Poorman's Duel Boot

[RackheadPC]

Has anyone tried this yet...I have two master Hard drives with an OS on each and a slave drive. I want to use a four pole 2 Position switch to supply power to only one of the master drives and not the other. This way I will be able to boot to the drive I chose by simply supplying power to it and not to the other. The problem is switching the IDE cable.

The question is can I use a 4 connector IDE cable so all the drives are always connected???

I think that as long as only one master drive is powered up... my computer will not know the difference.

 

The other IDE channel is being used by a CDRW and a DVD.

[Propane]

you could just use lilo... its free so i guess its the real poor mans dual boot

[sYstEmATiC]

an easier way top go about that would be to set one as master and the others a slave.....then when u want to boot into a different drive, go into the bios and select that drive as the primary boot device.

[Nerm]

an easier way top go about that would be to set one as master and the others a slave.....then when u want to boot into a different drive, go into the bios and select that drive as the primary boot device.

wouldn't that work better if they were all set to CS instead of on master and the rest slave?

[bishop245]

wouldn't that work better if they were all set to CS instead of on master and the rest slave?

yes it would but going with a boot loader like lilo is still the best answer

[RackheadPC]

I could go into the Bios each time or use cable select...I am currently using a swap out drive tray... I just think the easiest thing to do flip a switch and be done with it. The Trios drive selector seams to be an option, but a friend of mine has had problems with it and he gave up on it. Besides, I think the company is out of business.

Anyways I going to give it a try.

I have accidentally connected a hard drive to my system without power and there were no ill effects and the IDE cable Connects both hard drives, pip for pin. So it should work fine???

I will let everyone know how it turns out.

Thanks

[yatstv]

just have them on cable select, then when the computer starts up, u will have a choice of which install of XP u want to boot from. you can dual boot using XP i did it.

 

i took my empty HDD round my brother in laws cause his xp went wrong. so i installed XP on my HDD so i could boot from it to get all his pictures and important work stuff off his HDD and put it to mine. then i formatted his HDD and installed windows on his HDD, then put all his stuff back to his HDD, (cause i obdviousley could access both drives in windows).

 

everytime i had to reboot after installing hardware i could choose either his version of XP, or mine. so XP can be installed on BOTH DRIVES, and both be bootable.

 

VERRY IMPORTANT. IF YOU ARE INSTALLING XP ON BOTH DRIVES.

 

1. INSTALL XP ON ONE DRIVE WITH THE BLANK ONE REMOVED. IDE CABLE AND POWER.

2. THEN INSTALL ALL YOUR HARDWARE.

3. THEN UNPLUG THAT DRIVE. IDE AND POWER. AND PLUG IN THE BLANK ONE ( INTO THE SAME IDE CABLE IF U WISH, BUT USE THE SECOND CONNECTION ON IT.)

4. INSTALL XP AND HARDWARE.

5. LEAVING THAT DRIVE IN, CONNECT THE FIRST HDD IN THE FIRST IDE CONNECTION AND BOOT UP.

 

now u can boot from either version of xp with your hardware on either. thats why u have to remove the hdd's for each install if not you would have an xp with your hardware on it, and the other xp wouldnt have any hardware to recognise.

REMEMBER TO TURN OFF PC WHEN SWITCHING HDD'S. OBDVIOUSLEY.

I HAVE DONE IT SO IT DOES WORK!!!!

Edited July 12, 2004 by yatstv

[ravix]

I'm with a couple others, why not save the trouble and go with lilo or grub? A dual-boot system is pretty dang easy to configure now-days. There should be no hardware tweaks involved..