Boot From Multiple Hard Drives???

[fighterpilot]

I would like to have two hard drives in my PC, both with Windows XP. One will be used for work activities, while the other for gaming. I want to keep them separate.

What is the best way to manage booting from one disk or another? Is there any decent yet simple software to let you manage such a thing? It would also be nice to have it set up so when I boot into one or another the other OS drive is hidden.

Anyone have any idea of software to manage this?

Thanks!

 

[Nothinman]

Personally I'd just get a copy of VMWare and run the work stuff in there, but I can't say that I'd be up for paying for 2 copies of XP just to keep games seperate.

 

[fighterpilot]

That VMWare looks too complicated. I want something similar like PQBoot from formerly PowerQuest, but something with a few more options, like the ability to hide certain drives.

I shouldn't need to pay for two copies of XP since they will be used one at a time and on the same hardware.

 

[Nothinman]

VMWare's not complicated and it's a lot safer, but it's up to you.

 

[corkyg]

I would get a mobile rack and two inner trays. I would then put each drive in a tray as a master, and choose which one I wanted to boot from. They are then totally discreet - no interaction - and when one is working, the other gets time off. 🙂

Good hardware solutions uaually trump the best software ones.

 

[fighterpilot]

Thanks for the responses guys. I guess I should have clarified. I am planning on doing this with a small form factor PC, so hardware solution is out of the question. As far as VMWare, I will give it a look.

But I found this handy utility:

<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbar...t-us.com/">http://www.boot-us.com/</a>

It's free to use, but if you want the fancy features like hiding other partitions, etc, then it costs $15 to register. Not a bad deal.