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2 physical hard drives, 4 OS

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2 physical hard drives, 4 OS

Postby moviememe » Tue Jul 27, 2010 5:32 pm

Hi,
made it over my first hurdle by reinstalling XP on one HD, Win 7 on a second. I couldn't find a guide that quite does what I'm trying to accomplish.

My goal is two installs of XP(same key) and two installs of Win 7(same key).

What is the best practice for achieving this goal?

Drive one Drive two
XP/XP win 7/win 7

or

Drive one Drive two
xp/win 7 xp/win 7

and what sequence
xp, xp, win 7 win 7
or
xp, win 7, xp, win 7


and where should I install dualbootpro to manage all this OS goodness?

thanks,
Gavin
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Re: 2 physical hard drives, 4 OS

Postby augie » Tue Jul 27, 2010 6:33 pm

Same key? Unless it's multi licensed discs, you won't be able to activate. Installing w/o a key will give you a month I believe before they die. If you don't have a multi license then this is illegal.
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Re: 2 physical hard drives, 4 OS

Postby moviememe » Tue Jul 27, 2010 8:29 pm

Hi,
I went through this before with Microsoft with xp on two physical hds on one computer, talked to their activation center and they approved my request. What you can't do is install the same Xp key on two different computers. In my first instance, both xp and win 7OS are going onto their own same physical hard drive and in all instances the installs are entirely on the same physical machine.

That being said, the thought did occur Microsoft might refuse as I haven't tried it with Win 7.

Some of the guides mention mirroring which is another work around and I can always buy more keys.

So with that in mind, what is the best practice for getting two installs of xp and two installs of win 7 onto one computer.

Thanks,
Gavin
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Re: 2 physical hard drives, 4 OS

Postby NT50 » Wed Jul 28, 2010 2:42 pm

I would XP/XP then Win 7/Win7. I have accomplish several dual boots on my system. I install XP on 1st drive, unplug it, then install Visat-Win87 on 2nd drive. That way both hard drives are totally independant form each other. I then plug both drives back and make the Win7 the bootable drive. Copy the boot.ini, ntldr, NTDETECT to the root of the system partition, edit the boot.ini if needed and then use DualBootPro to add the entries.

Warning. Don't use Win7 to create your partition. It will create that 100meg hidden partition that is a pain in buttt tot work with on dual boots.
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Re: 2 physical hard drives, 4 OS

Postby moviememe » Wed Jul 28, 2010 5:19 pm

Hi,
I think I've got the basic out-line, but I'm still unsure about the specific steps

1. format and partition both drives. Can I do this with Vista and not create a hidden drive?
2. plug in drive one with drive two unattached.
3. install xp on both partitions on drive one. Unplug drive one.
4. plug in drive two and install win 7 on both partitions.
5. plug in drive one and two, sacrifice goat.
6. in bios set second drive to first boot, let computer launch windows 7.
7. copy the boot.ini, ntldr, NTDETECT from the first drive with xp onto the root of the second drive with win 7.
8. Install dualbootpro, buy second goat.

On step 4, am I better off with one install on Win 7 and then bringing in both installs of xp, before installing the second version of win 7?
Or am I better off following this guide http://www.dualbootpro.org/index.php/si ... _windows_7

with one install of xp, get that working in dualbootpro, then unplug the second drive, install the second xp, and then plug in the second drive, get that working, and then install the second install of win 7.

It seems what is attached and when is key to getting this to work.

thanks,
Gavin


NT50 wrote: I install XP on 1st drive, unplug it, then install Visat-Win87 on 2nd drive. That way both hard drives are totally independant form each other. I then plug both drives back and make the Win7 the bootable drive. Copy the boot.ini, ntldr, NTDETECT to the root of the system partition, edit the boot.ini if needed and then use DualBootPro to add the entries.

Warning. Don't use Win7 to create your partition. It will create that 100meg hidden partition that is a pain in buttt tot work with on dual boots.
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Re: 2 physical hard drives, 4 OS

Postby NT50 » Wed Jul 28, 2010 6:47 pm

install XP/XP on 1 hard drive.

plug in sceond hard drive with XP/XP drive plugged in and install Win7. Automatic setup boot menu.
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Re: 2 physical hard drives, 4 OS

Postby moviememe » Fri Jul 30, 2010 8:40 pm

Hi,
and a big thanks. You method of xp installs, attach second hd install second set of win 7 worked like a charm. Activated windows and thanks to the help here have I already sidestepped a couple of hardware conflicts that got this madness going in the first place.

I have yet to install dualbootpro, however, so I'm wondering if I am better off installing it on my xp or win 7 install.(the ones I'm not using for test purposes. I'm assuming you really only want to install this on one OS. :pc

If I do have to reinstall either of my test installs, dualbootpro can handle that.

thanks for the help, I think I'm actually going to get to use this thing today.

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Re: 2 physical hard drives, 4 OS

Postby NT50 » Sat Jul 31, 2010 4:59 pm

Why don't you install DualBootPro on all instances of Windows :)
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Re: 2 physical hard drives, 4 OS

Postby moviememe » Sun Aug 01, 2010 6:06 pm

Hi,
I would have thought 4 installs of dualbootpro would create a boot load conflict. If it is safe to have dual boot on each install, that would be ideal.

The guides seem to indicate one install of dualbootpro per machine only.

I have legacy hardware that doesn't work with win 7 Pro's xp legacy mode or win 7 itself; the ability to change the boot order from whatever OS is running would be great.

Thanks,
Gavin
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Re: 2 physical hard drives, 4 OS

Postby NT50 » Mon Aug 02, 2010 2:23 am

you can install it on your computer in all instance or you OSs
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