How to dual boot on 2 hard drives where Win 2k is on the first drive and Win Me is on the 2nd Physical Drive

[gilster]

How to dual boot on 2 hard drives where Win 2k is on the first drive and Win Me is on the 2nd. I read a similar article at the link below, but couldn't log in to their site for some reason.

http://forums.anandtech.com/message...id=821800&highlight_key=y&keyword1=dual boot

I have a similar problem in trying to dual boot Win 2000 and Win ME on 2 separate hard drives. I tried using the same method that you used by changing the boot.ini file, BUT WIN 2000 wouldn't let me save the new version of boot.ini. It said it was a read only file. Also I found several versions of boot.ini file but only the read only file seemed to be the right one.



Here is what my boot.ini file looks like:

[boot loader]

timeout=10

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

C:\="Unidentified operating system on drive D." (this is a partition on the first drive where I have Win 95 that I only use once a year)

I added this line after the C:\="Unidentified operating system on drive D.":

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows Me" /fastdetect

I also installed Boot It a share ware disk partitioning software about 6 months ago that I only used once.

What I actally did after I gave up, was just go into my Iwill KK-266 motherboard software BIOS settings and change the boot up order, and just boot up the hard drive that has Win Me first, and it works fine and only takes a minute or so.

Because I don't use the Windows Me all that often. It was the easiest solution.

Thanks for any help

 

[huesmann]

I'm not really sure, but I think you may be SOL.

I don't know about WinMe, but Win98 wants to be on C drive. The second OS can be on D, or somewhere else on C, but Win98 always wanted to be on C. Maybe you can use PartitionMagic or something to switch the designations of your drives.

 

[NogginBoink]

See if this will work:

Put the Win9x drive in the machine and ensure that it boots properly.

Put the second drive in the machine and use fdisk to ensure there are no active partitions.

Boot to the Win2K CD and install to the second hard drive.

You can't just edit boot.ini to boot to the Win9x OS because you don't have bootsect.dat (bootsect.dos? something like that) file that setup creates.