Mission Impossible? Dual Boot XP and Vista
Hello Everyone,
I know there must be an easier way of getting this to run but
my goal is to install XP and Vista on
one machine using SATA drives. While I am almost positive I could
accomplish the same thing through VMWare, given
what I plan on using the OSes for, I want as little interference from
VMWare as possible.
What I would like to do is install XP on my Primary Hard Drive
and install additional OS's on other
Physical Hard Drives. Then hot swap the OS's and at Boot Up specify the
Hard drive I want to run in.
Currently, XP is running on my Primary Hard Drive. I just bought
a secondary hard drive which I had planned
on using for Vista. These are physical disk however and it seems that
Vista (or maybe any OS) will only install on
the Primary Active Partition. However, any secondary physical disk is
seen by Vista as a Dynamic Partition and
therefore incapable of being installed on.
I think I initially made the mistake of initializing the disk in
XP by performing a quick format with NTFS
and seeing if the drive worked at all. Unfortunately, when I did that,
I only had the option of creating a dynamic
disk. Here are the actions I've already tried in trouble shooting:
*Reformatting new disk with NTFS
*Running Installation from Primary Hard Drive with XP and installing
on Secondary Physical Disk
*Disconnecting Primary Hard Drive, Booting from Vista OS Disc, and
installing on only Physical Disk
*Downloaded VistaBootPro (but have yet to use)- I've heard that this
isn't quite what I need to do but am
willing to try at this point.
This has got me pretty confused as I have installed XP hundreds of
times (I work in IT). I don't think I've
ever ran into this type of problem before. Granted, most users don't
run multiple OS's on their machine - but
still, I didn't think I would still have this problem if the computer
could only see one hard drive in the
computer! Now I'm just plain confused.
Does anyone know what the problem might be? Or what solutions I can
try to fix it?
I'm currently about midway through the MCSE Certification and would
like an easy way of switching between
multiple operating systems. Because VMWare often changes the network
settine (with virtual networks, virtual IP
addresses, etc), I do not want to use VMWare for this heavily
network-based certification. Working with NAT, IPSec
and VPN is confusing enough WITHOUT the virtual part.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
"Optimus" <guest@unknown-email.com> wrote in message
news:91f50c1905ad1fd117ec86eb2c9d8bfb@nntp-gateway.com...
>
> Mission Impossible? Dual Boot XP and Vista
> Hello Everyone,
> I know there must be an easier way of getting this to run but
> my goal is to install XP and Vista on
> one machine using SATA drives. While I am almost positive I could
> accomplish the same thing through VMWare, given
> what I plan on using the OSes for, I want as little interference from
> VMWare as possible.
>
> What I would like to do is install XP on my Primary Hard Drive
> and install additional OS's on other
> Physical Hard Drives. Then hot swap the OS's and at Boot Up specify the
> Hard drive I want to run in.
> Currently, XP is running on my Primary Hard Drive. I just bought
> a secondary hard drive which I had planned
> on using for Vista. These are physical disk however and it seems that
> Vista (or maybe any OS) will only install on
> the Primary Active Partition. However, any secondary physical disk is
> seen by Vista as a Dynamic Partition and
> therefore incapable of being installed on.
> I think I initially made the mistake of initializing the disk in
> XP by performing a quick format with NTFS
> and seeing if the drive worked at all. Unfortunately, when I did that,
> I only had the option of creating a dynamic
> disk. Here are the actions I've already tried in trouble shooting:
> *Reformatting new disk with NTFS
> *Running Installation from Primary Hard Drive with XP and installing
> on Secondary Physical Disk
> *Disconnecting Primary Hard Drive, Booting from Vista OS Disc, and
> installing on only Physical Disk
> *Downloaded VistaBootPro (but have yet to use)- I've heard that this
> isn't quite what I need to do but am
> willing to try at this point.
>
> This has got me pretty confused as I have installed XP hundreds of
> times (I work in IT). I don't think I've
> ever ran into this type of problem before. Granted, most users don't
> run multiple OS's on their machine - but
> still, I didn't think I would still have this problem if the computer
> could only see one hard drive in the
> computer! Now I'm just plain confused.
>
> Does anyone know what the problem might be? Or what solutions I can
> try to fix it?
>
> I'm currently about midway through the MCSE Certification and would
> like an easy way of switching between
> multiple operating systems. Because VMWare often changes the network
> settine (with virtual networks, virtual IP
> addresses, etc), I do not want to use VMWare for this heavily
> network-based certification. Working with NAT, IPSec
> and VPN is confusing enough WITHOUT the virtual part.
