Hello,

Hope this is the right placw to ask this question. I have XP on 2 seperate 250 gig SATA hard drives. Can't figure how to duel boot them. Any direction will be appreciated.

Thanks,
SunRunner.

you mean run two versions of xp on the same machine, or dual boot another operating system like linux or an older version of windows.

I'm sorry not to be clear. I have 2 hard drives on the same computer; both running windows xp pro. When I boot the machine I get my oringinal (1st) hard drive booting as c: drive. It shows my second hard drive as f: drive. I have to dissconnect my 1st drive to boot up my 2nd drive. They are both Sata drives with 250 gigs.

Thanks for your patience and interest.

Sunrunner.

well why do you need 2 drives with xp, is this like a sever or something, you can make the second drive the slave drive and that should only boot the first one, but you really dont need xp pro on both hd.

Well Mikeanddike22,

It's like this: I was having crashes on my original hdd. My games were crashing often as well as occasionally during normal use. Microsoft Error Reporting said it was due to my Lucent Modem Drivers, which were for windows 98. I upgraded to XP and started having trouble. I downloaded the newer drivers and software but the Installasheild wizard got hung up. Useing task manager to end the process I got a message telling me that the remote procedure call failed. The tech guys at the modem site told me I had to do a clean install of XP since it was a windows problem. No: I just went through a hdd wipe and install a month previous and was not about to repeat that so soon. I simply got another hard drive and installed Xp on that one as well and installed new modem drivers without a hitch. I will run my games and a few other things from that drive and do most of my other stuff on the original hdd since it doesn't crash all that much without playing games. Some day when I am in the mood and want to do the hdd wipe thing and reinstall everything again I may do so on the original hdd. So I thought dual booting may not be a bad idea. Do I need to rethink that thought?
Well there you have it, my latest book.

Thanks again for you ear (or eyes as the case may be),

SunRunner.

Do I need to rethink that thought?-----yes, this is not a technical question.
I have to dissconnect my 1st drive to boot up my 2nd drive.------i guess you didn't install your second os on the same boot system. you can check boot.inf file on first drive.

sorry, boot.ini, not boot.inf

Hello LLoyd,

I'm ignorant in this matter. If i'm understanding what I see, you are correct. Here is what I've got in Boot.ini:

[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" /fast detect /no execute=optin

So how do I correct the problem?

Thanks for replying,

SunRunner.

[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 Edition" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

I think you can do it like that not 100% so i would double check with someone else. Because i had to change this from one that was booting 2000 and xp so it could be different for booting 2 versions of xp, also not sure about if you just say xp pro or spell out professional.

i've found it easier to dual boot on just one hard drive, than 2. i think you just want to access your old XP system to try to repair it later, sounds like you're bored.