Dual Booting with 2 HDD's - Please offer tips

Greetings,

I want to know how to install two identical versions of XPP SP2 on two separate internal SATA drives, and in so doing have the ability to choose which drive to boot from on start up. My reason for doing this is to keep two different video editing applications on separate OS's, per the manufacturer's recommendations. Both installations will be a clean install.

I ran this question past charlesvar in a private email, and now I'm posting his response per his request. I will update as I go ahead with the installations...most likely tomorrow or the next day.

Please offer any cautions or insights you may have. I had read about some problems with this type of configuration so I want to do it correctly the first time, and get advice from folks who have done it. Thanks.

charlesvar wrote:

"Hi table30, What I did was to dual boot two XP Homes. I'm assuming that you have one XP running on C now. Install the 2nd copy > put the XP cd into the ROM while running the current XP. Install to the 2nd drive - I'll assume Drive D/Partition D. At the end of the Install process, it'll ask to reboot. The 2nd install creates a boot menu with 2 XP entries and a 30 second time out. The 2nd installation will be the default boot unless you intervene within 30 seconds. The question mark here is the SATA drives. I did it on ATA drives. Usually, if SATA - you have to hit F6 to load SATA drivers. Since that my post, I bought a Laptop with 2 SATA drives with XP MCE on the 1st drive and installed VISTA on the 2nd drive. There were no issues because around SATA drives, but that may be because VISTA is SATA "ready ". What I would do is start a thread on the BBS under the XP section and quote me and someone can address the SATA issue if there is one. "

 

I recommend that you use xxclone after doing the first clean install, to clone it to the second drive. There is a free version for personal use.

It also has a tool you can select to automatically place the correct entry in your boot.ini file so that a dual booting menu will be available at startup.

It will produce a bootable copy of your original install so you only have to go through the hassel once. The cloning operation is much faster and takes no interaction once you start it.

I used it for dual booting XP Home on my secondary drive. My drives are not serial ATA's (SATA), they're parallel ATA's (PATA) but xxclone can handle either according to the specs.

Read the on-line manual at the link and see what you think.

 

My setup is ATA as well, but in my dual boot system, I installed the OS on each drive with only that drive connected during installation, so that each OS has it's own boot.ini and other system files in the drive root. I then modified each boot.ini, adding a path for the other drive. Benefit of this is that if one OS gets hosed ( I errantly wiped an entire boot partition once ), I can switch the boot device ( disk 1 vs disk 0 ) in the BIOS and boot the other system.

If not mistaken, sd2's xxclone suggestion will do much the same thing ..... not sure about both boot.ini files though.

 

To clarify (hopefully).

When the xxclone operation is complete, it will have taken care of any boot.ini editing if you tag the option to have it do that.

I leave both drives connected throughout the entire process and forever after. I never need to change anything in the BIOS routine to boot whichever drive I prefer. The boot options menu is automatically presented at startup each time I boot and I can select either system I want. I have set the timeout to 3 sec. so it's not a drag when allowing it to boot the default drive.

A nice benefit of the xxclone method is that whichever drive I choose to boot will be dubbed the C: drive and the other drive will swap letters as needed to accommodate that assignment.

In my particular case, I have three hard drives. Their ARC paths are 0, 1 and 2. I cloned the 0 drive to the 2 drive. Their assigned drive letters when booting the default drive are C:, E: and F: respectively. When I boot the cloned drive, the drive letter assignment becomes F:, E:, and C: respectively. As you can see, the drive letters swap between the two drives that contain the operating systems. That's a very convenient feature since it keeps all of the Desktop shortcuts pointing to the proper drive when booting the clone drive. That's done as a feature of xxclone although you could do it manually by editing the proper Registry key. With other cloning tools, the booted clone would remain the F: drive and all of the Desktop and start menu shortcuts would point to the C: drive. That leads to confusion and drive corruption. xxclone avoids all that.

In attempting to clarify, I hope I haven't caused any confusion since this is meant only to explain and does not affect the simplicity of the cloning operation with xxclone. It's a very user friendly process. I have dual booted this way for quite some time with no problems at all.

