Re: Re: Rehash of XP Dual Boot across two physical HDD - Help Please (esp: Timothy Daniels)

On Mon, 28 May 2007 10:53:54 -0300, John John <audetweld@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Jethro wrote:

Hi all -

I found this thread dealing with dual booting which I have been
wanting to do simpler. I have two hard drives (Primary Master and
Primary Slave), both containing XP OS, but with different data and
apps.

Without going into why I want to boot a drive of choice, when I do it
I always make the choice in the BIOS, and except for the careful
choosing of the BIOS changes I have to make, it has done the job for
me.

I saw that Mr Daniels suggested:


2) Boot.ini menu - Your boot.ini file (at C:\boot.ini - which you may have to
unhide to view).

[clip]

Using Notepad, add another entry under "[boot loader]" with the
argument to rdisk being "1" instead of "0", and change the number of
seconds for the timeout to be something like 10 seconds. Thus, the
boot.ini for dual-boot would look like:

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="WinXP1" /noexecute=optin
/fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS="WinXP2" /noexecute=optin
/fastdetect

With this form of the boot.ini file on both HD's "active" partitions, it doesn't
matter
which HD is at the head of the HD Boot Order list - either one will have a
dual-boot
menu for you to choose one or the other OS to boot. Just remember that
"rdisk(0)"
designates the HD at the head of the list, and "rdisk(1)" designates the 2nd HD
in
the list.


I tried what Mr Daniels suggests, but I cannot boot up from drive two,
Boot from drive one remains okay. I get to choose which drive at
boot-up. but drive two produces this error message right off:

Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware
configuration problem.
Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk
hardware.
Please check the Windows documentation [clip].

I had changed my BIOS.INI file thus:
[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 DISK 1" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional DISK 2" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

This surprised me since drive two will boot up okay if selected via
the BIOS.

So what do you guys think? Did I miss something?

I would appreciate some help here.

Try this:

[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 DISK 1" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional DISK 2" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

John

Aw jeeze! I got the (1) in the wrong place, and didn't see the
error. Remind me to shop for a new brain.

Thanks

Jethro
.

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