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thank you
>
>
> --
> Optimus
Hi,
If i were you i wouldn`t bother with the extra complication of seperate
drives for each o/s.
Why not use one drive and create primary partitions for each o/s and use a
suitable boot manager.
You can create up to 4 partitions either all primary or a mix of say 3
primary and one extended partiton which could have many logical drives for
the operating systems that can be installed on a logical drive.
You would then have your o/s`s on the 1st drive and could use the second
hard drive for your data, making it safer.
Just a thought as this is baiscally what i do.
regards,
Graham....
>
>
"Optimus" <guest@unknown-email.com> wrote in message
news:91f50c1905ad1fd117ec86eb2c9d8bfb@nntp-gateway.com...
>
> Mission Impossible? Dual Boot XP and Vista
> Hello Everyone,
> I know there must be an easier way of getting this to run but
> my goal is to install XP and Vista on
> one machine using SATA drives. While I am almost positive I could
> accomplish the same thing through VMWare, given
> what I plan on using the OSes for, I want as little interference from
> VMWare as possible.
>
> What I would like to do is install XP on my Primary Hard Drive
> and install additional OS's on other
> Physical Hard Drives. Then hot swap the OS's and at Boot Up specify the
> Hard drive I want to run in.
> Currently, XP is running on my Primary Hard Drive. I just bought
> a secondary hard drive which I had planned
> on using for Vista. These are physical disk however and it seems that
> Vista (or maybe any OS) will only install on
> the Primary Active Partition. However, any secondary physical disk is
> seen by Vista as a Dynamic Partition and
> therefore incapable of being installed on.
> I think I initially made the mistake of initializing the disk in
> XP by performing a quick format with NTFS
> and seeing if the drive worked at all. Unfortunately, when I did that,
> I only had the option of creating a dynamic
> disk. Here are the actions I've already tried in trouble shooting:
> *Reformatting new disk with NTFS
> *Running Installation from Primary Hard Drive with XP and installing
> on Secondary Physical Disk
> *Disconnecting Primary Hard Drive, Booting from Vista OS Disc, and
> installing on only Physical Disk
> *Downloaded VistaBootPro (but have yet to use)- I've heard that this
> isn't quite what I need to do but am
> willing to try at this point.
>
> This has got me pretty confused as I have installed XP hundreds of
> times (I work in IT). I don't think I've
> ever ran into this type of problem before. Granted, most users don't
> run multiple OS's on their machine - but
> still, I didn't think I would still have this problem if the computer
> could only see one hard drive in the
> computer! Now I'm just plain confused.
>
> Does anyone know what the problem might be? Or what solutions I can
> try to fix it?
>
> I'm currently about midway through the MCSE Certification and would
> like an easy way of switching between
> multiple operating systems. Because VMWare often changes the network
> settine (with virtual networks, virtual IP
> addresses, etc), I do not want to use VMWare for this heavily
> network-based certification. Working with NAT, IPSec
> and VPN is confusing enough WITHOUT the virtual part.
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thank you
>
>
> --
> Optimus
Put the Vista disk in the CD drive and boot from it. Use the facilities on
the DVD to delete whatever partition(s) show on the new disk. You have to
boot from the DVD in order to have access to that functionality. Next, quit.
Reboot to XP. Insert the DVD and install Vista to the new drive. It will set
up Vista's boot loader to allow booting to XP. You need do nothing special
for that to happen.
There are other ways to do it. This is just my preference.
--
Tom
MSMVP 1998-2007
"Optimus" <guest@unknown-email.com> wrote in message
news:91f50c1905ad1fd117ec86eb2c9d8bfb@nntp-gateway.com...
>
> Mission Impossible? Dual Boot XP and Vista
> Hello Everyone,
> I know there must be an easier way of getting this to run but
> my goal is to install XP and Vista on
> one machine using SATA drives. While I am almost positive I could
> accomplish the same thing through VMWare, given
> what I plan on using the OSes for, I want as little interference from
> VMWare as possible.
>
> What I would like to do is install XP on my Primary Hard Drive
> and install additional OS's on other
> Physical Hard Drives. Then hot swap the OS's and at Boot Up specify the
> Hard drive I want to run in.
> Currently, XP is running on my Primary Hard Drive. I just bought
> a secondary hard drive which I had planned
> on using for Vista. These are physical disk however and it seems that
> Vista (or maybe any OS) will only install on
> the Primary Active Partition. However, any secondary physical disk is
> seen by Vista as a Dynamic Partition and
> therefore incapable of being installed on.
