hi

i want to dual boot my pc with win xp and win2000 but do not know

how to do it.here are how my hard disks are installed :

IDE 1: primary master 80GB winxp

primary slave 3GB (want to install win 2k on it)

any help would be appreciated.

thanks

I think this is not a problem.

Suppose there is two hard disk say HDD1(primary) & HDD2(Secondary).

You can have dual boot by installing Win-2000 in HDD1 & Win-XP in HDD2.

But this will work only when both HDD1 & HDD2 is attached to system while installing Win-2000 & Win-XP.

Install Win2k first then WinXP.

is removing any OS results in trouble????

normaly not i think

There is NO problem in dual-booting 2k and XP.

The correct order is 2k first, XP second, as a rule of thumb, always install Operating System in the order they were released.

If you did it the other way round, you just need to copy on the root of first active partition the files NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM from XP.

Have a look at this:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=43748

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=33030

jaclaz

in fact what i really want is to be able to remove my 3gb HDD (win 2k)

at any time and still be able to use my other 80Gb in the meantime with winxp on it.

is this possible?

how to do it?

You can dual boot win2k and winxp, on installing them on any order.

you can even copy the ntldr and ntdetect.com via the $oem$ structure.

W

in fact what i really want is to be able to remove my 3gb HDD (win 2k)

at any time and still be able to use my other 80Gb in the meantime with winxp on it.

is this possible?

how to do it?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

But the boot files are on the 1st drive.

Why don't you just READ this post of mine, linked above:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=33030

and links?

To boot an NT OS (NT/2k/XP/2003) you need to have these files:

NTLDR

BOOT.INI

NTDETECT.COM

(and NTBOOTDD.SYS if machine has SCSI/SATA hard disks)

on the FIRST ACTIVE PARTITION of the FIRST DRIVE (boot drive).

The operating system can be installed (generally in /WINNT for NT/W2K and in /WINDOWS for XP/2003) in ANY PARTITION on ANY DRIVE, even in a LOGICAL VOLUME inside an EXTENDED partition.

In your case (I am assuming that you have a single primary Active partition, that will get letter "C" on the 80GB drive and a single active primary partition on the 3 GB one, that will get letter "D") :

1) Boot from the win2k CD

2) Install Win2k onto D:\WINNT

3) Boot from the WINXP CD

4) Install XP on C:\WINDOWS

DONE!

You will have two choices at boot time, Windows XP or Windows 2000.

If you have more than these partitions things are a bit more complicated but still easy doable.

Please READ these also:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=25127

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=35329

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=33964

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=23484

jaclaz