Well, apparently I DO have dual drives, since I just learned (from you in another post "Attaching IDE HardDrive to IDE DVD Cable") that I can cable the drive/system I already have installed to my IDE DVDwriter cable. So I won't need 3 partitions anywhere but the backup drive. Two disks will each have a system partition and a data partition. The third disk will have a data backup partition, a C-images partition, and a pagefile partition.
So, I will remove the current 120GB Seagate (Disk 2) from the Master position on IDE-cable-1 and install it in the slave position on IDE-cable-2 (with the DVDwriter) and hope I still have something on how to reset the jumper switches!
Then I will install my brand-new WD Caviar 320GB (Disk 1) in the Master position on IDE-cable-2 with my Slave backup disk, which is another WD Caviar 320GB (Disk 3), and install XP on the new drive in the first partition. (Thankfully, at least Disk 3 won't need any modifications).
I will move certain folders (My Documents, OE email store, etc.) to the second partition on this drive and point to the swap/pagefile on Disk 3, I'm assuming it does not matter if both boots use the same pagefile space - I clear it at shutdown anyway.
My big question now is...
When I boot from the Seagate on the DVD cable, will it boot up as Drive C?? Will the drive letters change depending on which partition I boot from? All the registry address references and my shortcuts and applications (of which there are many) all reference the system drive as C.
There is a method to my madness, as you say, or maybe a madness to my method? I want to install my system from scratch, but I want to do it in bits and pieces as I have the time (I'm slow and have a good many apps to configure) and I cannot afford to have my system down for an extended period. So I want to be able to switch between my working system and my in-process installation when I have time to work on it.
What I would like to end up with is XP on the first partition on each of the two system drives, with the Seagate just being a failsafe boot in case of emergency (or I may eventually put Linux on it).
In the meantime, until I get my new drive install all finished (maybe a month or two), will both systems boot themselves up as Drive C? Will I need to modify the drive letters every time I switch boots?
I am grateful for all your spot-on help;
thank you so much,
AnnaSummers
P.S. A couple of questions about what you said below....
XP will take care of the boot loader. You can edit this file (boot.ini) later.
I don't even know what this means. What do I need to know about it? I just looked at boot.ini and I see it is about boot partition sequence, but I don't really understand the syntax.
Don't worry about the drive letters. If you end up booting to F: it doesn't matter.
What about everything on the drive referencing "C:\" to begin location pointers?
Would windows let me change the letter to C, just to keep from confusing myself?
There's no need to fiddle with anything in the BIOS except when you boot to the CD.
I always have the boot order as: 1-floppy 2-CD 3-HardDrive
But now there will be two hard drives. Wouldn't I have to switch the ORDER of the two hard drives if I wanted to change the boot source?
----- Original Message -----
From: Hugh Vandervoort
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Monday, May 04, 2009 7:36 PM
Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] Dual Booting
This is harder to read than it is to do.
First-it's fine to have two copies of XP and boot them separately.
Life would be easier for you if you had dual drives, but you can do this
with what you have.
You already have at least one partition, so make the other two, and keep
track.
Boot to the install CD and install XP on the proper partition. XP will take
care of the boot loader. You can edit this file (boot.ini) later.
Don't worry about the drive letters. If you end up booting to F: it doesn't
matter.
There's no need to fiddle with anything in the BIOS except when you boot to
the CD.
Are you doing this just for fun, or is there some grander purpose?
On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 5:57 PM, g.Computer9f <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I want to partition a new harddrive for two boot partitions and one data
> partition. I want one to boot the system I now have so I have something to
> use while I take my time installing the same OS from scratch on the other
> partition, after which I will erase the old partition (or maybe keep it for
> emergency bootup, depending on space considerations (I bought XP Home SP2
> Retail Version, so since it's on the same machine and I can't bootup but one
> partition at a time, that would work okay, right?)).
>
> Anyway, I want the first partition C to be my new OS. I plan to partition
> the new drive and (re)install my OS for the scratch install. I would then
> set up the new OS just like the old OS - moving "My Documents" and email
> stores & such onto the second (data) partition D and the swap/page file onto
> the second hard drive (partition S) to match the expectations of my old OS.
> I can then "restore" the old OS onto the third partition (X) with Acronis
> TrueImage.
>
> Will this work? I've never done this before. How do I set things up to
> boot from one or the other? I figure I have to set something in the BIOS?
> Do I have to enter it whenever I want to switch the boot order? When the
> old OS boots from the third partition, does it boot as "C" or can I get it
> to do so? Because all of the addresses/locations in that registry, etc. use
> "C."
>
> What problems might I run into? Am I too ignorant to do this (based on
> what you've read here?).
>
> Thanks,
> AnnaSummers
>
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