Dual boot in two hard disks !!!

[chin_sonu]

Please can some experts tell me .

I have two hard disks at the moment , and i have installed windows ME in both. but i want to install winxp in one of the hard disk.

the question is if i install winxp in one hard disk, can i get the dual boot working from two different hard disk.

please help me on this

 

[preet2u]

Yes it's Possible .. Once u finish installing Xp on the one harddrive .. Just edit the boot.ini file n' add a line for your Winme boot path ..

To edit the boot.ini
Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.

-or-
In Control Panel, start the Performance and Maintenance tool, and then click System.
On the Advanced tab, click Settings under Startup and Recovery.
Under System Startup, click Edit.

 

[preet2u]

Thought i'll even post a sample boot.ini

This is a sample of a default Boot.ini file from a Windows XP Professional computer.

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

This is a sample of the above Boot.ini file after adding another partition running Windows 2000 Professional.

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect

 

[chin_sonu]

Great preet2u , thanks i will try that. But just for the confirmation do i need to give the drive letter means (d:\)..... or it does detect automatic.

 

[nastrodamus]

You should note that if you WinME cannot view NTFS volumes.

What does this mean?

If you install WinXp on one hard drive using NTFS, when you boot up in WinME you will not be able to access your files in WinXp. WinXp will be able to view your WinME files.

So if you gonna need the WinME-WinXp interactivity you will need to install WinXp FAT format. (This will be the case if you just upgrade on of you WinME installations)

 

[preet2u]

No u don't need to use the drive letter ..
Notice that u change the disk no .. from 0 to 1

N' yes .. nastrodamus has a good point there . it would make sense for u to keep all ur drives in Fat32 itself.

 

[Apokalipse]

if you have ME on your first hard drive and XP on your second the boot.ini should look like this:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows ME" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

as you can see the only difference there from preet2u's example is the names really, you can call them what you want, like "Windoze ME"

 

[chin_sonu]

Thanks guys, that really helped me a lot.