Okay, here's the scoop... I'm running XP on a 40 GB HD, I just bought a 100 GB HD. I want to remove the old hard drive, install Windows 2000 Pro on the new drive, then reinstall the old hard drive as a slave to the new one. Will this work, or will I have to completely reinstall XP?
Dual boot setup with Windows 2000 and XP
- Thread starter Zedtom
- Start date
Just think about that for a second, and you'll pretty much have your answer. What drive letter is Windows XP using for its system / boot disk now? What drive letter will it be using after you make it a slave? Think that will work? Even if you fixed the loader so that it was found by the mbr hand-off so that the system would try to boot into Windows XP, every shortcut, every path specification in the registry, every internal configuration setting in every program with a hard-coded path would be looking in the wrong place for everything it needed in order to function. It actually would be possible to make it work. But you'd spend a lot less time just doing the clean installation.
There are other ways to make it work, of course.
One involves using the BIOS settings. Leave the 40 gig drive where it is. Turn off that drive in the BIOS. Install the new drive physically. Install Windows 2000 on it. To switch between the two you go into the BIOS setup program when you start the system and turn off the drive containing the OS you don't want. Not exactly what most people would call dual booting.
The other involves using some third party boot manager that hides the installations from each other. Lots of people do it. I would never use that scenario on a machine that I had to use, especially if I had to rely upon it. That's because you're fooling the OS into seeing an inaccurate representation of the actual hardware configuration. But to each his own.
In general you're better off getting all the hardware physically in place and starting clean. Install the older OS first, then install the newer OS. That way you automatically get set up with a proper boot menu.
On the other hand, I can't think of any purpose at all for dual-booting Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Do you have a specific purpose in mind?
Hang in there. I imagine you'll get a wide variation in responses on this one! My way isn't the only way. (But it's the only sane way.
)- prosaic
Did you read the methodology that was planned? I got the distinct impression that he wants to have the old drive in a "later" position on the system.
- prosaic
I'm not sure, but I believe that when he installs W2K on the new drive, it will find XP on the second drive and he will be given the choice to dual boot from the new drive. As long as the boot.ini on the boot drive points to the proper locations of the two OS's, everything should be okay.
I think the boot.ini should look something lik this.
[boot loader]
timeout=2
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
[boot loader]
timeout=2
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
Except that he was talking about removing the Windows XP drive, putting the intended Windows 2000 drive in, installing the OS, then putting the Windows XP drive back into the system. If he really wants the current Windows XP drive to be the second drive on the system, then a full reinstallation is probably going to be what he needs to do -- no?
You may be (I hope.) quite right in that, if he leaves the Windows XP drive where it is and places the new drive in a later slot and installs Windows 2000 on it, the install routine may recognize that there's another OS and set up a proper boot.ini file. Still, you've got a situation there where the Windows XP loader may get replaced by the Windows 2000 one. Not a good idea, though fixable.
- prosaic
Of course it does! If everything installed on drive D: or later thinks that it was installed on drive C:, then nothing works.
- prosaic
minendo
Elite Member
- Aug 31, 2001
- 35,560
- 22
- 81
Not necessarily. Drive C does not have to be the primary boot drive. I recently built a computer for my roommate and Drive E: is the hard drive which the OS boots from. Drive C is a CD-RW, Drive D is a zip drive, and finally Drive E is the hard drive.
minendo: What you just said is true but it does not apply to this situation. Everything on the XP drive was installed on the C drive and already so is going to try to run the programs and everything else off of the C drive but when you move the disk as the D: drive, all those programs are still going to try to run on the C: drive. Of course since their now on the D: drive, they won't work.
Zedtom: Is there some reason that you don't want to reinstall XP or do you no just want to take the extra 3 hours to set it up again? Just wondering.....
Installing the 100 gig drive as a slave and installing Windows 2000 there could work, though he'll probably have to do a repair installation on the Windows XP install to re-replace the boot loader -- as I mentioned before.
But just changing the shortcuts won't work. Shortcuts aren't the only objects that will be looking for system components and program files in the wrong places. They're the easy part. Think about the registry! And also about local configuration files, like .ini files that a lot of programs use. It would be a HUGE undertaking to fix the OS to work under these circumstances, requiring vastly more time and effort than reinstalling the OS and software -- regardless of how complex the installation is.
