Dual Booting with two hard drives

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kfc469

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I have windows XP installed on two separate hdd's. I am trying to dual boot them by modifying the boot.ini file. Here is what I have:
Code:
[boot loader]
timeout=3 
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 1" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional 2" /fastdetect

I don't know why it puts "WINDOWS" on two lines, but its not really like that.
I have the first drive set to master and the second one set to slave, but whenever I select the second one, I get an error saying that it can't the boot directory. Both drives will boot to windows if I plug them in one at a time. I copied the boot.ini file onto both hdd's so they are both the same, but it didn't help.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks
 
The Slave drive doesnt have the MBR. That is why it wont allow to be booted.
 
So then what should I do to fix that? Make both of them masters? But, that seems like it would cause conflicts.
 
That would cause conflicts. Put your 2nd drive on. then go into the msconfig. Check the boot.ini and copy it down. then put the master back on. Go to the msconfig and check that boot.ini and you should see that they are different.

Then just add the slave drive boot.ini info to the masters and you should be able to dual boot with no problem.
 
well, I was using these two hard drives in different machines, so the boot.ini in the slave drive looks like this:
Code:
[boot loader]
timeout=3
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

and that is the same pointer that is used to go to the master drive.

Can you write what I need to put here because I can't figure it out.

To recap: I have two hdd's with windows on them that I want to dual boot. One is set to slave and the other to master, but they are both on the same IDE cable. The master drive is labled drive 0 on the IDE cable, and the slave drive is drive 1. I can't copy the lines from the slave drive's boot.ini into the master's because they are the same.

Thanks
 
So you should just have to add a line.

Under the one shown. It should read something like this:
multi (0) disk(1) rdisk (0) partition (1) \Windows="Microsoft Windows XP" /fastdetect

That should allow you to get the 2nd drive to be bootable.

Actually after checking you first post it seems that your boot.ini should work. But after reading your last post that the 2nd drive wasnt from this machine could be where the problem lies. Since it wasnt installed on this machine none of the system specs match. A different CPU, mobo, and the rest of the ahrdware could be causing conflict and stopping it from booting. Might have to do a repair install on it.
 
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