-=PCTechTalk=- Re: Dual Boot

(written after the message below was written)

After checking with Belarc, I see that Drive 0 is XP Home and Pro is Drive
1.

I thought it was the other way around.  This makes what I have written below
confusing.

At any rate, I would still like to get the option at boot, but if I can't
I'll live with for a while untill I just plain do away with Home.

Don
************************************************************************************************************






Note:  To avoid confusion, I will use Drive 0 (zero) and Drive 1 to identify
physical drives.  I will use Drive C: to identify the primary partition on
Drive 0 and Drive D: to identify the primary partition on Drive 1.

Default install on all occasions.  I did not try to customize.

The first time:

Windows XP Home was installed on drive 0: and Drive 1: was data only.

At a later point, XP Pro was installed on Drive 1.  During installation
Drive 1 was partitioned and the primary partition was formatted for the
install.  Other partitions were formatted later.

On reboot, the option to boot to Home or Pro was available, with Home the
default after a short delay.


The second time:

Drive 0 and Drive 1 are unchanged, with the OS still installed.

During install I deleted all partitions and left only a single primary
partition on Drive 1.  Install then did a full (not a quick) format, and the
install progressed as would be expected.

I just checked with BelArc and Drive 0 XP Home and Drive 1 is Pro.  This
confuses me, because I know I swapped the cables around to install Pro and I
was certain Home was on Drive 0 before the swap.  I did not swap them back.
SO....

I suspect that after the cable swap Drive 0 was XP Home and Drive 1 was the
install target.  I remember Install asking where to install it and was given
choices of all three hard drives.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "GMan" <gman.pctt@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <pctechtalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 12:30 AM
Subject: -=PCTechTalk=- Re: Dual Boot


> Don,
>    Can you describe what you did to install these two instances?  I'm
> especially interested in the state of the system prior to your last
> installation of Windows.  For instance,
>
> Was there only one OS on the entire system before you started installing
> the
> second OS?  This also includes a second drive or partition with an old,
> but
> no longer working install from the past.  If some old OS files were
> already
> on the second drive or partition, it may have overly confused the new
> Windows install.
>
> Did it take more than one attempt to get the second OS to install
> completely?  If so, the files that provide the menu may have been overtly
> overwritten.  You can test this by opening up the C:\boot.ini file to make
> sure there is more than one OS recorded.  The second OS will be shown by a
> line that reads similar to
> "multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="WinXP Pro [D]"" and it may
> have some switches (/noexecute=optin /fastdetect /usepmtimer) at the end
> of
> it.
>
> Did you choose the Custom Install option and then tell it that you wanted
> to
> choose the location of the second install?  If both of these options were
> not chosen, the second install most likely overwrote the first.  You can
> test this theory by opening up Windows Explorer and taking a strong look
> inside the D:\ drive (assuming this is where you would expect the second
> OS
> to reside)
>
> Peace,
> GMan



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