'm currently only interested in XP but I will probably load one with
Win 7 in the near future. Actually, I have a 4th backup HD in my bank safe
deposit box in case of fire, a bit paranoid maybe but as a retired engineer
I like to have all bases covered including my house burning down.

The one thing that Anna didn't mention was the value of a good HD cloning
app. This allows one to quickly clone the contents of any one HD to another
HD as a backup. Again, extra HDs are under $50. I have been using Casper
for this function for several years -- it's now in version 6.0. It works
flawlessly for me.

Good luck

==============================================================
"Anna" <iamanna(a)mystic.net> wrote in message
news:umAQPCr%23KHA.4308(a)TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...


"Domenick" <Domenick(a)discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:5E417C59-C442-4856-BB1E-A183895AA03D(a)microsoft.com...
> I would like to know how to DUAL BOOT using two different physical hard
> drives. Is this possible? I currently have a machine running XP Pro with a
> BUNCH of older apps and custom legacy apps for my company. I don't use
> this
> very often, but I will occasionally need to boot up from this hard drive
> and
> run this machine in its current state. I am going to put in a separate
> physical hard drive and install Win 7 (probably) and boot from this drive
> 80%
> of the time.
>
> How do I accomplish this? What additional software do I need (note: might
> not use win 7 so it would need to be software that could boot ubuntu or
> another copy of XP from the second drive as well).
>
> I've never done a dual boot before so any instructions or links would be
> appreciated.
>
> Thanks.

Domenick:
You haven't mentioned the type of PC you're working with but I'm assuming
it's a desktop machine since you've indicated you're contemplating
installing another HDD.

That being the case is there any possibility you could consider equipping
the machine with one (or even better - two) removable hard drive(s)? In
order to do this your desktop PC case would need at least one available
(vacant) 5 1/4" bay to accommodate the mobile rack housing the removable
HDD.

Assuming your desktop case will have at least one available (vacant) 5 1/4"
bay (two such would be even better), consider installing a removable HDD to
house another HDD in addition to your internal HDD.

I don't know how familiar you are with these devices so let me give you a
bit of info on them. Basically they're two-piece affairs - the "mobile rack"
itself and the inner tray or caddy (in which the hard drive resides) that
slides into the rack. They come in all-aluminum models or a combination of
aluminum-plastic, or all-plastic, ranging in price from about $15 to $50.
Mobile racks come in various versions, depending upon whether the hard drive
to be housed is an IDE/ATA, SATA, or SCSI device. A Google search for
"removable hard drive mobile racks" will result in a wealth of information
on these products and their vendors.

The installation of these devices is simplicity itself - no more difficult
than installing an optical drive. After the rack is installed you make two
simple connections (power & data cable), then plop the hard drive into the
removable tray (caddy),and slide the tray into the mobile rack. That's all
there is to it. Note that the removable hard drive mobile racks we are
discussing are designed to be installed in desktop computers and not laptop
or notebook computers. The size, weight, and design considerations of
laptops/notebooks (generally) do not allow for this hardware configuration.

These mobile racks are nearly always equipped with a ON-OFF keylock, so a
simple turn of the key, in effect, activates/deactivates the HDD. For added
security you can push or pull the removable tray in or out using the tray's
handle and thus electrically/physically connect or disconnect the HDD from
the system. No more difficult than opening or closing a small desk drawer.

Do you see the enormous advantage of this type of hardware configuration as
it applies to your particular objective re creating a dual-boot
configuration? In your particular situation (assuming you would be working
with a single removable HDD rather than two removable HDDs) you would
install one of your HDDs internally and using another HDD, install that
latter drive in the removable tray of the mobile rack. Assuming you're
working with SATA HDDs the latter HDD would be connected to your
motherboard's first (SATA0 or SATA1) connector, while the
internally-connected SATA HDD would be connected to the second (SATA1 or
SATA2) connector. (Naturally I'm assuming this is a non-RAID configuration).
So when the removable HDD is "on" (usually implemented through a simple turn
of the mobile rack's keylock), the system will boot to that drive and the
internally-connected HDD would serve as a secondary HDD. When the removable
HDD is "off", the system would boot to the internally-connected SATA HDD.

Thus with this hardware configuration you could, for example, install the
Windows 7 OS on the removable HDD and install the Windows XP OS on your
internal HDD. Thus each OS is effectively isolated from each other except
when the user desires otherwise. There's no need to fiddle with
modifications of the BIOS settings nor setting up a multi-boot type of
program to affect the boot process. It's an ideal system for computing with
multiple operating systems and/or meeting one's special interests when using
multiple HDDs.

