Installing PCI cards under dual/multi boot

I have several questions.

Facts:
(1) I have partitioned my SATA 250gb with 3 primary and 1 extended drives.

(2) I've clean installed the same XP Home in each primary drive.
(Primary C: is my very first xp install which was activated last summer, and after repartitioning the drive, it was put back from a ghost image...
primary D: and primary E: were just done yesterday; haven't tried activation yet.)

(3) Want to install a PCI TV Tuner card on C:... and NOT on D: and E:

Questions:
(1) Is it better to put each os install inside a primary drive, or is it better to have one in a primary and the other two in logical drives?
Or does it matter?

(2) Has anyone had experience trying to reactivate the same XP Home when putting it on more than one drive in the same m/c?

(3) Is it possible to install the PCI card on C: only, and not on D: and E:?
If so, can the New Hardware Found be stopped on D: and E:?

Thanks for all your help!
roxe

ps: I'm a 66yo grandma and LOVE my computer and all the stuff I try doing with it

 

Actually, that only applies to Win9x and earlier systems. NT, 2k, and XP will boot quite well from a Logical partition. Linux also has that ability.

I have run multiple copies of XP for years but I only installed it once. The other copies are created by disk imaging the original. They work fine on Logical drives. Activation will not be triggered by doing this since it all runs on the same computer.

I can think of one instance where it would be nice to have multiple systems - let's say you had some Grandchildren that loved to play games on your computer. You could boot them to their own system and install and play their little hearts out without corrupting or changing your own system in any way.

Another time is when testing software that will likely be removed later. This relieves the prime system of all the orphaned Registry entries and such.

Then of course you could run a system without any Hotpatches just to compare it to a fully patched/bloated system.

Of course each will have to wrestle their own conscience as to the EULA implication.

HTH

 

Hi PeteC
Hi surferdude2

Thanks so much for your replies.

PeteC... I have picky software that don't like each other... that's why the three installs.

I found out by accident that XP will install into a logical drive. While installing I'd made an 8mb C: drive and then a 10gb D: drive without specifying whether primary or logical. When I booted up, the C drive was primary and the D drive was logical.

BTW, what all does M$ do when activating?
...looks at all the partitions on a drive??
...notes the serial number of the drive?
...what else?

surferdude2, you mention using your images on other drives than the letter it was installed on... is that correct? Didn't you need to change all those original drive letters in the registry to match the drive letter you put it on? How did you work that?

I appreciate so much all your ideas and suggestions, it really gets my mind going... and at my age, I can use all the mind-exercise I can get

roxe

 

FWIW, surferdude is absolutely correct. I've been running XP on a logical partition on this system for 4 yrs now. No problems at all. I believe you still need at least one primary partition for the boot files to reside on. Other than that, I see no difference running XP from a logical partition vs a primary one.

 

Oh, PeteC...

You just earned your solid GOLD star for the day.
Here's a hug...

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{PeteC}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}​

You Just Made My Day...

roxe

 

surferdude2,

you mention using your images on other drives than the letter it was installed on... is this correct?

Didn't you need to change all those original drive letters in the registry to match the drive letter you put it on?

How did you work that?

roxe

 

It's not as much trouble as you may think. The XP system being booted actually changes some of the Desktop Shortcut targets for you. The others will require a manual change of their Target info. It takes a bit of time if you want to change all of them. I did mine only as need arose over time. Some never get changed since I never need to run them. Then of course any software I install on any particular drive will be drive specific and generally not intended to run on another drive.

Since I use different physical drives for the different systems, I could choose to reconfigure the cable connections and make any drive the System Boot drive and it would have the C: designation. With that, the shortcut targets would not have to be edited. Since I don't have a removable drive bay, I find that more trouble than it's worth so I prefer to just do the manual editing as the need arises. That wouldn't be an issue for you since you are only using one physical drive.

In any case, you have to either edit your boot.ini file that resides on the root of the Primary Master drive or else boot from a floppy or CD that contains the bootloader files and a boot.ini file that lists your system properly in order to get the necessary boot choice menu.

It's all quite easy if you have a grasp of the basics and describing it in detail like this tends to make it sound like more than it really is. However, I don't mean to understate the lack of possible complications. If you already have several installs on your system, you will be stuck with those that have registry involvment. Uninstalling them while booted from an image drive will likely uninstall them from the drive of origin since the Registry entries for uninstalling will point to the origin drive. That's no big deal if you have imaged a system when it was fairly clean of course and don't uninstall anything other than what you put on the particular drive.

The standard caveats apply, if in doubt, have a good backup.

Another thing you may want to look at is a freeware called XXCLONE It's great for creating a bootable copy of a system to another drive.

HTH

 

surferdude2,

When I did #2 in my first post, C was from a Ghost image. D and E were fresh installs, which edited the boot.ini file automatically.

I've read on other forums of people who try to run two or three copies of XP on their hdd, and find that XP doesn't like mirror images of itself... which is what would happen with using a Ghost image of C for D and E.

I started changing all the instances of C: in the registry... after 200 or so, I gave up.

But, for this to really work, all those drive letters in the registry should be changed. Then I wouldn't need worry about WAP or whatever it's called; nor XP freaking out by "looking in the mirror ".

Since I'm retired, I guess I shouldn't be so lazy and just take my time and get the registry tweaked correctly for each drive. I wouldn't put ANY applications on it at all until this was done. The only thing I would worry about is if M$ keeps track of how many updates one does.

Do they?

I just wish I could find a registry tweak program which would be semi automatic... cuz there are switches, etc. which I sure don't want to change.

thanks for answering me, I sure appreciate it...

roxe

 

I hate to be the one to rain on your parade, but you're not going to succeed with that Registry work. XP is full of pitfall to prevent you from disguising any image copy so as to have it run peacefully in the presence of it's parent.

As I stated earlier, I just edit my shortcuts and use the system as it is without any Registry work. I don't attempt any uninstalls in the image except for programs that I installed there. Any that were on board when the image was created must stay onboard unless they happen to be some stand-alone program with no Registry entries.

HTH

 

roxe asked:

This info may be a little late but it may still be of use to someone.

I now find that XXCLONE can make a clone of the system drive and render it bootable and full featured. When you boot the clone it will automatically swap the drive letters with the system drive (xxclone magic). As such, all of the Shortcuts and Registry files are absolutely correct when operating the clone drive. This drive letter swap occurs only when the clone is booted.

This feature has always been the strong point of XXCLONE but I wasn't able to use it due to a bug that I had in my system. Now that I have found a way to work around that bug, my clone is very useful as a fully operative 2nd system. Now at last I can do some serious testing on the clone and not risk corrupting my prime system.

If anyone tries XXCLONE and finds that the drive letter swap doesn't occur when booting the cloned copy, I'll be glad to share how that can be fixed. It's lot likely that many will need that.

So thanks roxe for causing me to do the research and find the cause of my failure to be able to take full advantage of the XXCLONE copy. If you hadn't asked, I would likely have ignored it forever.

Primary Boot

Clone Boot

 

Oo