Need a Boot Manager

[Minjin]

I currently have two XP installations on a system, each on its own hard drive. Currently, if I want to switch systems, I have to power down and move the SATA cable to the other drive. It is an older system so using the bios boot select method doesn't work as it only lists "Hard Drive" and doesn't let me select which one. Don't ask how I got into this situation...

I need a boot manager recommendation that will allow me to keep both drives plugged in and choose between the two OSs. Preferably free.

Thanks.

 

[postmark]

What kind of system is it? Usually you can select this via BIOS. A lot of Intel boards allow something like F8 for F10 to be pressed during POST that will pop up a window asking you to select your boot device for that boot. So in that case, you would select which OS you want by selecting the correct drive.

 

[Minjin]

What kind of system is it? Usually you can select this via BIOS. A lot of Intel boards allow something like F8 for F10 to be pressed during POST that will pop up a window asking you to select your boot device for that boot. So in that case, you would select which OS you want by selecting the correct drive.

As I already stated, bios does allow you to make boot selections but only at the "CD-ROM", "Floppy", and "Hard Drive" level. It doesn't matter how many hard drives you have installed, it only says "Hard Drive" and will only boot from the lowest SATA number. It is a 5 year old CAD workstation.

 

[SunnyD]

ntldr. It's already built into your XP install bro.

 

[yinan]

Why do you need to do this? Cant one of your installs be in a VM?

 

[Binky]

Look into EasyBCD.

Have full backup images before you go messing with this stuff. You might break things before you get the hang of it.

Edit - this might be for Vista/Win7 only. Oops.

 

[ViRGE]

ntldr. It's already built into your XP install bro.

Bingo. All you need to do is add an entry for the second copy of XP into boot.ini.