Plan-C

I have 3 IDE hard drives.  Two are installed (one is new).  Someone (at another forum, I think) told me that I could install an IDE hard drive on the SAME IDE CABLE with my DVDWriter.

I just spoke with the Geek Squad and they say NO - that the PC sees everything on a single cable the same way, that they must both be hard drives, or both be CD/DVD drives.  Of course, he also said you could set WINDOWS to let you choose which drive to boot, which as I see it looks clearly impossible, since when you are booting, you don't have Windows yet. 

So, since my Plan-B to install a third hard drive on the DVDWriter cable looks kaput, I'm back to square one (or rather on to Plan-C) with my installation of a second XP boot drive/partition.  

I can remove my Backup Disk Drive (HD3) and replace it with my new hard drive HD2 (where I want to install the fresh bootable copy of XP).  Then, hopefully, I will be able to boot to XP on HD1 or boot XP on HD2.  Does this sound feasible?  

If so, what would  be my first steps?  Do I have to enter the BIOS (is that F8?) FIRST, and change the boot sequence to DVD > HD2 > HD1, so when the new install reboots it reboots from HD2 (and not HD1)?   

If I then start the XP install from the CD and let it format and install XP on HD2, and I choose to install it as C:\, will it then bootup as C: (like HD1) WHEN it is the boot drive?  And the non-booting drive will be whatever letter I assigned it in the booting copy of XP?  It is the OS (on whichever HD that is booting) that is remembering the drive letters, right?

The Geek Squad guy said SETTING UP to boot two systems was complicated (??), but that you could boot 10 different OS's on ONE HD with different partitions - did he know what he was talking about?  He said there was a way to choose the boot drive without going into the BIOS each time - if so, does anyone know how?  

Heelllppp guys - where do I start - and what do I do second?  I'm on Plan-C here (and oddly enough it looks like it MIGHT be easier than Plan A or B did)!

I want to boot to HD1 when I need to pay bills, check email, etc. (actually USE the computer for something) then boot to HD2 when I have time to work on the new OS installation.  Once I am done with the new XP installation (a few weeks), I will want to remove HD1 and move HD2 into it's place as master on the cable.  Then I can re-install HD3 (my backup drive) back again as slave, where it was originally, and backup my NEW system.    I'm out of Plans - will Plan-C work?  Do you guys see any holes in this one?

Thanks,
AnnaSummers

        The NOSPIN Group has added a new feature on our website,
           web based bulletinboard for questions and answers:
              Visit our sister website at http://nospin.com