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Author Topic: Dual boot  (Read 4807 times)

Offline daveeb

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Dual boot
« on: April 28, 2004, 15:19 »
The latest thing (of many) i don't understand in the wonderful world of pc's is if i can boot my pc with different operating systems installed on physically different drives. I currently have ME on my master drive. Would it be possible to install XP to my slave drive and selectively boot from either.

And if it is possible, how do i do it  :P ::)
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Offline joudi

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Re:Dual boot
« Reply #1 on: April 28, 2004, 15:56 »
Certainly Dave. I did that already on my PC since more than a year. And, it's not complicated at all to do it.

All what you have to do now is, to install the XP on the second drive (attentiion: It must be on the slave drive, not the master). That means that you can leave your ME as it is (on the master).

While you start the installation of XP, take the option which tells that you "want to choose the installation partion and drive by yourself" , (not default, and not automatical installation).

Later, everytime, it reboots by giving you automatically both options of what OS you want to boot. Then you can choose the one which you want. During about 30 seconds, If you don't select one of them to boot, it'll boot from the master drive, "Windows ME" (in your case) by default.
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Offline Sandra

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Re:Dual boot
« Reply #2 on: April 28, 2004, 16:20 »
Nice explanation Joudi, clear and concise  :)

One thing to bear in mind Dave is that if you dual boot then you have to have all the programs that you want to use with both OSs installed, ie AV and firewall etc, on both OSs also if you want your ME os to access data on your XP os drive then you need to format the XP drive in FAT 32 not NTFS  :)
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Offline daveeb

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Re:Dual boot
« Reply #3 on: April 28, 2004, 17:16 »
Thanks sandra and joudi thats great news. the slave is already formatted in fat32 (i think) and currently only holds video files.  will there be a problem installing an os onto a disc that is currently 2/3 full (80 gigs out of 120).

i realise all the programs i use must be duplicated but its easier than wiping my ME drive then finding some things won't work with xp.   ::)
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Offline Sandra

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Re:Dual boot
« Reply #4 on: April 28, 2004, 17:54 »
I think you had better use partition magic to create a new partition for it to install to Dave, otherwise it could mess up your existing files  :(
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Offline daveeb

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Re:Dual boot
« Reply #5 on: April 28, 2004, 19:45 »
Sandra i assume i can partition it with data already on it ?? and assuming i can what would be a sensible size for it (enough for it to work properly with a bit to spare) :P
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Offline Sandra

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Re:Dual boot
« Reply #6 on: April 28, 2004, 21:08 »
Yes Partition Magic will create a partition without losing any data Dave.
If you have enought then something like 15 gig should be enough, I am just spliiting a 60 gig drive to use as the boot drive on my server and as I will have a 160 gig as a storage drive I am doing it at 25 gig for the boot drive but thats probably more than it needs if you manage your downloads properly.
XP has a nasty habit of wanting to store everything by default into C:\Documents and Settings\Your username and it can soon fill it up as well as having long paths to the data that you are looking for.
I try not to have anything but programs installed to C: and move everything else such as MSN Received Files and My Docs etc off to another drive or partition  :)
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Offline daveeb

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Re:Dual boot
« Reply #7 on: April 28, 2004, 21:37 »
Thankee Sandra  :-*
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Offline Tony

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Re:Dual boot
« Reply #8 on: April 28, 2004, 22:58 »
I have a 30 and a 40GB drives, both have Cdrive partitions. And like Sandra I only have OS and Programs on the C: Partition, the rest of "My personaly imputed Data" [is imputed a real word  ::)] is split between various partitions. My C:Partitions are 8.34GB in size with 4.14GB used, and I have a rake of progs on it. Like 521MB in MS XP Office Pro to name but one.
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Offline Michelle

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Re:Dual boot
« Reply #9 on: April 29, 2004, 16:45 »
Trying to follow this thread as I wanted to Partition my drive to put xp on,  on Tony's advice.

I was worried for a while there that my hard drive was too full or to small its only 30GB and I only have 10GB's free. So I can still do it then and how much should I partition do you think?

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Offline Sandra

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Re:Dual boot
« Reply #10 on: April 29, 2004, 17:09 »
You havent a lot there Mchelle  :(
Xp will install on a couple of gigs but I wouldnt put it on anything under about 8 gig preferably 10 or more.
Can you not free up some more of your drive and use the 10 gig as an XP drive ?
Partition Magic and programs like that need space to work in as well so you may have problems creating and resizing partitions.
If you can then try it at around the maximum you can get it at and dont forget to format it in FAT 32 when installing XP  :)
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Offline Tony

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Re:Dual boot
« Reply #11 on: April 29, 2004, 18:58 »
You have used 20Gig.......on what Shell!!!!!! mind you I reckon women fill their PC's like they fill their wardrobes. Full of stuff they never use, I reckon Lona's PC will be full of stuff she never use's either. ;D

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Offline Michelle

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Re:Dual boot
« Reply #12 on: April 29, 2004, 20:35 »
Thanks sandra, so the aim is to free up some space first then ;)


Quote from: Tony on April 29, 2004, 18:58

You have used 20Gig.......on what Shell!!!!!! mind you I reckon women fill their PC's like they fill their wardrobes. Full of stuff they never use, I reckon Lona's PC will be full of stuff she never use's either. ;D




:lol:

Well I've just gone through and uninstalled some of my sons games and I gained 1 gig so thats a start I have 11 free now, and its really only 27gb I had so its only 16gb's full  ;)

I can't think what that is though, there's a few MP3's and alot of pics that could prob go on disc.

Or I could just buy a new hard drive  ::)  ;D

How much would that cost! :lol:

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Offline Sandra

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Re:Dual boot
« Reply #13 on: April 29, 2004, 21:20 »
A new hard drive as a slave with XP installed to it is the best way to dual boot Michelle if you can afford it.
They are ridiculously cheap now compared to what they were a few years back, especially for the larger capacity ones.
I bought a 160 gig 7,200 rpm Seagate Barracuda with 8mbs cache on tuesday for £69  :)
Actually I got it a bit cheaper than that as I bought some more stuff which totalled £89 and they knocked a tenner off for me and only charged me £79  :)
Ebuyer has some smaller drives on at around the £30 upwards mark  :)
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Offline Michelle

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Re:Dual boot
« Reply #14 on: April 29, 2004, 21:31 »
Quote from: Sandra on April 29, 2004, 21:20

A new hard drive as a slave with XP installed to it is the best way to dual boot Michelle if you can afford it.
They are ridiculously cheap now compared to what they were a few years back, especially for the larger capacity ones.
I bought a 160 gig 7,200 rpm Seagate Barracuda with 8mbs cache on tuesday for £69  :)
Actually I got it a bit cheaper than that as I bought some more stuff which totalled £89 and they knocked a tenner off for me and only charged me £79  :)
Ebuyer has some smaller drives on at around the £30 upwards mark  :)



oooh I wanna do that, its not as expensive as I thought then!! I wonder how much the bloke in the computer shop would charge to do that for me.

oh now look what you've started! :lol:

When is payday??
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