Re: Getting rid of dual boot setup?
From: Timothy Daniels (TDaniels_at_NoSpamDot.com)
Date: 12/23/04
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Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 11:34:19 -0800
"William R Trudeau" wrote in part:
>
> I made a "parallel" install of XP PRO as a safety measure
> (I.e., instead of wiping out C: and making a fresh install
> on C:) bcs of other disks the parallel install was assigned
> the letter F:.
>
> I realize now that I should have hidden the C: partition or
> disconnected the HD (since C: is in fact on another HD)
> so as to make my fresh install independent.
>
> But, as you correctly point out, the boot.ini files etc. reside
> on C: .....
> [.........]
> 2) Do the boot files HAVE to reside on C: or is it possible
> to have a system were C: is all data files with F: (or some
> other letter) containing the boot files at its root? (I ask the
> above w/o reference to a 3rd party boot loader)
You can have a system with multiple hard drives, each
with several WinXPs, and each bootable independently
of the other hard drives and other OSes. I have such a
system. It has 3 hard drives with 6 WinXP Pros installed
in 6 partitions, and each can be booted whether or not
the others are visible. What you need are MBRs on each
hard drive and boot files (i.e. boot.ini, ntldr, and ntdetect.com)
on each partition that contains an OS. The hard drive at
the head of the BIOS's boot sequence gets control at its
MBR. The MBR looks for the partition marked "active" on
that hard drive. The "active" partition gets control at its ntldr,
which then looks at the boot.ini file next to it get the boot
menu that it presents on the screen. None of the partitions
need be called "C:", or *all* the OSes can call themselves
"C:" when they start up. If allowed to see each other at
start-up, they merely consider each other file structures,
and files can be dragged-'n-dropped from one partition
to another.
Pegasus can tell you how to set that up.
*TimDaniels*
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