Booting from second hard drive - Printable Version
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Booting from second hard drive by alegator on 12-03-2006 at 10:45 PM
Say I have two hard drives in my PC. The first (main drive) with WinXP Pro and the 2nd drive with another OS installed. How can boot the PC from the 2nd drive? I tried changing the boot sequence in the BIOS, but it only shows the main drive (of course it also shows the floppy, CD drive, etc). And of course I know I can do this by physically replacing the main drive with the 2nd drive, but I'm looking for a way of doing it without having to connect/reconnect cables.
RE: Booting from second hard drive by xJ + on 12-03-2006 at 11:17 PM
When you have boot the OS on your first Hard disk,
go to
(in category view of control panel)
control panel > performance and maintanence > system
(in Classic View of control panel)
control panel > system
When you reached system
click on Advance
Under Startup and Recovery, click on settings
Under system startup choose your default operating system.
In this way, you will boot the other OS on the second hard disk
RE: Booting from second hard drive by RaceProUK on 12-03-2006 at 11:34 PM
quote:Which will stop Windows from booting (it has to be on the first hard disk).
Originally posted by alegator
of course I know I can do this by physically replacing the main drive with the 2nd drive
What is the other OS, by the way?
quote:That only lists versions of Windows. It's of no use when dual-booting with Linux, *BSD or anything non-Microsoft.
Originally posted by xJ +
Under system startup choose your default operating system.
RE: Booting from second hard drive by alegator on 12-04-2006 at 12:07 AM
quote:So say I follow these steps and I indicate the OS corresponding to the 2nd hard drive and I restart, will then the PC boot from the 2nd HD? And if then I want to revert back to booting from the 1st main drive, what should I do?
Originally posted by xJ +
When you have boot the OS on your first Hard disk,
go to
(in category view of control panel)
control panel > performance and maintanence > system
(in Classic View of control panel)
control panel > system
When you reached system
click on Advance
Under Startup and Recovery, click on settings
Under system startup choose your default operating system.
In this way, you will boot the other OS on the second hard disk
quote:Ok, the situation is this: I have two separate physical hard drives. In the 1st hard drive I have WinXP Pro SP2 (currently running my PC). I have a 2nd hard drive that I will connect to the IDE controller as 2nd internal hard drive in my PC. This 2nd hard drive has Win98 installed. So, will xJ's instructions work to be able to boot the PC from the 2nd drive? And will it work for any other Microsoft OS like Win2003, Win2000, Win Vista, etc? Thanks.
Originally posted by RaceProUK
quote:Which will stop Windows from booting (it has to be on the first hard disk).
Originally posted by alegator
of course I know I can do this by physically replacing the main drive with the 2nd drive
What is the other OS, by the way?
quote:That only lists versions of Windows. It's of no use when dual-booting with Linux, *BSD or anything non-Microsoft.
Originally posted by xJ +
Under system startup choose your default operating system.
RE: Booting from second hard drive by xJ + on 12-04-2006 at 12:31 AM
quote:It should work.
Originally posted by alegator
will xJ's instructions work to be able to boot the PC from the 2nd drive?
quote:Like what RaceProUK said, only Microsoft OS will only be listed. Hence, yes, it should work for other Microsoft OS.
Originally posted by alegator
And will it work for any other Microsoft OS like Win2003, Win2000, Win Vista, etc?
RE: RE: Booting from second hard drive by alegator on 12-04-2006 at 12:37 AM
quote:And if then I want to revert back to booting from the 1st main drive, what should I do? Is there any risk associated with this procedure, like making a drive permanently non-bootable?
Originally posted by xJ +
quote:It should work.
Originally posted by alegator
will xJ's instructions work to be able to boot the PC from the 2nd drive?
quote:Like what RaceProUK said, only Microsoft OS will only be listed. Hence, yes, it should work for other Microsoft OS.
Originally posted by alegator
And will it work for any other Microsoft OS like Win2003, Win2000, Win Vista, etc?
RE: Booting from second hard drive by xJ + on 12-04-2006 at 12:57 AM
quote:Simply use back the same method.
Originally posted by alegator
And if then I want to revert back to booting from the 1st main drive, what should I do? Is there any risk associated with this procedure, like making a drive permanently non-bootable?
Long-term switching from 1st drive to 2nd drive and back to 1st drive and vice versa may cause some conflict in the system.
RE: Booting from second hard drive by Woraug on 12-04-2006 at 07:56 AM
I've been considering doing something like this for dual booting Ubuntu. I wanna have it on a totally separate drive, but I want to be able to select which OS I'm booting to when I start up, as if I had them both on my primary drive.
RE: RE: Booting from second hard drive by alegator on 12-04-2006 at 10:30 AM
quote:Well, the best thing then is to switch the IDE ribbon cable from one drive to the other whenever necessary...
Originally posted by xJ +
quote:Simply use back the same method.
Originally posted by alegator
And if then I want to revert back to booting from the 1st main drive, what should I do? Is there any risk associated with this procedure, like making a drive permanently non-bootable?
Long-term switching from 1st drive to 2nd drive and back to 1st drive and vice versa may cause some conflict in the system.
RE: Booting from second hard drive by Eddie on 12-04-2006 at 11:10 AM
Would it be anything to do with the drive being a slave or something like that 
sorry. just querying really.
RE: Booting from second hard drive by alegator on 12-04-2006 at 12:47 PM
What about this program? Has anyone tested it?
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/dis.../multibooting.html
RE: Booting from second hard drive by MeEtc on 12-04-2006 at 12:52 PM
post your boot.ini as an attachment, and I should be able to edit it to suit your needs
RE: Booting from second hard drive by andrewdodd13 on 12-04-2006 at 01:27 PM
You could use something like GRUB or whatever, however I've never personally tried installing GRUB with Windows. I also think you can change the cable-select on the second drive to master, although I realise this is by no way a permanent solution.
RE: RE: Booting from second hard drive by alegator on 12-04-2006 at 02:38 PM
quote:Thanks, but I'd rather not mess with system files.
Originally posted by MeEtc
post your boot.ini as an attachment, and I should be able to edit it to suit your needs