need dual boot advice

I just got a brand new WD 60GB HD for my computer (AMD 1.2G), and now I am trying to decide what I want to do with it.

What I think I want to do is to set up my system as dual boot - one system keeping the old HD (win ME) and the new HD having either win ME (since I own it) or win XP (if I want to shell out the $).

The reason I want to do this is that I would like to keep a known working system on my old drive so I can use it to compare settings and to slowly transfer things over to the new drive. Eventually I want to format the old drive and maybe set it up with linux or some other OS, but since I am completely new to setting up hard drives and dual boot systems, I want to take it slow.

I have a few questions that will probably be obvious to anyone who has done this before:

1) In a dual boot system with 2 HDs is each system 'oblivious' to the other HD? ie - are there any issues I need to be aware of like reduce system performance or something like that?

2) Will I be able to see the other hard drive from the running hard drive and transfer files directly? Does the OS on each drive affect this?

3) Can you recommend some software (preferably free) that would handle the dual boot scenario I described.

I appreciate any help you can give me! Thanks.

Hi
I am thinking of doing the same and will be interested in the replies. Does it matter which hard drive is set as master and which as slave - I have W98 on existing drive and hoping to put XP on the other (new) drive. What format XP should I use - NTFS? Thanks

Hi, Ice:

Some answers, not in the order you asked;

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3) Can you recommend some software (preferably free) that would handle the dual boot scenario I described.

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Windows automatically sets up dual boot, but there's a procedure:

You will want to partition your new hard drive so that you have 2 partitions. Install ME on the first one, and once that's set up, then install XP on the second partition. Once you've done this, you will get a choice of which one you want to boot. If you do XP first and then ME, it might not work right.

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2) Will I be able to see the other hard drive from the running hard drive and transfer files directly? Does the OS on each drive affect this?

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This depends on the file system you choose when you install XP. ME uses a file system called FAT32, and XP gives you the choice of FAT32 or NTFS.
If you install XP with FAT32, then you will be able to "see" both drives from either one. If you install XP with NTFS, then XP will "see" the ME drive, but if you boot into ME, it won't "see" the XP drive.

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1) In a dual boot system with 2 HDs is each system 'oblivious' to the other HD? ie - are there any issues I need to be aware of like reduce system performance or something like that?

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No problems like this I'm aware of.

Hope this helps.

Beggarall, you won't need to partition if you're using separate physical drives. Ice is using one drive for both, that's really the only difference.
Just remember to install 98 or ME first. That would probably be on your Master.

Thanks for the info. My intention was to slowly migrate to XP but I have years (and years:( ) of stuff on W98 that I am terrified of losing. Also, my ADSL modem and all the network connections are W98 - we have a home LAN and ethernet cards. I presume I will have to reload all of these but will I be able to eg access the internet from either W98 or XP or will access from one suffice? If I boot using XP will all my internet and network connectors (from W98) still be accessable? I live in trepidation of this move but know it is going to come sooner or later and I don't really want to have to buy a complete new system - this one is still quite new (only a year old). Advice welcomed

Well, you'll still have to set up XP as you would if it were the only OS on the computer. Meaning: you'll need to install programs you use (office, games, etc) again into XP. This also means that any hardware driviers, internet connection settings, etc. will need to be installed for XP. Think of it kinda like having two separate computers, but can only use one at a time.

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Originally posted by 10ECsoon
You will want to partition your new hard drive so that you have 2 partitions. Install ME on the first one, and once that's set up, then install XP on the second partition. Once you've done this, you will get a choice of which one you want to boot.

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Originally posted by 10ECsoon
Beggarall, you won't need to partition if you're using separate physical drives. Ice is using one drive for both, that's really the only difference.

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Hmmm... thanks for the replies, but now I am confused.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough, but I DON'T want to put two different operating systems onto one drive, but 2 different operating systems onto ***2*** different drives, with each drive containing a unique OS.

I am in the process of looking up information on this, but everything seems geared towards dual boot on 1 drive, as described by 10EC.

The perfect solution (in my uninformed opinion) would be that a menu comes up before windows even starts asking if you want to boot off of drive C: (old ME) or drive F: (new XP).

Partition Magic from PowerQuest....

WWW.POWERQUEST.COM

It comes with a "Bootloader" that will do exactly as you ask...

CAUTION!!!!
As with most of the Windows versions, XP will try to install to your "C:\" Drive first...... The results are obvious... Make sure you choose the correct drive.....

(Sorry if I explained the obvious.....)

As 10ECsoon stated, WinXP has native capability to handle multi-boot situations. However, if you want greater control and flexibility then you would want to go with a seperate bootmanager, such as Powerquest's BootMagic, mentioned by TE12, or XOSL, which is free. There are others, both free and pay-for.

Doesn't XOSL assume that you already have your OSes installed each on it's own active primary partition and thus if you were to want to install multiple oses on a single multi partitioned hd you would need to hide partitions install an os, hide that partition, unhide another and install another os etc etc then install XOSL.

It wasn't at all clear from the web site unless i missed something.