One last tidbit - The boot.ini file on the cloned drive is dormant as long as both drives remain connected. The XP boot process never looks anywhere but the root of the ARC 0 drive for that file. Therefore, it's never necessary to edit the boot.ini of the cloned drive. Even if you disconnect the original primary (ARC 0) drive, the cloned drive will then become the ARC 0 drive and it will boot with the original boot.ini file that has previously been dormant, without any editing required.

I'm sure that's TMI so I'll end this novel for now.

 

As an alternate method for setting up dual booting, you can use a BartPE boot CD to copy the initial system install to another drive and then manually edit your boot.ini file to get the dual boot option. You can then boot the copied system amd manually edit the Registry key to have it swap the drive letters the way xxclone does.

I've used this method and it's quite easy.

Then as a 3rd alternate, you can deploy a drive image of the primary drive to a second drive and set the dual boot options manually as mentioned above. I use Acronis True Image but any drive imaging software should work as well.

I've done that and it's equally easy and sometime advantageous when wanting an earlier version of the system. I have an extensive archive of drive images so I have a range of possibilities.

Now I'm sure I've hit the TMI mark!

 

Thanks you guys for the great suggestions.

Question: Should I connect the second drive before I begin the clean install on the first drive? Or should the second drive be connected AFTER the first install is completed? Does my BIOS recognize all the third party hardware I've installed? Or should I also remove all of the 3rd party hardware before the first clean install?

As you can see, it's really the order of these different steps that are throwing me.

Note: "Beginner"

 

I connect them both from the outset. Then install XP on the primary drive first. After that the options are as given in the earlier posts. I leave them both connected for all operations. If you want to use Noahdfear's method, you should follow his instructions as to disconnecting and reconnecting the drives.

It's always wise to disconnect any unnecessary peripherals (scanner, printer, camera, etc.) before running an install so as to make it less likely to stumble. You can install the components later when activity is less intense.

Since you have stressed your experience level, I would recommend that you have someone with more experience at arms length throughout this process if possible. This is actually a bit much for a "Beginner" to tackle alone. It's not all that complex but it's hard to foresee all the variables and give exact instructions so as to avoid any pitfalls based on assumptions.

I also hope you have a second computer to access the Internet if things go sour.

 

Unfortunately I am on my own on this one...physically anyways. I will consider this process a good learning experience. I doubt I will actually blow any components up (fingers crossed), so I can always start over. I will post questions as I go along using my heap of an internet computer, and hopefully someone here will be around to help.

The 3rd party components are as follows:

Addonics RAID 5 controller card (CFI eSATA enclosure with port multiplier 2TB)
AJA Xena LHe I/O video board
ATI FireGL v7300 graphics card
Soundblaster Xtreme Music sound card

I will remove these components before the install per your suggestion.

Some background:

This is a HP xw8400 Workstation that I'm using as a platform for 2 different high-end video editing applications. Both manufacturers recommend a clean install of XPP SP2 as a starting point for installing their respective apps (Liquid Chrome Xe and Avid Xpress Pro). They also recommend that the different editing apps be kept on separate OS's...hence the dual boot.

The editing apps also require a laundry list of optimizations that need to be done to XPP after it's been installed. They also require the latest BIOS version, which is installed, the latest DirectX version, Quicktime, etc. The machine is to be used for editing, and nothing else.

So here is my overall strategy, in some sort of general sequence of tasks as I understand them:

1. Create a back-up of existing system with Norton Ghost to one of the external SATA drives
2. Install 2nd internal SATA drive
3. Remove 3rd party cards
4. Insert XPP SP2 disk and clean install to C:\ Drive
5. Do the XPP optimization mods
6. Re-install 3rd party cards, software and drivers
7. Install correct DirectX and Quicktime versions
7. Run XXCLONE and write C:\ system image to K:\ Drive (second internal SATA)
8. Boot C:\ and install Liquid Chrome Xe
9. Boot K:\ and install Avid Xpress HD
8. Pray

Watch for further posts!

 

Okay...I already have a question:

Will XXClone allow me to manually name the second SATA drive something like K:\ ? The reason is I have 4 external drives already formatted with data on them that I'm going to need to hook back up...they are named G,H,I and J.

 

No. It will follow the standard naming convention and use the next available drive letter on your particular system. Your external drives will adapt accordingly and change drive letters as needed.

