Re: in lieu of swapping out hard drives

Tech-Archive recommends: Fix windows errors by optimizing your registry

R. McCarty wrote:

Multiboot has one inherent problem associated with it - Drive
lettering. I just worked on a PC that had Windows XP 32-bit
and XP-64. The user wanted to expand the 32-bit instance of
XP and tried to use Partition Magic. The eventual outcome was
a mess. I was finally able to restore 32-bit XP to being bootable
but all kinds of lettering issues appeared since it (32-bit) was on
Drive K:\ in the multi-boot scenario. Registry keys held the K:\
designation where the drive now functions as C:\.

Whenever I need access to older OS'es, I just use Virtual PC
and load which ever OS I need. However, the external SATA
drives are bootable so if I need to test something like Windows
Home Server I can use one of the external SATA drives and
turn off the two internal drives. ( Hiding them while working on
the externals ). The additional benefit of SATA is the performance
equals the speed of internal drives ( ~88 Meg-per-Second ).
My external SATA drives aren't eSATA ( Different connector )
but the traditional "L" type connection hosted by a DMI PCI
expansion card.


"C.Joseph S. Drayton" <csdcs@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:47a0f4f2$0$90268$14726298@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Timothy Daniels wrote:

"Anna" wrote:
Naturally we would hope this capability would extend to
laptops/notebooks in general, not just to HP models.


You can certainly add me to the list of keenly interested
people. I was seriously interested in buying and pairing a
Dell XPS laptop with an SIIG eSATA ExpressCard until
my calls to their tech support reps today which incidcated
it couldn't be done with their products. I think I'll be on the
phone to HP and Addonics for a while tomorrow! :-)

I may be reduced to imaging the OS onto eSATA-connected
external SATA drives instead of cloning the OS. That is,
using the external SATA drive as just a data storage medium
rather than as a directly booting OS medium.

*TimDaniels*

Hi Tim,

I really don't know what to recommend to folks. When I bought the
dv8100cto, size and price were not an issue, so I just looked for
the machine that seemed the most extensible.

When I got the Mapower, I was mainly looked for rugged/price point.
As to the Addonics, I had a client who was using one and I figured
since I had played with it on his machine and it appeared to work
fine I wouold give it a try.

I do know that I have upgraded the BIOS on this machine twice and I
have noticed that all the description o the HP web page of the
upgrade does not always say EVERYTHING that it upgrades. Of course
one should be careful about BIOS upgrades, but since I have a 3
year accidental damage plan with HP I don't really worry about it.

I'm curious though . . . a couple of people on this thread have
'seemed' to imply that having an external bootable device would be
preferrable to a multi-boot and I was wondering what the reasoning
behind that is?

--
C.Joseph Drayton, Ph.D. AS&T

CSD Computer Services
Web site: http://csdcs.tlerma.com/
E-mail: csdcs@xxxxxxxxxx

The drive order problem occurs because people don't pull the extra
drives. When I set up my dv8100cto, I pulled the secondary drive
completely. Made the partition to hold Windows2000pe and installed it.
I then created the partition for WindowsXPpe and installed it. Then I
let the Ubuntu CD take the rest of the drive for Ubuntu.

My Windows2000pe is [C], WindowsXPpe is [D]. I then put the secondary
hard disk back in and used 'Computer Management' to put the partitions
in the second drive in order as well as make my DVD-RW the next drive
and my 2 MagicDiscs as the 2 letters following.

If you have all the drives connect when you do the install you will of
course end up with all kinds of wierd lettering systems.

--

C.Joseph Drayton, Ph.D. AS&T

CSD Computer Services
Web site: http://csdcs.tlerma.com/
E-mail: csdcs@xxxxxxxxxx
.

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