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Dual Boot on Two Physical SATA HD

Dual Boot on Two Physical SATA HD

Postby DMHRay » Fri Jan 09, 2009 12:29 am

Hello,

I have a 32-bit Vista ultimate on a SATA hard drive already working fine. I also have and additional SATA drive I plan to install on the same machine. The second drive already has an XP Pro installed on it and activated. Assuming that the second hard drive (XP) will be physically installed and can be seen by the Vista, how would I go about setting up a dual boot screen so that I would be able to choose which operating system to boot when the system is turned on. Please be as specific as you be. Thank you in advance.
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Re: Dual Boot on Two Physical SATA HD

Postby kd1966 » Fri Jan 09, 2009 12:38 am

You say the 2nd hard drive "already" has XP installed? Was XP installed BEFORE you added it to your new PC or when the 2nd hard drive was installed in PC you are adding it to?

If you installed XP onto the 2nd hard drive when it was in another PC, what you want to do won't work, as the installation of XP on that hard drive is tied to the hardware you installed it on, so XP will only work on that hard drive when it is plugged into the PC in which you installed XP
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Re: Dual Boot on Two Physical SATA HD

Postby yeshuas » Fri Jan 09, 2009 12:50 am

If both harddrives are from the same computer, but installed separately i.e you had each of them out of or otherwise disconnected at the time each OS was installed you can plug the XP one in and may use this guide

http://www.pronetworks.org/index.php/gu ... oot_to_xp/
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Re: Dual Boot on Two Physical SATA HD

Postby DMHRay » Fri Jan 09, 2009 2:30 am

Thank you for your replies. I guess I need to be a bit more clear:

The second hd (XP Pro) was unplugged from another computer. I have a valid XP license which I installed on the HD before I have to remove the HD. My current working machine has an active VISTA ultimate installed. If necessary, I would be able to reinstall XP from the original CD. Now the question is how would I be able to make both SATA hard drives co-exist inside my machine with each having a different OS (VISTA and XP) and be able to choose the OS at the start up time. Thank you
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Re: Dual Boot on Two Physical SATA HD

Postby yeshuas » Fri Jan 09, 2009 2:42 am

This will require you to reinstall XP but will work in your case, although you will need to skip some of the steps e.g. creating the partition on the Vista harddrive, since you will be installing it to the new harddrive. You will also need Vista Boot Pro software to make the changes easier.

http://www.pronetworks.org/index.php/gu ... ows_vista/
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Re: Dual Boot on Two Physical SATA HD

Postby DMHRay » Sun Jan 11, 2009 7:39 am

I tried the above guide and was unsuccessful to dual boot. I am sure I have made a mistake somewehre. I gave it up and removed the hard drive with XP. The current problem is that I cannot boot to vista. Tried the Recovery DVD with the repair option, no luck. When I start the computer the boot sequence does not move forward and all I see is a black screen with a blinking cursoe on the top left corner. I remember that I did made a back up of my BCD on a partition on my C drive. Question is how can I remove the VistaBoot PRO so that I can go back the original configuration. Thank you
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Re: Dual Boot on Two Physical SATA HD

Postby imnuts » Sun Jan 11, 2009 4:51 pm

Is the XP drive still out of your computer? It sounds like your system is set to boot off of that drive and all of the boot files reside there, and since it isn't there anymore, it won't boot. If you want to startup with just the Vista drive, you'll have to go into BIOS and change the primary boot hard drive to the one that currently has Vista on it.
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Re: Dual Boot on Two Physical SATA HD

Postby kd1966 » Sun Jan 11, 2009 7:51 pm

Something I have noticed on at least one of my systems that has IDE/SATA ports;

* If even ONE HDD is IDE and it is the "SYSTEM" drive (Or master if you will) no matter what you tell the BIOS for boot order, it will boot the IDE drive first - at least that is what I've seen

* If you ADD and IDE later to an all SATA HDD system, I have seen the IDE drive attempt to boot first, regardless of how you have the BIOS set up for boot order.

If BOTH of your drives are IDE or if they are both SATA, you should follow the PROnetworks guide mentioned above; if your two drives are a mix of IDE and SATA, depending on which OS is installed and is active/system drive, you have custom setup and we will need additional information on your specific setup.
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Re: Dual Boot on Two Physical SATA HD

Postby DMHRay » Tue Jan 13, 2009 12:00 am

Hello All,
Sorry for being late to provide a feedback.
I was finally able to get the Vista working by trying different things from the system repairs option of the Vista DVD. What worked for me was the the following command:
C:\Bootrec.exe /FixBoot
This was a relief to me.

As to the original issue:
I am sorry if I have to repeat myself:

Vista Ultimate 32 is currently installed on a SATA HD, working fine.
I have another SATA HD with XP Pro already installed. The OS was in good working condition before I unplugged the HD from my other machine. My goal is to have a dual boot system where by I would be able to choose between the two OSs. As of this moment, the Second SATA HD (XP Pro) is attached to the system and is visible in the My Computer but I have not touched it again since the above experience. When the system starts it goes directly to the Vista OS.

Therefore, the question still remains: How can I modify whatever I need to modify in order to have a dual boot. Remember: I have two separate physical SATA HDs currently attached to the machine. Thank you all for your support and feedbacks.
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Re: Dual Boot on Two Physical SATA HD

Postby JabbaPapa » Sat Feb 28, 2009 12:00 pm

I do not know if you are still following this topic, but one way to acheive that goal would be to do a "repair install" of XP, and then to run VistaBootPRO from XP to install the Vista boot loader and the proper boot path to that OS (and hard drive).
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