Dual Boot with Two Harddrives

[Leopardos]

Hello,

I have two computers which are exactly the same, lenovo,
One of them not working ( Motherboard dead ),
Both of them running Windows Xp,

How could i make a dual boot with the second harddrive? ( Windows selection screen with 30 sec countdown )?
I know that i did it before but i forgot, how could i add the command to get 2 options to choice and where to add it ?

Thanks

 

[Bubbaleone]

Edit the boot.ini file located at the root of C:\ to show the second installation. Edit the disk, rdisk and partition values to reflect the second HDDs location, and also change the second entry's name from "Microsoft Windows XP Professional" to "Microsoft Windows XP Professional 2", as an example.

This is a sample boot.ini file for dual-booting XP:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional 2" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

(ignore the odd gaps between letters; it's a bug in the editor)



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[postmortemIA]

nice try, but I don't think that will work. that works great if second installation of XP is aware that it is installed on second disk, thus it would have been installed on disk D :
I hope I am wrong, and it is worth trying.

Other approach is to change order of boot disks in BIOS. Often F10 or such gives you one time boot menu, so there you can pick 1st or 2nd disk.

 

[Bubbaleone]

nice try, but I don't think that will work. that works great if second installation of XP is aware that it is installed on second disk, thus it would have been installed on disk D :
I hope I am wrong, and it is worth trying.

Other approach is to change order of boot disks in BIOS. Often F10 or such gives you one time boot menu, so there you can pick 1st or 2nd disk.

The boot.ini value "rdisk(0)" represents the hard drive which is at the head of the hard drive boot order, i.e. the hard drive at zero displacement from the head of the hard drive boot order in the BIOS.

Only the installation at the default, disk(0)rdisk(0), location needs to contain the boot loader and edited boot.ini file. That's the purpose of the boot.ini file; it tells the boot loader via the disk, rdisk, and partition values, where the second (or third, or fourth...) XP installation is located. Each HDD can have up to three primary partitions, and one extended partition containing multiple logical partitions.

If you'll look in Device Manager, the drive or partition locations are not designated by C:\, D:\, E:\ etc.; they're designated by their location on the IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers and these are the same values designated in the boot.ini file.

When you boot, you're presented with a conventional menu that allows you to select which installation to boot from. Giving each installation a unique name simply makes it easy to know which is which, but they could all just as well have the same name.

The example I posted is the actual boot.ini file from my dual-boot XP machine.


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[corkyg]

There is another option - this is what I use with my XP machine and two PATA HDDs. It is a front panel A-B power switch by Mitron. Since these drives are PATA, drive selection is made with power off. Drive A or B or both.

http://mitron.com.tw/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=119&Itemid=74

It is very simple and very reliable - more so than a software dual boot, IMHO. One of the big plusses is that the unused drive is not even powered on.

Here is my simple front panel control: