2 OS on 2 hard drives

[nudexp]

Hi ... I could use the help of the pros , What I want to do is install xp pro and 2000 pro on the same computer on 2 hard drives , At the moment I have a 6gb hard drive and 120gb hard drive , I want to boot off the 2000 disk format the 6 gb hard drive and install 2000 afterward boot off the xp disk , format the drive and also partition this 120 gb into 2 drive >> D drive 20gb , P drive 100 gb , Install xp on the d drive and everything else will be on my P drive , Is this the correct way of going about it ? Thanks

Edited December 24, 2005 by nudexp

[Mr Snrub]

I would approach it this way:

- boot off the W2K CD

- format the primary 6GB disk as NTFS

- create the 20GB and 100GB partitions on the secondary disk

- install W2K on the primary disk

- boot into W2K after installation completes, use Disk Management to format the 20GB and 100GB partitions as NTFS, assign P: to the 100GB partition

- boot of the XP CD and install on the 20GB partition

Now you have a dual-booting W2K/XP setup using C: and D:, with a common P: drive.

Personally, I would split the 120GB disk into 40/80, but that is because I tend to use large installable products that like to reside on the system drive.

Be aware that local user accounts created in W2K will not be resolvable when booted into XP, and vice versa - so when you assign permissions on the P: volume you will need to put both in, and the "other" OS users will appear as GUIDs when you view the security tab.

[nudexp]

Hi Mr Snrub ... Sounds good to me your suggestion , I thought I had to boot off the xp disk and format the other drive for it to work dual boot , I didn't know I can just do as your suggestion , Thanks for the tip

[nudexp]

Hi ... I am having one problem at the moment , What I have done was set up the size of the 3 drives , I am using all of the 6gb hard drive as slave and the bigger hard drive into 2 partition 20 /100 as master , When I click the " enter " to start the set up for 2000 and its set at the moment on the 6 gb slave drive it redirect to the d drive and this what comes on the screen afterward , Because d drive is bigger then 2000 mb , set up will format the drive with the FAT32 file system ...

Files stored on the drive will not be available when using other operating systems, such as MS-DOS or or some versions of Microsoft Windows...

Is this because I have the smaller HDD set as slave and trying to use this HDD with the c drive ? Or why is this happening ?

Thanks !

[Mr Snrub]

Yes, because your D: drive is the master disk it needs to be involved in the boot process.

If you continue through that step you should be prompted to select a file system format for the C: partition, FAT32 or NTFS - this is where you select NTFS.

When you come to install XP on D: you should be able to change the file system on D: to NTFS.

[nudexp]

Ok then , Does the D drive need to be the master ? Can it be set up in the slave instead ?

Thanks

[Mr Snrub]

There should be no problem with what you are doing I think, I just emulated your setup in VMWare using W2K and XP and got the same prompt.

Configured the disk partitions in the order:

slave disk - 6GB (100%) - becomes C:

master disk - 20GB (16.66%) - becomes D:

master disk - 100GB (83.33%) - becomes E:

Installed W2K on C:, got prompted that D: format needed to be FAT32, continued through W2K installation.

Rebooted with XP CD in the drive, selected to install on D:, selected to change file system to NTFS, continued through XP installation.

Disk Management in either OS can be used to format the 100GB partition as NTFS and assign the letter P: to it.

You could set up the 120GB disk as the master but I don't think there would be much functional difference - if in the long run you intend to phase out W2K then it would make more sense to do that, and also to have XP installed on the 20GB partition as C:, though.

[nudexp]

Thanks Mr Snrub ... I now have the system up and running with both OS , Everything seem to be working just right , Thanks !!!

PS : Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all ....