I have put in a HD from a previous PC with XP already on it into this PC with
XP on it as well. Am I able to set up a multi boot with with operating
systems already on the drives? I really want to keep the the files (recording
software and projects) from the drive and be able to boot to it if needed.
Don’t really think that’s a good idea,
at least some of the drivers installed the 'old' pc are likely different to
the new one, and video etc may not work right if you just boot from the old
drive as is
"zyklonterror" <zyklonterror@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:8A753313-3DB0-4403-8FB4-A7FC4F31C8A7@microsoft.com...
> I have put in a HD from a previous PC with XP already on it into this PC
> with
> XP on it as well. Am I able to set up a multi boot with with operating
> systems already on the drives? I really want to keep the the files
> (recording
> software and projects) from the drive and be able to boot to it if needed.
>
"zyklonterror" <zyklonterror@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:8A753313-3DB0-4403-8FB4-A7FC4F31C8A7@microsoft.com...
>I have put in a HD from a previous PC with XP already on it into this PC
>with
> XP on it as well. Am I able to set up a multi boot with with operating
> systems already on the drives? I really want to keep the the files
> (recording
> software and projects) from the drive and be able to boot to it if needed.
>
Yes, you are, using a third-party boot loader such as XOSL.
"Pegasus (MVP)" replied:
>
> "zyklonterror" wrote:
>> I have put in a HD from a previous PC with XP already on it into
>> this PC with XP on it as well. Am I able to set up a multi boot
>> with with operating systems already on the drives? I really want
>> to keep the the files (recording software and projects) from the
>> drive and be able to boot to it if needed.
>>
>
> Yes, you are, using a third-party boot loader such as XOSL.
And the OP should be able to do the same thing with what now
exists in either XP. As I understand the OP's system, there is a
working XP on one HD, and he has put in another HD that has a
working XP on it also. All he has to do in such case is to add one
line to the boot.ini file that exists at C:\boot.ini on the 1st HD:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="XP on my 2nd HD" /noexecute=optin
/fastdetect
This presumes that the 2nd HD is not at the head of the Hard Drive
Boot Order, which means in the default IDE case, that it is not the
Master on IDE ch. 0 (in some BIOSes, the default order can be
arbitrarily re-set by the user). In the case of SATA drives, this
means that the 2nd HD is not on SATA ch. 0. The "2nd HD" is
expressed by "rdisk(1)". The line also presumes that the XP on the
2nd HD resides in partition 1, expressed by "partition(1)". If it is
not in partition 1, set the no. between the parentheses to be the no.
of the partition that contains the 2nd XP.
Also set the timeout value to be some reasonable no. of seconds
to give the user time to make up his mind which OS to boot -
something like "10", meaning "10 seconds". Then, at boot time,
a menu will appear on the screen presenting the 2 choices of XP,
and the user can select which one to load. If no selection is made
within 10 seconds, the default XP will be loaded - presumably
the XP on the 1st HD.
>I have put in a HD from a previous PC with XP already on it into this
>PC with XP on it as well. Am I able to set up a multi boot with with
>operating systems already on the drives? I really want to keep the
>the files (recording software and projects) from the drive and be
>able to boot to it if needed.
In order to answer that question, I would first have to ask what drive
letter was assigned to the 'second' hard disk when you were using it in
a different machine. If your current drive is 'C', the second drive
would be assigned a different drive letter. The problem is that if the
second drive was 'C' on its original machine, then all of the
applications on it will be expecting to run from 'C' which of course
the 'second' drive would no longer be.
If you disabled the current drive so that the second drive could become
'C' then you wold be fine. If not, some of your applications on the
second drive that require information from the registry pointing to
needed support files would not function properly.
That was my thought as well. Without changing the boot drive in the BIOS I
should think most of the installed software would have issues, not to
mention the OS.
"C.Joseph S. Drayton" <csdcs@tlerma.com> wrote in message
news:xn0fq37hv20zmj002@news.sunsite.dk...
> zyklonterror wrote:
>
>>I have put in a HD from a previous PC with XP already on it into this
>>PC with XP on it as well. Am I able to set up a multi boot with with
>>operating systems already on the drives? I really want to keep the
>>the files (recording software and projects) from the drive and be
>>able to boot to it if needed.
>
> In order to answer that question, I would first have to ask what drive
> letter was assigned to the 'second' hard disk when you were using it in
> a different machine. If your current drive is 'C', the second drive
> would be assigned a different drive letter. The problem is that if the
> second drive was 'C' on its original machine, then all of the
> applications on it will be expecting to run from 'C' which of course
> the 'second' drive would no longer be.