- prosaic
That would be nearly impossible to replace all the internal shortcuts in the operating system and even in the programs themselves. It seems a person would have to spends days and days straight just replacing all the shortcuts and internal file references
I almost did exactly what he is trying to do without incident. I had 98 installed on a 20 gb hdd and wanted to upgrade to XP without wiping my 98 OS. I bought another hdd to install XP. I unplugged the 98 hdd (which was the C: drive) and installed the new hdd to setup XP. After the XP install on the new hdd (now the NEW C: drive), I plugged back in the old hdd w/ 98 on it. My system simply designated the XP hdd as C: and the old 98 hdd as F:. It kept my CDROM drive as D: and my CDRW as E:. Now I can dual boot to 98 or XP simply with the use of Partition Magic. I could have done it other ways, but PM8 is such a useful tool it was well worth the $27 I spent on it. Partition on the fly or switch to another OS without restarting- SWEET!! Windows isn't that stupid- he'll be able to install another hdd without worrying about drive letter assignments and lost shortcuts/paths!
Take at look at what I posted in my first message:
Uh, yeah. It doesn't work by magic. It can be done. I wouldn't do it on any system I wanted to rely upon. Yep, that just about covers it. I've rescued way too many of these systems to ever want to use one myself.
No need to treat the people who are being cautious (for the sake of the originator of the thread) as though they were retarded. We're not. We understand what's happening. We're trying to make intelligent suggestions about safe procedures to use because we don't know just how critical either the system or the data are.
- prosaic
PS: Oh yeah, I meant to add that Windows IS that stupid. Try removing your partition and boot managers from that dual boot system now, and you'll see what I mean, just as soon as you try to boot into the Windows 98 partition.
Uh, yeah. It doesn't work by magic. It can be done. I wouldn't do it on any system I wanted to rely upon. Yep, that just about covers it. I've rescued way too many of these systems to ever want to use one myself.
No need to treat the people who are being cautious (for the sake of the originator of the thread) as though they were retarded. We're not. We understand what's happening. We're trying to make intelligent suggestions about safe procedures to use because we don't know just how critical either the system or the data are.
- prosaic
PS: Oh yeah, I meant to add that Windows IS that stupid. Try removing your partition and boot managers from that dual boot system now, and you'll see what I mean, just as soon as you try to boot into the Windows 98 partition.
I guess I didn't stipulate in my origional post the solution I gave was w/o having to use boot manager and how illogical it was w/ all the work entailed.
Just like prosaic, there is no way I'd use a boot manager to change around my partions. I have my comptuer set up so I have all my data, updates, or odd install files saved on another partition. Then all I have to do is wipe my OS partition clean, reinstall the OS, install all the updates that I have saved on my other partition and install any programs that I want. I have all my install disks in a 248 disk cd binder so everything is right there when I need it. All this can be done while you watch a movie
Just like prosaic, there is no way I'd use a boot manager to change around my partions. I have my comptuer set up so I have all my data, updates, or odd install files saved on another partition. Then all I have to do is wipe my OS partition clean, reinstall the OS, install all the updates that I have saved on my other partition and install any programs that I want. I have all my install disks in a 248 disk cd binder so everything is right there when I need it. All this can be done while you watch a movie
I did remove it- not once, but twice. I uninstalled it in add/remove programs, rolled back XP a day, and restarted. It gave me a headache until I rolled back XP. I've done it twice and reconfigured partitions without incident on the 98 partition (of course I have both hdd's backed up on separate partitions).
If you actually did what I specified and it worked, then you did NOT install it the way the originator of the thread has stated. If you honestly think that you can install Windows 98 on a drive, then change that drive's location to another position in the system, then place a different OS in Windows 98's original drive letter position and STILL have Windows 98 boot up properly and have the installed software work properly (unless you're doing the enable/disable drives thing in the BIOS at boot time) then you simply aren't aware of what your third party boot manager is doing for you. You can't do what we're talking about without the intervention of a third party boot loader OR the other workarounds already discussed. Windows 98 can't deal with it. My guess is you uninstalled PM but didn't realize that the loader was left in place. (It would be really dumb of the software vendor to let you remove it that easily because it would invalidate your system configuration.)
- prosaic
- prosaic
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