> I think I initially made the mistake of initializing the disk in
> XP by performing a quick format with NTFS
> and seeing if the drive worked at all. Unfortunately, when I did that,
> I only had the option of creating a dynamic
> disk. Here are the actions I've already tried in trouble shooting:
> *Reformatting new disk with NTFS
> *Running Installation from Primary Hard Drive with XP and installing
> on Secondary Physical Disk
> *Disconnecting Primary Hard Drive, Booting from Vista OS Disc, and
> installing on only Physical Disk
> *Downloaded VistaBootPro (but have yet to use)- I've heard that this
> isn't quite what I need to do but am
> willing to try at this point.
>
> This has got me pretty confused as I have installed XP hundreds of
> times (I work in IT). I don't think I've
> ever ran into this type of problem before. Granted, most users don't
> run multiple OS's on their machine - but
> still, I didn't think I would still have this problem if the computer
> could only see one hard drive in the
> computer! Now I'm just plain confused.
>
> Does anyone know what the problem might be? Or what solutions I can
> try to fix it?
>
> I'm currently about midway through the MCSE Certification and would
> like an easy way of switching between
> multiple operating systems. Because VMWare often changes the network
> settine (with virtual networks, virtual IP
> addresses, etc), I do not want to use VMWare for this heavily
> network-based certification. Working with NAT, IPSec
> and VPN is confusing enough WITHOUT the virtual part.
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thank you
>
>
> --
> Optimus
On Thu, 14 Aug 2008 22:57:01 -0500, Optimus <guest@unknown-email.com>
wrote:
>
>Mission Impossible? Dual Boot XP and Vista
>Hello Everyone,
>I know there must be an easier way of getting this to run but
>my goal is to install XP and Vista on
>one machine using SATA drives. While I am almost positive I could
>accomplish the same thing through VMWare, given
>what I plan on using the OSes for, I want as little interference from
>VMWare as possible.
>
>What I would like to do is install XP on my Primary Hard Drive
>and install additional OS's on other
>Physical Hard Drives. Then hot swap the OS's and at Boot Up specify the
>Hard drive I want to run in.
>Currently, XP is running on my Primary Hard Drive. I just bought
>a secondary hard drive which I had planned
>on using for Vista. These are physical disk however and it seems that
>Vista (or maybe any OS) will only install on
>the Primary Active Partition.
False.
> However, any secondary physical disk is
>seen by Vista as a Dynamic Partition and
>therefore incapable of being installed on.
False.
>I think I initially made the mistake of initializing the disk in
>XP by performing a quick format with NTFS
>and seeing if the drive worked at all. Unfortunately, when I did that,
>I only had the option of creating a dynamic
>disk.
False.
In all likelihood, you went through the Initialize and Convert Disk
Wizard <http://www.seagate.com/images/support/en/us/xp_conversion.gif>
and selected the disk to be converted to dynamic. The default is to
not convert (box not checked).
To convert the disk to basic, run Disk Management and right click in
the box that says Disk 1 Dynamic, and select revert to basic.
> Here are the actions I've already tried in trouble shooting:
>*Reformatting new disk with NTFS
>*Running Installation from Primary Hard Drive with XP and installing
>on Secondary Physical Disk
>*Disconnecting Primary Hard Drive, Booting from Vista OS Disc, and
>installing on only Physical Disk
>*Downloaded VistaBootPro (but have yet to use)- I've heard that this
>isn't quite what I need to do but am
>willing to try at this point.
>
>This has got me pretty confused as I have installed XP hundreds of
>times (I work in IT). I don't think I've
>ever ran into this type of problem before. Granted, most users don't
>run multiple OS's on their machine - but
>still, I didn't think I would still have this problem if the computer
>could only see one hard drive in the
>computer! Now I'm just plain confused.
>
>Does anyone know what the problem might be? Or what solutions I can
>try to fix it?
>
>I'm currently about midway through the MCSE Certification and would
>like an easy way of switching between
>multiple operating systems. Because VMWare often changes the network
>settine (with virtual networks, virtual IP
>addresses, etc), I do not want to use VMWare for this heavily
>network-based certification. Working with NAT, IPSec
>and VPN is confusing enough WITHOUT the virtual part.
>Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
>Thank you
> Why not use one drive and create primary partitions for each o/s and use a
> suitable boot manager.