>
> If you disabled the current drive so that the second drive could become
> 'C' then you wold be fine. If not, some of your applications on the
> second drive that require information from the registry pointing to
> needed support files would not function properly.
>
> --
>
> Sincerely,
> C.Joseph Drayton, Ph.D. AS&T
>
> CSD Computer Services
>
> Please excuse the TEMPORARY web site
>
> Web site: http://csdcs.itgo.com/
> E-mail: cjoseph@csdcs.itgo.com
It shouldn't matter, the drive letter assignment will respect the Mount
Manager database of the booted Windows installation, the Boot Volume
will retain it's drive letter and the System drive would be assigned a
different drive letter. In effect both installations would retain their
drive letters. The caveat to that is that the installation from a
different pc would probably not boot properly without a repair install
and a repair install re-enumerates drive letters, so when doing the
reinstall the other drive should be temporarily disconnected so as to
not force a drive letter change on the installation, once the repair
installation is done the other drive can be connected again and both
Windows installation will retain their boot volume letters when booted,
regardless of the system drive used to boot the computer.
John
Colin Barnhorst wrote:
> That was my thought as well. Without changing the boot drive in the
> BIOS I should think most of the installed software would have issues,
> not to mention the OS.
>
> "C.Joseph S. Drayton" <csdcs@tlerma.com> wrote in message
> news:xn0fq37hv20zmj002@news.sunsite.dk...
>
>> zyklonterror wrote:
>>
>>> I have put in a HD from a previous PC with XP already on it into this
>>> PC with XP on it as well. Am I able to set up a multi boot with with
>>> operating systems already on the drives? I really want to keep the
>>> the files (recording software and projects) from the drive and be
>>> able to boot to it if needed.
>>
>>
>> In order to answer that question, I would first have to ask what drive
>> letter was assigned to the 'second' hard disk when you were using it in
>> a different machine. If your current drive is 'C', the second drive
>> would be assigned a different drive letter. The problem is that if the
>> second drive was 'C' on its original machine, then all of the
>> applications on it will be expecting to run from 'C' which of course
>> the 'second' drive would no longer be.
>>
>> If you disabled the current drive so that the second drive could become
>> 'C' then you wold be fine. If not, some of your applications on the
>> second drive that require information from the registry pointing to
>> needed support files would not function properly.
>>
>> --
>>
>> Sincerely,
>> C.Joseph Drayton, Ph.D. AS&T
>>
>> CSD Computer Services
>>
>> Please excuse the TEMPORARY web site
>>
>> Web site: http://csdcs.itgo.com/
>> E-mail: cjoseph@csdcs.itgo.com
>
>
It may help the OP to know that John John is using Microsoft's
terminology regarding the boot procedure, wherein:
"System Volume" refers to the partition containing the boot files,
e.g. ntldr, boot.ini, and ntdetect.com, and
"Boot Volume" refers to the partition which contains the
operating system.
(Yes, they seem intuitively reversed, but it's due to historical reasons.)
In most systems, the System Volume and the Boot Volume are the
same partition, and most people don't differentiate between them,
as evidenced by many of the postings in this and other NGs. But
when it comes to multi-booting, it's important to know that they
needn't be the same, and that while the System Volume must be a
Primary partition that is marked "active" on the hard drive designated
the boot drive by virtue of it being at the head of the Hard Drive Boot
Order in the BIOS (or by explicit selection in the BIOS), the Boot
Volume (the one with the operating system) may be any partition on
any hard drive in the system - even a logical partition.
*TimDaniels*
"John John (MVP)" wrote:
> It shouldn't matter, the drive letter assignment will respect the
> Mount Manager database of the booted Windows installation,
> the Boot Volume will retain it's drive letter and the System drive
> would be assigned a different drive letter. In effect both
> installations would retain their drive letters. The caveat to that
> is that the installation from a different pc would probably not
> boot properly without a repair install and a repair install re-
> enumerates drive letters, so when doing the reinstall the other
> drive should be temporarily disconnected so as to not force a
> drive letter change on the installation, once the repair installation
> is done the other drive can be connected again and both Windows
> installation will retain their boot volume letters when booted, regardless of
> the system drive used to boot the computer.
>
> John
>
> Colin Barnhorst wrote:
>
>> That was my thought as well. Without changing the boot drive in the BIOS I
>> should think most of the installed software would have issues, not to mention
>> the OS.
>>
>> "C.Joseph S. Drayton" replied:
>>>
>>> In order to answer that question, I would first have to ask what
>>> drive letter was assigned to the 'second' hard disk when you were
>>> using it in a different machine. If your current drive is 'C', the
>>> second drive would be assigned a different drive letter. The
>>> problem is that if the second drive was 'C' on its original machine,
>>> then all of the applications on it will be expecting to run from 'C'
>>> which of course the 'second' drive would no longer be.