This will indeed be a fine learning experience and as you say, you can't hurt anything and since you have no data to lose, I don't see any problem. The time will be well spent so no loss there.

Good luck. I'll monitor from time to time.

 

I've decide to keep the raid controller card installed with the external drives G,H,I & J attached as I do the install. The reason is, I do have some video on those drives and a saved project that needs those drive letters intact...so it can find the video.

 

Xxclone

I've been looking over the XXCLONE manual and I have a few questions: Which type of clone operation did you use for your dual boot? The manual lists four types:

1. Full Volume Backup
2. Incremental Volume Backup
3. Windows Key Directories Backup
4. Transfer of System Registry

Also, should I go ahead and format the target drive before running XXCLONE? Or should I leave it as an "Unallocated" volume? Thanks.

 

With the free version, which I use, you only get option #1, the others are all grayed out.

Yes, you must format the drive or it will not be recognized as available for use.

Tip: Before cloning always verify that the Source and Target drives are selected properly.

Tip: After the cloning operation finishes, click the Cool Tools tab in xxclone and click the "Make Bootable" button. Then tag all three boxes there and click "Start. "

Good for you, reading the manual until you understand it fully is a great idea. I usually don't do that and sometimes it hurts.

 

Okay...something went wrong. I followed your instructions to the tee and they matched the instructions in the manual. I performed the clone from the system drive C to the target drive F. I then ran the "Make Target Self-Bootable" in the Cool Tools, checking all three boxes and pressing start.

After doing so, there wasn't any messages after that the said "Finished" or "Done "....it just kind of stopped with the progress bar full and "Exit" was the only option. Was there supposed to be a message saying "Finished" or something...or did it just lock up? Nothing was frozen, it just gave the option to exit so I did.

I then restarted my computer and there was no booting option menu to been seen...it just booted into the system drive as usual. When/where exactly does this menu come up and what does it look like?

 

No, that's the way it does, not to worry.

Now, open xxclone and click the Cool Tools tab and click on "Add Test Boot." Verify that the file to be modified indicated is the C:\boot.ini and OK the act. Reboot for effect. You should now get the boot option menu. Select the clone and see how it goes.

That will place the correct line in the boot.ini for dual booting. (That operation is separated from the normal cloning process since dual booting won't be everyone choice.)

 

Excellent...it worked. That's some nifty software. Now I will install the respective apps and post if I have any problems. Your help is much appreciated!

 

That's nice to hear. Perhaps we should elevate your experience level to Advanced Beginner. You did well and yes, it is a nice piece of work for a freebie. The registered version has more frills and I've considered getting it but haven't gotten around to it yet.

I'll check in to see how you're doing. Keep the thread updated with your progress so others can be inspired. Everyone will be interested in the final outcome since your setup is rather typical.

All the best.

tip: Choose a different wallpaper for the clone drive for obvious reasons.

 

Yes, just boot to the Target drive and run xxclone. Verify the Source - Target setting is correct and perform the cloning operation.

Yes, it will revert back to the original boot.ini and will need to be edited. Reboot after cloning and you should go directly to the Primary drive. Open xxclone and click the Cool Tools tab and click on "Add Test Boot." Verify that the Source volume is the C: and the Target volume is the F: (or whatever it was before) Also verify that the file to be modified indicated is the C:\boot.ini. Then OK the act and reboot for effect. You should now get the boot option menu. Select the clone and see how it goes.

I'm winging it here since I have never had occasion to do this. It's my best guess that it will go well based on theory. Perhaps we can both learn something this time.

ps. It might be easier to correct the failed install rather than do this cloning operation again.

 

Okay, I ran the operation per your instructions. I can get into both of them. Now the menu choices reads as follows:

XXCLONE: (Cloned Volume) [d:0,p:1] \WINDOWS
XXCLONE: (Target Volume) [d:1,p:1] \WINDOWS

I assume the top one is still the primary system hard disc. I also did a back-up to one of my dynamic external discs. As I understand it, you cannot boot from a dynamic disc so I didn't run the Make Target Bootable....but the question is, can I use this back-up in case I mess up the other two clones? If so, how do I transfer it?