Win2K/XP/Vista will install on a logical drive in an extended partition just
fine. Only the System Volume (the one used to boot the computer) must be a
primary partition, set Active. (For lurkers, see KB 314470, Definitions for
system volume and boot volume, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314470/EN-US/ - they are NOT what most users
think!)
For years, I've formatted each HD with a single small primary partition,
followed by an extended partition divided into several logical drives. I
install ONLY the start-up files (NTLDR, etc., for WinXP and bootmgr, etc.,
for Vista - and the appropriate boot sector, of course) into the primary
partition. And I run Setup multiple times, once with each HD designated in
the BIOS as the boot device, so that I can boot from Disk 2 if Disk 0 is
unplugged or broken. All the rest of each OS goes into one of the logical
drives. I have to edit Boot.ini for WinXP or run bcdedit.exe (or
VistaBootPro) to be sure that each System Volume points to the correct
Win/Vista installation.
Actually, I've almost stopped dual-booting and run Vista Ultimate x64 almost
exclusively these days. But I do have one HD with the WinXP boot sector;
when I want to boot into WinXP, I set the BIOS to boot from that HD. I've
not tried hot-swapping my SATA drives, and I've never used dynamic volumes.
I've now transitioned to all SATA HDs (2 single and 2 as a RAID 1 mirror).
There were many trials and tribulations when I was mixing IDE with SCSI and
then with SATA HDs, especially with earlier motherboards that insisted on
always booting from IDE! :>(
RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX rc@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Live Mail 2008 in Vista Ultimate x64 SP1)
"GrahamH" <graham@harrison3951.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:eDddeRu$IHA.4380@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> Hi,
> If i were you i wouldn`t bother with the extra complication of seperate
> drives for each o/s.
> Why not use one drive and create primary partitions for each o/s and use a
> suitable boot manager.
> You can create up to 4 partitions either all primary or a mix of say 3
> primary and one extended partiton which could have many logical drives for
> the operating systems that can be installed on a logical drive.
> You would then have your o/s`s on the 1st drive and could use the second
> hard drive for your data, making it safer.
> Just a thought as this is baiscally what i do.
> regards,
> Graham....
>>
>
>
> "Optimus" <guest@unknown-email.com> wrote in message
> news:91f50c1905ad1fd117ec86eb2c9d8bfb@nntp-gateway.com...
>>
>> Mission Impossible? Dual Boot XP and Vista
>> Hello Everyone,
>> I know there must be an easier way of getting this to run but
>> my goal is to install XP and Vista on
>> one machine using SATA drives. While I am almost positive I could
>> accomplish the same thing through VMWare, given
>> what I plan on using the OSes for, I want as little interference from
>> VMWare as possible.
>>
>> What I would like to do is install XP on my Primary Hard Drive
>> and install additional OS's on other
>> Physical Hard Drives. Then hot swap the OS's and at Boot Up specify the
>> Hard drive I want to run in.
>> Currently, XP is running on my Primary Hard Drive. I just bought
>> a secondary hard drive which I had planned
>> on using for Vista. These are physical disk however and it seems that
>> Vista (or maybe any OS) will only install on
>> the Primary Active Partition. However, any secondary physical disk is
>> seen by Vista as a Dynamic Partition and
>> therefore incapable of being installed on.
>> I think I initially made the mistake of initializing the disk in
>> XP by performing a quick format with NTFS
>> and seeing if the drive worked at all. Unfortunately, when I did that,
>> I only had the option of creating a dynamic
>> disk. Here are the actions I've already tried in trouble shooting:
>> *Reformatting new disk with NTFS
>> *Running Installation from Primary Hard Drive with XP and installing
>> on Secondary Physical Disk
>> *Disconnecting Primary Hard Drive, Booting from Vista OS Disc, and
>> installing on only Physical Disk
>> *Downloaded VistaBootPro (but have yet to use)- I've heard that this
>> isn't quite what I need to do but am
>> willing to try at this point.
>>
>> This has got me pretty confused as I have installed XP hundreds of
>> times (I work in IT). I don't think I've
>> ever ran into this type of problem before. Granted, most users don't
>> run multiple OS's on their machine - but
>> still, I didn't think I would still have this problem if the computer
>> could only see one hard drive in the
>> computer! Now I'm just plain confused.
>>
>> Does anyone know what the problem might be? Or what solutions I can
>> try to fix it?
