Advanced Boot Configuration Manager?

[diggerB]

Hi. I was wondering if anybody could help me out.

I am a tech, with only one working computer. I find I do a lot of work on different hard drives (with different OSs installed on them), so I find myself swapping drives a lot. I need some sort of advanced boot configuration manager that will detect whatever OS's (98 NT 2K XP Linux etc) are installed on whatever disks happen to be in the system at bootup. Anyone got any leads on something like that?

 

[neversleeps]

I am a tech, with only one working computer

this just sounds funny, no offense man

just wondering but if u did find a suitable boot manager wouldnt u lose it when u swap drives or are u keeping the same master and swapping slaves out to work on or what
if the latter is the case then maybe configuring the boot.ini on the master and having it list all the os's u encounter on boot. i havent really dealt with boot issues so this is just idea to be expanded on, it could b really dumb and never work so wait til somebody with a little more experience comments on it

 

[diggerB]

maybe configuring the boot.ini on the master and having it list all the os's u encounter on boot.

I've stabilized my boot configuration to some degree. My Primary Master is XP Pro, and there it will stay. I have a second HD for storage as Primary Slave. The drive I will be swapping is my Secondary Master. But I'd still like the option to boot from whatever operating system happens to be present at the time of bootup.

There seems to be more information necessary than just boot.ini... Right now it's set up for Windows 2000 on my Secondary Master, but when I switch to another drive that also has W2K I get a bluescreen message saying that my windows installation is corrupt.

 

[killians45]

not sure if I'm understanding the question correctly... you have one computer and several HDD that you swap out depending on the o/s needed??! kind of odd, but if thats the case then get a multi drive selector. Its a device with a little control panel that you can use to run/switch between drives on the fly. It boots up all drives and then you just select which drive and it will switch to that. Example would be ROMTEC TRio plus.

 

[JohnM]

I imagine you are using the BIOS to choose which HD to boot. That's normal. I suggest you use the GRUB boot manager if you have Linux installed on one of your drives. When you are configuring it, place it on your principal HD, but DO NOT write to the MBR. GRUB should automatically recognize any other installation you have on your PC, and suggest the boot order. After you install it, you can re-configure as necessary. Do a search for "Dual Boot" +GRUB on any search engine, and you'll get a zillion hits.