For even additional flexibility working with your HDDs, installing *two*
removable HDDs would be even better. Obviously you would need *two* vacant 5
1/4" bays on your desktop case to achieve this configuration. Again, with
this configuration, each drive is effectively isolated from each other, but
if for any reason you want both drives connected during boot up, you can
easily achieve that configuration as well.

Keep in mind that another significant advantage of using a removable HDD is
that now you can have an *unlimited* number of HDDs at your disposal by
simply using additional removable trays in the installed mobile rack to
house additional drives. So another important advantage of using this
hardware configuration is that you'll be able to use one or more other
removable HDDs as one or more backups drive for your day-to-day working
HDDs.

We've worked with these removable hard drive affairs for about 15 years now
and have helped hundreds of users install & operate this kind of system.
Virtually ever user we're aware of has found this hardware arrangement a
most desirable configuration in a desktop PC environment. We've encountered
no negative performance issues using these devices in comparison with
internally-installed HDDs and find the flexibility and peace of mind you
gain from this hardware configuration an enormous advantage in day-to-day PC
operations.

So do give it some thought should it be practical in your situation.
Anna



From: Johnw on 24 May 2010 04:22
Domenick brought next idea :
> I would like to know how to DUAL BOOT using two different physical hard
> drives. Is this possible? I currently have a machine running XP Pro with a
> BUNCH of older apps and custom legacy apps for my company. I don't use this
> very often, but I will occasionally need to boot up from this hard drive and
> run this machine in its current state. I am going to put in a separate
> physical hard drive and install Win 7 (probably) and boot from this drive 80%
> of the time.
>
> How do I accomplish this? What additional software do I need (note: might
> not use win 7 so it would need to be software that could boot ubuntu or
> another copy of XP from the second drive as well).
>
> I've never done a dual boot before so any instructions or links would be
> appreciated.
>
> Thanks.

I had XP on a sata drive, moved it to a spare ide drive using > XXCLONE
( which I have used many times before )
http://xxclone.com/idwnload.htm
Removed the XP ide drive & installed W7 ( 32 bit ) on the clean sata
drive, using the built in W7 delete partition & format option.
http://www.blackviper.com/Articles/OS/InstallXPHome/images/image1_5.html
After making sure both drives worked perfectly on their own ( the XP
Ide drive is tested before cleaning it off the sata drive ) I left both
drives jumpered as master & connected to their respective cables. The
ide drive is on the last connector,

Now I choose which operating system I want to use, by pressing F8
during boot or pressing Del & going into the bios & selecting.
F8 & Del are the keys on my bios version, it does vary from motherboard
to motherboard.
If I don't want to change operating systems, I do nothing & it boots
into the one I have choosen as default.

All my programs worked on W7 including older versions such as FastStone
Screen Capture ( This is the last freeware version, beginning with ver.
5.4, it is now shareware)

If I am in XP, I can read & write to W7, if I am in W7, I can read &
write to XP.


From: Pegasus [MVP] on 24 May 2010 04:38


"Daave" <daave(a)example.com> wrote in message
news:uq#CDms#KHA.5476(a)TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> Pegasus [MVP] wrote:
>
>> IMHO the best way to do this is to use a proper boot manager. The
>> native Windows boot manager does to deserve this description. I
>> usually use XOSL - it lets you boot into any OS installed on any disk
>> on any type of partition, primary or logical. And it's free. Post
>> again if you need detailed instructions.
>
> In your experience, how does XOSL compare with GRUB?

Sorry, can't compare as I have never used Grub.

From: sgopus on 24 May 2010 17:42
Check on windows 7 forum to be sure, I think W7 requires the primary drive to
be installed. If your running short of space on your HD, I would buy a larger
drive, and clone your existing install to the new one, ie clone to a
different size partition than destination, Acronis TI will accomplish this
task. and then install W7 on the left over partition, allowing enough room ie
40g or more I would suggest more 60-80g just to be sure, as W7 can take up
lots of room, along with installed programs.
W7 will read your existing install of xp and install a boot menu, also be
advised if you want to change the default OS you will need a boot manager
that reads W7 and XP, W7 marks it the default OS on install.

"Domenick" wrote:

> I would like to know how to DUAL BOOT using two different physical hard
> drives. Is this possible? I currently have a machine running XP Pro with a
> BUNCH of older apps and custom legacy apps for my company. I don't use this
> very often, but I will occasionally need to boot up from this hard drive and
> run this machine in its current state. I am going to put in a separate
> physical hard drive and install Win 7 (probably) and boot from this drive 80%
> of the time.
>
> How do I accomplish this? What additional software do I need (note: might
> not use win 7 so it would need to be software that could boot ubuntu or
> another copy of XP from the second drive as well).
>
> I've never done a dual boot before so any instructions or links would be
> appreciated.
>
> Thanks.
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