>>
>> I'm currently about midway through the MCSE Certification and would
>> like an easy way of switching between
>> multiple operating systems. Because VMWare often changes the network
>> settine (with virtual networks, virtual IP
>> addresses, etc), I do not want to use VMWare for this heavily
>> network-based certification. Working with NAT, IPSec
>> and VPN is confusing enough WITHOUT the virtual part.
>> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>>
>> Thank you
>>
>>
>> --
>> Optimus
Ok RC,
I see what your doing, (complicated setup!!!) my pc before (not so
complicated!!!) had XP installed on 1 primary and an extended partiton with
several logical drives to support further XP installs in multiboot config.
The only problem is, if the primary boot info gets corrupt you lose access
to everthing on the extended partitions so unable to boot into any o/s. Also
any partiton changes made cause windows to rescan and reset drive letters.
If you have an o/s installed on a seperate primary then it is independant
and isolated from the others, making it a bit safer and each primary will be
a `C` drive .
The only trouble is the limit on partitions for one drive which is i guess
important if you need a large number of different o\s`s. Hence the need to
install on logicals.
Good luck.
Graham....
> Hi, Graham.
>
>> Why not use one drive and create primary partitions for each o/s and use
>> a suitable boot manager.
>
> Win2K/XP/Vista will install on a logical drive in an extended partition
> just fine. Only the System Volume (the one used to boot the computer)
> must be a primary partition, set Active. (For lurkers, see KB 314470,
> Definitions for system volume and boot volume,
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314470/EN-US/ - they are NOT what most
> users think!)
>
> For years, I've formatted each HD with a single small primary partition,
> followed by an extended partition divided into several logical drives. I
> install ONLY the start-up files (NTLDR, etc., for WinXP and bootmgr, etc.,
> for Vista - and the appropriate boot sector, of course) into the primary
> partition. And I run Setup multiple times, once with each HD designated
> in the BIOS as the boot device, so that I can boot from Disk 2 if Disk 0
> is unplugged or broken. All the rest of each OS goes into one of the
> logical drives. I have to edit Boot.ini for WinXP or run bcdedit.exe (or
> VistaBootPro) to be sure that each System Volume points to the correct
> Win/Vista installation.
>
> Actually, I've almost stopped dual-booting and run Vista Ultimate x64
> almost exclusively these days. But I do have one HD with the WinXP boot
> sector; when I want to boot into WinXP, I set the BIOS to boot from that
> HD. I've not tried hot-swapping my SATA drives, and I've never used
> dynamic volumes.
>
> I've now transitioned to all SATA HDs (2 single and 2 as a RAID 1 mirror).
> There were many trials and tribulations when I was mixing IDE with SCSI
> and then with SATA HDs, especially with earlier motherboards that insisted
> on always booting from IDE! :>(
>
> RC
> --
> R. C. White, CPA
> San Marcos, TX
> rc@grandecom.net
> Microsoft Windows MVP
> (Running Windows Live Mail 2008 in Vista Ultimate x64 SP1)
>
>
"GrahamH" wrote:
> The only trouble is the limit on partitions for one drive which is i guess
> important if you need a large number of different o\s`s. Hence the need to
> install on logicals.
> Good luck.
> Graham....
For people who multi-boot with many OSes, using BootItNG
makes sense. In effect, it allows one to create more than 100
Primary partitions and to select from any subset of them at boot
time. You can mix-and-match OSes with data partitions, and for
systems with more than 3 or 4 OSes, it seems the way to go.
Well, I suppose nobody would set out to design a setup like mine. ;^} But
it started simple and "just growed" over the years as I migrated from Win9x
through WinNT4/2K/XP/Vista, from FAT to FAT32 and NTFS, and gradually from
one to four physical drives, SCSI to IDE to SATA, including my first RAID
1 - with a few disasters along the way. My first computer was the original
TRS-80 in 1977 and I've been dual-booting since Win95/NT4. At one point
during the Vista beta, I was "octo-booting" eight operating systems: 3
Vista beta builds and WinXP, both x86 and x64 versions of each of them. As
I often say, I'm just one guy with one computer and no net but the Internet,
so I can ignore a lot of complications that others have to deal with every
day. ;^) My system is complicated in some ways, but very simple in others.
The essential parts, I think, are the small primary partition at the front
of each HDD, and the multiple logical drives in the extended partition
covering the rest of each HDD. The startup files are installed on each of
the primary partitions so that each of them can become a System Volume and
be used to boot the system. Both WinXP and Vista always start in the System
Volume and then branch to whichever Boot Volume we choose from the menu.
