William,
In my opinion, the simplest way to get this done would be to open up
your case and install your new hard drive. Set up the new hard drive as
master and the other as the slave (jumper settings). But, unplug the
power to the old drive and turn on your computer with only the new blank
drive ready to go (sort of like you just built a new computer and were
about to load an OS for the first time). Go through the motions on the
new drive (format, partition as desired) and load the new OS.  Once you
get the OS loaded and running without error, get yourself a boot manager
( I use bootmagic) and install it into the new OS.  Set up your boot
manager (it will come with instructions) so that you have the new OS as
the primary or default OS and the old one has the second boot option.
If you use bootmagic, you can make a selection to hide each OS from the
other one.  This is important so that files won't accidentally get
crossed.  This also makes each OS think it is the only OS on the
computer...it has no idea the other is even there.
The only catch here is that the bios will see your new hard drive as C:
drive and your old drive as D:.  But inside each OS, there will only be
C: drive listed because each one thinks it is the only one. Hope that
isn't to confusing.
And I hope this helps.
By the way, I did this with my current computer when I decided to go to
WinXP Pro.  I worked it the exact same way as I described and have no
probs.

Neal Collins
A+

-----Original Message-----
From: PCBUILD - Personal Computer Hardware discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of William Closure
Sent: Sunday, November 03, 2002 11:32 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [PCBUILD] Dual booting off two hard drives

Al,

Thanks for your response.  Looking back at this, I probably could
(should)
have been a little clearer on this.

Yes, AOL is an ISP with built in browser.  Thanks to the people on
PCSOFT, it
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

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