Two Hard Disk Setup

You have it already.... F8 on startup should get you to the advanced options menu.

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After that, one of the disks will have already booted....

• Thanks but unfortunately:

1. It takes me to "Windows Advanced Options Menu"
2. I click on "Return to OS Choices Menu"
3. I receive only one option <Microsoft Windows XP Professional>

Tony

The selection you want is the boot order of the drives. Just order them so that the one you want to boot up is before the other.

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You probably want to keep a removable media drive first in boot order, since that is pretty handy when something goes wrong.

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..Edit: After a quick review of the other comments, Ideasmith has provided much better advice for your OP.

That's what I'm currently doing, but for the next week or so, I have to reinstall the programs on the Win 7 disk, finding all the passwords etc., not a quick job and will need to reboot constantly.

Tony

Thanks IdeaSmith

I can change boot from the bios and access the files from either disk on both disks.

The disk, now Win 7 (previously XP Pro), had a virus wreck the operating system, so I transferred the files (not effected) to a second formatted XP Pro hard disk.

When I first installed XP Pro on the new disk, before formatting the other one with Win 7, I used to get an option lasting about 5s asking which disk I wanted, then it would default to the intact XP Pro disk.

I have both installation disks and I am going to transfer the files back to the Win 7 disk over the next week or so and use the current disk as additional storage.

Tony

Window 7 has virtual drive software. You could use it to start XP drive. Then you can just switch between the two.

Thanks ozzb

I'm exited, where can I learn more. Will it start the XP Pro that's on another disk?

Tony

Should be a folder under start, all program called productivity and tools. Called virtual drive.

The only way you can run Win7 under XP mode is if you have Win7 Professional, Ultimate and enterprise editions. Home versions do not support virtual XP mode.

I have this running on my work PC as some old legacy programs will not work on Win7.

I followed the instructions here without any issues.

Tony

The way I did my PC, First install XP on the one hard drive as usual, then install Win 7 it will ask you if you want to overwrite XP (as it is the older operating system and marked as the active drive) say no and continue to install Win7 on the 2^nd hard drive by following the prompts as usual.

The system should give you a DOS type duel boot menu at start up with options of 1 for XP and 2 for Win 7 with 30 seconds to choose before starting Win 7 automatically.

or one of the F key's should give you a Boot menu listing the drives at POST that you can choose from, hold it in from start up, my PC is MSI and the F key is F11, the manual should list the keys,

Theunis

Not talking about run windows 7 in XP mode. But running windows XP in a virtual drive.

I am personally of the opinion (maybe wrongly!) that unless both systems are on the same hard disk, it won't work as required.....but I am fully prepared to learn something new.....

You also neglected to mention what interface(s) you have on each disk......

But assuming they are identical (SATA for example), then a fairly simple (and relatively cheap) crossover switch could be made/bought, to allow a power off, change over and then a switch on again.

Such a hardware method would appeal to me personally......simple and safe.

This would also prevent a virus from being able to attack both systems.....

Here is just such a system sold for around $80 in the USA for SATA disks with different data or OSs on them, for different users/jobs:-

SATA Crossover Switch for 2 to 4 Drives

Best of luck.

Thanks Andy for a new thought direction. There are several swiches on EBay as well.

They are both SATA HDs.

Tony

As always, the answer is to run a Macintosh, which allows one to choose an operating system version from those available by holding the Alt key down while booting.
For those who persist with Windows, may I recommend the Acronis Disk Director (I used its predecessor for several years)? Quoting from the website: "Acronis OS Selector allows you to install multiple operating systems on one computer. You can boot an operating system from any partition on any hard disk or have several multiboot systems on the same partition. It's easy to use and fast."

http://www.acronis.com/en-gb/personal/disk-manager

What some here appear to forget is that only one disk can be "Active" at a time under Windows for Booting.

So a boot loader would be needed that can set the active drive at will, not impossible (guessing!), but if it ever "coughs", it would be possible to lose ALL the data on BOTH hard disks.......

One way to do this with minimum fuss is to install Ubuntu Linux on the primary boot drive, which on installation will give you the option of partitioning the disk to preserve the other OS on the system.

When Ubuntu installs on a system with an existing OS, it sets up the computer to start using GRUB, the GRand Unified Bootloader, which will allow you to select which OS you want to use for that session. It's a fairly simple and painless way to get a multi-boot setup, and you can change the settings about which order to display the OS's in the list, and how long to wait for the user to touch the keyboard before loading the 'default' OS (the one on the top of the list.)

As a bonus, you also get to play around with a Linux OS on your system.

But does this work with two separate HDs? I think/believe not.....On one disk, of course it works....s do many other Boot managers....

GRUB works within a 'Linux-like' environment, where drives and partitions are 'seen' as simply folders within the master tree heirarchy. Separate partitions, separate drives, it's all the same in the logic map, just pointers in a list.

Here's a page that might help provide the breakdown easily:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_boot_loaders

You want to look at GNU GRUB, not GRUB Legacy. GRUB Legacy is no longer actively suported.

(This information provided by LetMeWikiThatForYou.com )

Why do you want 2 OSs? There are plenty of good reasons.

I would move all your data to one disk then put both OSs on the same disk. Malware rarely effects any drive but C:. Keep your data on D:. I would also back up C: using a free copy of Acronis for WD or Seagate to save an image of C: when you are done.