That Boot Volume can be any primary partition or logical drive on any
physical drive in the computer - so long as the files in the System Volume
know how to find it. Any operating system can be retired by simply deleting
or reformatting the logical drive that is its Boot Volume, and then cleaning
up the Boot.ini or BCD.
There are a lot of features that I've only read about and never used, such
as dynamic volumes and GPT (GUID Partition Table) disks. I haven't needed
them yet, thank goodness. And I haven't even looked at Linux.
RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX rc@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Live Mail 2008 in Vista Ultimate x64 SP1)
"GrahamH" <graham@harrison3951.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:uSQnL4gAJHA.4172@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> Ok RC,
> I see what your doing, (complicated setup!!!) my pc before (not so
> complicated!!!) had XP installed on 1 primary and an extended partiton
> with several logical drives to support further XP installs in multiboot
> config.
> The only problem is, if the primary boot info gets corrupt you lose access
> to everthing on the extended partitions so unable to boot into any o/s.
> Also any partiton changes made cause windows to rescan and reset drive
> letters.
> If you have an o/s installed on a seperate primary then it is independant
> and isolated from the others, making it a bit safer and each primary will
> be a `C` drive .
> The only trouble is the limit on partitions for one drive which is i guess
> important if you need a large number of different o\s`s. Hence the need to
> install on logicals.
> Good luck.
> Graham....
>
>
>
>
>> Hi, Graham.
>>
>>> Why not use one drive and create primary partitions for each o/s and use
>>> a suitable boot manager.
>>
>> Win2K/XP/Vista will install on a logical drive in an extended partition
>> just fine. Only the System Volume (the one used to boot the computer)
>> must be a primary partition, set Active. (For lurkers, see KB 314470,
>> Definitions for system volume and boot volume,
>> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314470/EN-US/ - they are NOT what most
>> users think!)
>>
>> For years, I've formatted each HD with a single small primary partition,
>> followed by an extended partition divided into several logical drives. I
>> install ONLY the start-up files (NTLDR, etc., for WinXP and bootmgr,
>> etc., for Vista - and the appropriate boot sector, of course) into the
>> primary partition. And I run Setup multiple times, once with each HD
>> designated in the BIOS as the boot device, so that I can boot from Disk 2
>> if Disk 0 is unplugged or broken. All the rest of each OS goes into one
>> of the logical drives. I have to edit Boot.ini for WinXP or run
>> bcdedit.exe (or VistaBootPro) to be sure that each System Volume points
>> to the correct Win/Vista installation.
>>
>> Actually, I've almost stopped dual-booting and run Vista Ultimate x64
>> almost exclusively these days. But I do have one HD with the WinXP boot
>> sector; when I want to boot into WinXP, I set the BIOS to boot from that
>> HD. I've not tried hot-swapping my SATA drives, and I've never used
>> dynamic volumes.
>>
>> I've now transitioned to all SATA HDs (2 single and 2 as a RAID 1
>> mirror). There were many trials and tribulations when I was mixing IDE
>> with SCSI and then with SATA HDs, especially with earlier motherboards
>> that insisted on always booting from IDE! :>(
>>
>> RC
>
>
.. My first computer was the original
> TRS-80 in 1977 > R.C.White
>
>
>
LOL your as old as me then !!!!
Myfirst pc was as AppleII plus and guess what .... ive still got it !!!!!
Dont know if if still works but maybe ill boot it up someday.
Also had a TRS80 it was a good pc for its time i think it had a Z80 cpu.
I used to like writing simple software in basic for the appleII and TRS80 as
they used very similar basic and i remember doing one that calculates
resistor values for attenuators of various types like series and parrallel
with given impedances for output/input.
Oh good days... sadly my brain is not so fast now hehe.
I just like to tinker and keep things sensible without overcomplicating it,
as i find i just go round in circles trying to sort out the bugs and my
brain is not what it used to be.!!. Ive got 3 working pc`s and some older
ones stored in the cupboard like a spectrum 48k and an Amiga plus of course
the AppleII.
Im about to put Xubunto on an older pc together with Dos and W98 and keep it
for in case i need to run some old piece of software, you never know.
Something to play with that wont destroy my main pc.!!
I was thinking of trying Ubunto on my main pc at a later date but i dont
need the hassle yet.
Anyways nice to meet you old fellar, and by the way im from Hastings in the
UK...
Best wishes,
Graham...........
Mission Impossible? Dual Boot XP and Vista? 
Linear Mode
