Dual Booting...is this possible?

Gouki · March 24th, 2003, 06:46 PM

Hello all...quick question for ya.

I'm wanting to try my hand at dual-booting and so far I've noticed that all the times I've read about it, the ppl partioned the same drive and put the different OS's on the respective partitions.

But is it possible to dual boot with having an OS on one physical drive...and the other OS on a different physical drive?

To make a long story short...I've got a 30 gig drive with 2 partitions on it, 1 10gig and a 20gig. The 10gig is Windows XP and my install programs and the 20gig is music/games, etc...*AFTER* I got everything setup the way I wanted...then I had the thought about dual booting. I found an old 2gig drive that I could use...and if at all possible I'd like to use it rather then re-do my 30 gig into 3 partitions and lose everything.

Thanks in advance!

Ruler2112 · March 24th, 2003, 07:02 PM

It depends on what OS you plan on installing next. Linux can reside on a slave drive, but most windii (plural of windoze) want to be on the primary master. LILO (the linux loader) can be made to do some trickery as well, so the slave drive would appear to be the master and vice-versa.

griobhta · March 24th, 2003, 07:15 PM

Linux and winNT/2K/XP live happily enough on the second drive. Your boot manager must be insatlled in the MBR of the primary drive but it does work. 9X based windows need to think they are on the primary drive as Ruler says.

g

Gouki · March 25th, 2003, 12:42 AM

The other OS is 98SE...there's a game or two that I miss playing and they won't play on XP.

So...if I take the other hd out for the time being and setup the 2gig drive on the primary and then add the one with XP on the secondary...it should work? In theory? lol.

PresterJohn · March 25th, 2003, 12:47 AM

>setup the 2gig drive on the primary and then add the one with XP on the secondary

hmmm...first off, 2gb isn't a whole lot of space for a linux install. it's certainly doable but it will limit you in many ways.

as for installing the linux on the 2nd drive, that's fine. your 30gb drive should still be the primary however.

embj · March 25th, 2003, 12:48 AM

The best way to do it is install everything in order. To get my system to tri-boot I just installed Win 98SE first, Win XP second (just chose to create a partition in the XP Setup), then .NET Server 2003 lastly. Again I just chose to create a different partition in the setup. I would think you could install the OS's in any order if you have the partitions already made and just run a repair on XP.

BTW, it is possible to have OS's installed on different physical drives. I have 98SE and XP Pro installed on one HDD and .NET Server on another HDD. I don't know about Linux as I haven't fooled around with it yet.

Xeroid · March 25th, 2003, 12:53 AM

Quote:

I don't know about Linux as I haven't fooled around with it yet.

Yep, it's possible. I have Win98 and WinXP on one hard drive and Mandrake 9.0 on another.

Mike

BTW, it's easier to install your older M$ products first, then your newer M$ stuff, and then Linux. For example in my case you would install 98, then XP, and lastly Linux.

Gouki · March 25th, 2003, 01:00 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by PresterJohn
>setup the 2gig drive on the primary and then add the one with XP on the secondary

hmmm...first off, 2gb isn't a whole lot of space for a linux install. it's certainly doable but it will limit you in many ways.

I think you misread my post...98SE is the other OS, not linux.

to embj:

Yes definitely the best way is to do everything in order and have somewhat of a game plan before you just jump in. My problem is that I didn't think about this til *after* I had already partitioned the drive, installed XP Pro and got it setup the way I want. Doh.

embj · March 25th, 2003, 01:11 AM

I know 98SE is the other OS. I am just stating that I don't know about Linux. It should work fine if you install 98SE after XP. Just after you install 98SE run the repair on XP.

Gouki · March 25th, 2003, 03:43 PM

Hopefully tonight I'll get a chance to tinker around with this. Probably what I'll end up doing is taking out the other hd for the time being...putting the 2gig in and installing 98SE and leave that as the primary master, since as you guys said...98 likes to be the primary and then put the other drive with XP back in as a slave drive.

I'll let you guys know what happens...