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dual boot using two hard drives

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mettis

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Posted July 5, 2011 at 10:31PM

can someone explain how to implement a dual boot i have main sata 1t with windows 7 installed and a second sata 250g on which i want to install windows xp mainly because grandkids fav games wont run in windows 7

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lotvic

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Posted July 5, 2011 at 11:11PM

I have W7 on one HDD and XP on a different HDD for the same reason - grandkids games

I don't dual boot though, I just have one HDD connected at a time. It means when grandkids come they can't mess up any of data on my W7 HDD as I disconnect it. Means I don't have to worry about what they are doing and I can happily leave them to it :)

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mettis

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Posted July 6, 2011 at 1:00AM

thanks lotvic this would certainly work but i wondered if there was a way to dual boot without having to unplug to disconnect main drive

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scotty

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Posted July 6, 2011 at 10:10AM

I have a system with XP and Linux operating in dual boot. GRUB is the bootloader used. I re-installed XP & linux when I upgraded to a larger disc. I left the old drive in the pc and now I have the option of booting into the new XP install, the original XP install or linux.

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lotvic

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Posted July 6, 2011 at 10:18AM

I think W7 has it's own boot manager already, but best to wait for someone who has got W7 and XP on a dual boot and knows how to do it.

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robinofloxley

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Posted July 6, 2011 at 10:49AM

I think this is a pretty good guide (from memory) link text

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boyans

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Posted July 6, 2011 at 10:52AM

You can install XP on the 250g.

Whatever system boots later Win 7 or XP after installation start it then download and install "Visual BCD Editor" from http://boyans.my3gb.com

It has a "Dual-boot Repair" tool - run it and click on "Automatic repair". This will make your system boot to Windows 7 by default. Reboot.

In Windows 7 you can use Visual BCD Editor add a second boot choice for XP. Right-click in the tree view and select "Create missing Windows loaders" and confirm.

Now you will have a dual-boot system Windows 7 with XP and Windows 7 boot environment will have control over the booting.

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retep888™

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Posted July 6, 2011 at 11:02AM

To play safe & make life easier

Get 2 of this Tray-Less SATA Hot-Swap caddy Click Here ,no need to worry for bios settings or boot manager .

Put both sata drives in the caddy and install XP on the new drive, leave the Win7 drive in the 5.25" bay for your normal use,only eject it & put in the XP drive when your grandchildren are around.

Although it's designed for hot-swap(to be inserted without shutting down), I'd prefer powering down first.

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woodchip

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Posted July 6, 2011 at 12:00PM

Hear you are, a Boot Manager

Click Hear

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Ashrich

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Posted July 6, 2011 at 11:16PM

As an alternative you can simply enter the bios at boot up , go to the boot menu and select which drive you wish to boot from , move it to the top , exit the bios and it will boot to the chosen drive .

 Ashley
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mettis

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Posted July 8, 2011 at 2:53PM

thanks to all who responded to this post.think i will take the advice of ashrich as this seems to be simplist solution.thanks again. mettis

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