William,
Let's say we call your hard drives O (old) and N (new). This will dispense
with some of the naming problems (which are addressed later).
On your 8380, press the F1 key after the blue HP logo is displayed and
before the Windows startup screen appears. You only have a few seconds and
may need to repeat this step to get to the BIOS.
Go to the BOOT selection. Explore your options. If you can boot from
specific drive letters (C:, D:, E:, etc.) then you can boot your system from
these drives. Just select which drive you want, save the BIOS changes and
continue to boot. The system will take care of the rest.
Here's where things get confusing. First, remove a cable to the O drive and
install whatever software (including the operating system) to the N drive.
Reconnect the O drive and remember your settings. If N is the primary
master, then the BIOS will recognize it as the C: drive. Let's assume that
the N is primary master (C:) and O is the primary slave (D:). This is going
to push your former CD-ROM or CD-RW down to E:.
Whichever drive you boot from will become your C: drive. When you go into
the BIOS and choose to boot from C:, then you will boot from the N disk.
Windows will map:
N -> C:
O -> D:
CD-> E:
When you boot from the (O disk) BIOS D: drive, Windows will map:
O -> C:
N -> D:
CD->E:
You just have to remember which drive you have booted from. Please use a
volume label when you format the Maxtor so you will know which drive is
which in Windows. Check that in My Computer or in Windows Explorer.
Windows may also want to play havoc with where it puts its temp. internet
files unless you have previously forced them to stay on the C: drive.
Windows may choose to place those files on the D: drive, writing to the
other disk to improve performance.
This two hard drive setup does work. I've run a W95/W98 system for years
like this.
HTH,
Ron Jobe
----- Original Message -----
From: "William Closure" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, November 03, 2002 11:32 PM
Subject: [PCBUILD] Dual booting off two hard drives
---snip---
> has become abundantly clear to me that AOL has messed with my computer,
and
> not for the better. As my HP Pavilion 8380 running Windows 98 has become
> increasingly unstable, and I want to get rid of AOL, and start with a
> broadbrand connection, and I have a 2 year old, new in the box 40G Maxtor
> hard drive waiting to be installed, I thought I could kill a lot of birds
> with one stone. Fact is, at least in the short run, I will have to have
> access AOL to close things out. And, over time, I will still want to
access
> it, because I have things tied to it, such as favorites, address book and
> downloads that are tied to proprietory AOL software. (Anybody out there
know
> how I can coax these out of AOL?)
>
> Anyway, it would seem to me that one way to solve this would be to install
> the new hard drive as the primary drive, load everything, including new
ISP
> software unto that drive, and carry on. The second drive could be
accessed
> to pull files, but the operating system would remain on the new drive,
> unpolluted by all the AOL settings. However, I am hoping that I can dual
> boot from the original hard drive so that I can still access AOL during
this
> transition period.
>
> So, how do I do that? Is there a beginners tutorial out there that can
set
> me in the right direction?
>
> William Closure
>
> In a message dated 11/3/02 [log in to unmask] writes:
>
> > William,
> >
> > As no one has replied thus far, I'll give it a shot. To be sure, I know
> > absolutely nothing about AOL, so my
> > reply may be useless to you. With that said, I've always assumed AOL is
> > just an ISP-oriented web browser, is
> > that correct?
> > If so, then adding a new hard drive, making it the master, and
installing
> > an operating system on it would work
> > just fine, assuming your motherboard can support it. You would also need
to
> > designate it as the boot drive
> > (active partition). Since you talk about dual booting, I get the
impression
> > that AOL is an operating
> > system(?). If that's the case, then you can still do the above, but
you'll
> > need a boot manager program as
> > well. You might want to throw these questions at the good folk on the
> > PCBUILD list. hth
> >
> > Al Thompson
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "William Closure" <[log in to unmask]>
> >
> > > OK, folks, be gentle. I read all these posts about all the things you
> > can do
> > > with computers, and you get me all excited about the prospects. I
want
> > to go
> > > out on a limb here, so can you help me out?
> > >
> > > I want to get off AOL, and am pleased to see that there may be a way
to
> > get
> > > my favorites converted, and hopefully will be able to do the same with
> > > address book. So, what's the next step? Get a system that is free
and
> > clear
> > > of AOL.
> > >
> > > As I have been informed, AOL has taken over a lot of things on my
computer
> > > and changed some settings, not necessarily for the better. So I was
> > thinking
> > > (a dangerous thing) since I have a new hard drive, why not disconnect
the
> > old
> > > hard drive, install the new one and load with original operating
system,
> > and
> > > then add the original hard drive as a slave? For the transition
period,
> > if I
> > > chose, I could boot to the original hard drive and access AOL, as
needed,
> > but
> > > otherwise, I would have a clean hard drive, not polluted by AOL, that
I
> > can
> > > use for a new DSL provider. As needed, I can go back to retrive
anything
> > I
> > > needed from AOL by booting up on the old drive, but otherwise I will
have
> > > escaped AOL.
> > >
> > > So, how do I do this? (You guys get me past this, I might even jump
on
> > the
> > > Linix bandwagon and escape Uncle Bill!)
> > >
> > > William Closure
>
> PCBUILD maintains hundreds of useful files for download
> visit our download web page at:
> http://freepctech.com/downloads.shtml
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