>>>
>>> If you disabled the current drive so that the second drive could
>>> become 'C' then you wold be fine. If not, some of your
>>> applications on the second drive that require information from
>>> the registry pointing to needed support files would not function
>>> properly.
>>>
>>> Sincerely,
>>> C.Joseph Drayton, Ph.D. AS&T
>>>
>>> zyklonterror wrote:
>>>
>>>> I have put in a HD from a previous PC with XP already on it
>>>> into this PC with XP on it as well. Am I able to set up a multi
>>>> boot with with operating systems already on the drives? I really
>>>> want to keep the the files (recording software and projects)
>>>> from the drive and be able to boot to it if needed.
"C.Joseph S. Drayton" wrote:
>
>>I have put in a HD from a previous PC with XP already on it into this
>>PC with XP on it as well. Am I able to set up a multi boot with with
>>operating systems already on the drives? I really want to keep the
>>the files (recording software and projects) from the drive and be
>>able to boot to it if needed.
>
> In order to answer that question, I would first have to ask what drive
> letter was assigned to the 'second' hard disk when you were using it in
> a different machine. If your current drive is 'C', the second drive
> would be assigned a different drive letter. The problem is that if the
> second drive was 'C' on its original machine, then all of the
> applications on it will be expecting to run from 'C' which of course
> the 'second' drive would no longer be.
>
> If you disabled the current drive so that the second drive could become
> 'C' then you wold be fine. If not, some of your applications on the
> second drive that require information from the registry pointing to
> needed support files would not function properly.
>
> --
>
> Sincerely,
> C.Joseph Drayton, Ph.D. AS&T
Disregarding the complication of the 2nd HD coming from a
different machine, the drive letter that the XP in the 2nd HD has is
irrelevant (as long as neither XP contains shortcuts that reference
drive letters other than its own.) Such is the case of HDs containing
clones of the local XP, wherein each XP, *when it is running*, will
refer to its own partition as "C:", and it will refer to other partitions
(including the partitions containing clones) by other tempoarily
assigned letter names. I've pointed this out many times in this very
NG, but it never seems to sink in, perhaps because no one ever
takes the time to verify it.
>"C.Joseph S. Drayton" wrote:
>>
>>>I have put in a HD from a previous PC with XP already on it into
>>>this PC with XP on it as well. Am I able to set up a multi boot
>>>with with operating systems already on the drives? I really want
>>>to keep the the files (recording software and projects) from the
>>>drive and be able to boot to it if needed.
>>
>>In order to answer that question, I would first have to ask what
>>drive letter was assigned to the 'second' hard disk when you were
>>using it in a different machine. If your current drive is 'C', the
>>second drive would be assigned a different drive letter. The
>>problem is that if the second drive was 'C' on its original
>>machine, then all of the applications on it will be expecting to
>>run from 'C' which of course the 'second' drive would no longer be.
>>
>>If you disabled the current drive so that the second drive could
>>become 'C' then you wold be fine. If not, some of your applications
>>on the second drive that require information from the registry
>>pointing to needed support files would not function properly.
>>
>>--
>>Sincerely,
>>C.Joseph Drayton, Ph.D. AS&T
>
>
> Disregarding the complication of the 2nd HD coming from a
>different machine, the drive letter that the XP in the 2nd HD has is
>irrelevant (as long as neither XP contains shortcuts that reference
>drive letters other than its own.) Such is the case of HDs containing
>clones of the local XP, wherein each XP, *when it is running*, will
>refer to its own partition as "C:", and it will refer to other
>partitions (including the partitions containing clones) by other
>tempoarily assigned letter names. I've pointed this out many times
>in this very NG, but it never seems to sink in, perhaps because no
>one ever takes the time to verify it.
>
>*TimDaniels*
Hi Tim,
The last time I tried what the OP is talking about was about 5 years
ago. The 'current' machine had WindowsXP on it. The second drive had
Windows2000pe. I edited boot.ini, and the second drive came up as a
drive letter other than 'C' which is what it had been when I pulled it
out of the old computer.
The possibility that I edited boot.ini does exist, at the time I was in
a rush and didn't play with it.
I asked my question and based my response on personal experience. When
I have time I will look into the matter further and see if I can get
the second drive to come up as 'C' as you say it should. My laptop has
2 drive bays so I can pull the drive from my backup machine and see
what happens. As I recall I edited boot.ini with a text editor. Is
there some application you would recommend for editing the file so that
I can get the parameters correct (I will admit I like wizards when I
want to be sure that the entry is correct rather than trust my 2 extra
thumbs).
Multi Boot 
Linear Mode