I actually posted this question, about XOSL, in a reply to a thread somewhere on VDr and no one replied.

OSes can be added or deleted after XOSL is installed. In terms of installing them... With any boot manager there is or may be a need to do some manipulation of partitions/drives hidden or visible as a particular OS is installed. But this is to be expected.

Ice9,

You will get exactly what you want. Install ME onto your C: drive and then install XP onto your F: drive. The XP bootloader will take care of things automatically, it doesn't care whether you're installing onto separate partitions on the same drive or different physical drives - the results are the same. Then when you boot up you get a screen where you choose which OS you boot into. It's important that you install the oldest OS first, then progressively newer, so if you wanted a triple boot system you would install in the order ME, 2000, and XP last.

I did a little research and found something that backs up what SuperSparks said.

This refers to a situation like mine where someone made the old drive (98SE in this case) the slave and installed XP on the new drive as a master:

"With the wisdom of hindsight, you should have left the original disk as master, made your new 20G disk the slave and installed Windows XP on the slave. Windows XP Setup would have automatically configured for dual booting Windows XP and 98SE."

One issue with that is that I read a comment to the effect that it was stupid to make the more powerfull OS (XP) a slave, implying that running a system off of a slave drive limits it in some way - is there any truth to this?

Also, I still don't own a copy of XP, so if I do decide to use a dual boot with 2 separate ME systems (new ME drive as master, the original ME drive as the slave), is there a similer automatic handling by windows, or am I forced to use software like bootmagic?

That's an interesting question, I never tried to dual boot ME with ME. I believe that you would need different software like one of the many suggested here to do that.
Once you get to XP though, it will handle it for you.

Ice9, you've said (I believe) that you want to slowly migrate to a newer system. The problem with letting XP or w2k handle the boot process is that it will put its boot files on the C: drive. If you then ever want to get rid of ME you'll also be getting rid of XP's boot files.

Using a boot manager to hide the C: drive before you install XP or another copy of ME will avoid that problem. All the files will get put on the installation partition. Meaning you could then uninstall the original and still have a bootable OS.

You would only have to use the boot manager boot floppy when you want to change OS's.

Totally aggree DVOM, i'd personally not use the windows boot manager again (been there when i started multi booting and ended up starting from fresh to change things) cuz it makes things too complicated should one decide to move things about at a later date, yes it will do whats wanted if you plan on using ME and XP forever but it has an awful crude way of going about it that makes things dificult upon future OS upgrades...

Best way i feel is to use a 3rd party boot manager as said by someone above that will hide each OS from the other meaning nothing is shared between them and each OS can be treated as a separate PC, gives no problems at a later date and all OS's can be installed or removed in any order, just so much easier to manage especially if u'r into using backup images.

And yes with a 3rd party boot manager you could have 2 or 3 WinME's onboard, without having to install it for each separate drive/partition u could clone the exact same installation of ME to other partitions if u like.

I use Partition/Boot Magic myself but there are free alternatives out there as mentioned!

Regards :)

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Originally posted by DVOM
Ice9, you've said (I believe) that you want to slowly migrate to a newer system. The problem with letting XP or w2k handle the boot process is that it will put its boot files on the C: drive. If you then ever want to get rid of ME you'll also be getting rid of XP's boot files.

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Thanks DVOM (and LotusAstra), this would have really bitten me if I went that route because I do plan to eventually format the old drive and put something else on it.

I have decided to get a boot manager - but it isn't easy to decide which one - every single one on Download.com has horror stories from users claiming the software is the spawn of satan mixed with glowing reviews of how the software is "the best one". I guess I have some reading to do.

I've heard nothing but glowing reports about XOSL, and you can't beat the price either :D

It's very easy to back up the WinXP boot files, though - they'll easily fit on a floppy.

Thought I would post back on how things went for me, and they went surprisingly well!

I moved my old drive to the secondary IDE channel on my motherboard and installed the new drive on the primary channel (in fact, wrestling with all those ribbon cables was the most frustrating part of the whole process - I now have 4 IDE devices and 4 cables...).

I used the tools that came with the drive to format and partition it into two 30GB halves, and installed win ME on the first new partition. After that was all done, I could see my 3 drives from the new OS:

C: (new ME - partition 1, new drive)
D: (old ME, old drive)
E: (partition 2, new drive)

I installed some drivers, then installed BootMagic. BootMagic was a snap to configure, and here I am back on the old ME drive writing this.

The only issue I have come across is that from this old drive, I can't see the first partition of the new drive for some reason. :confused: Here is what this drive thinks:

C: (old ME, old drive)
D: (partition 2, new drive)

It's not a big deal though. I am really liking this dual boot thing, I should have done this a long time ago :D

Ice9, that's because BootMagic totally hides that partition so you don't have 2 primary active partitions trying to boot. I suggest using BootMagic only from floppy because if it's loaded on a partition which for some reason won't boot, and it's set to boot to that partitiion, you won't be able to override the setting. Even with the boot disk.

After experiencing this little problem, the next time I installed it, I made the floppy (and two copies), then uninstalled it.