2nd o/s on 2nd drive

[stratford]

i have a second hard drive witch i would like to install another o/s.
my main hd is ntfs and second a fat32.would it be possible to install 2nd o/s and the system boot up to ask witch one you want to boot into.i cant seem to find anywhere to tell you how to do this.help would be appreciated

 

[dave597]

yes, just go ahead and install it, you just have to choose the other partition to install to (fat32), and then you will be able to boot up in either. I triple boot in xp sp1, xp sp2, and xp 64 bit. i was gonna install fedora core 3 a while back but i havent had the time.

by the way - could you tell me which oses they are that you are installing?

 

[stratford]

but how do i install it the 2nd drive is active so it does not require patitioning so if i insert my windows cd sureley it will install on c drive not d drive

 

[dave597]

erm what os/es do u have and what r u installing?

anyway, as long as your two hard drives are currently detected in windows, with correct size and formatting partitioning shouldnt matter.

when you get to the install screen it will say select a partition, either 1st drive or 2nd drive, select the latter. that was how u choose which partition - windows wont randomly install on the first drive it sees. ill assume your fat32 is clean, do a quick format, if you are installing xp (u havent told me) then you will be asked to convert to ntfs, you may as well leave it for the moment.

 

[Blue]

yes basicly everything dave597 has already said ..

 

[stratford]

i have just purchased a second hand desktop and it came with xp pro and i have not got a xp pro disk so i thuoght if i installed xp home on 2nd drive if anything went wrong with 1st drive i would still have a o/s to boot into because i have a xp home disc.
bit when i insert the disc and click install it says the o/s system you have is newer than the one i want to install so it wont install.
have i got something wrong here 1 master 1 slave

 

[dave597]

i recommend that you dont install an older o/s over or alongside xp.

oh sorry - i see you are about to install xp!

erm.. you cant do this from windows.

restart press the button to go into bios, and change the first boot device to cd-rom, when that is done, restart and inert the cd, and install then.

 

[stratford]

you have worried me now why do you not recomend installing another o/s alongside xp

also if i boot cdrom 1st and install wil it ask me wich drive i want to install it to i could always install winme instead of xp home if thats makes thins easier

AMD ATHLON THUNDERBIRD
1.8GHz 2200+
MSI KT3 ULTRA2 MOBO
NVIDIA RIVA TNT 64 PRO CRAP
512 DDR RAM
40 GIG MASTER
20 GIG SLAVE
CDRW/DVDRW
1 MBIT BROADBAND
NETGEAR WIFI
FLOPPY
2 FIREWIRE
6 USB

 

[Praetor]

but how do I install it the 2nd drive is active so it does not require patitioning so if I insert my windows cd sureley it will install on c drive not d drive

You get to pick which drive you want to install to

i recommend that you dont install an older o/s over or alongside xp

Why not? They're independent (i.e., XP isnt gonna "sabatoge" the other OS)

 

[stratford]

i have booted from cdrom and it does not give me the option of drivei want to install on. unless i did not go far enough with install it just asked if i want to erase nt files already stored in computer so i suspect this was my main drive wich i dont want to destroy maybe it is safer just to run one o/s after all

 

[Yeti]

i have booted from cdrom and it does not give me the option of drivei want to install on. unless i did not go far enough with install it just asked if i want to erase nt files already stored in computer so i suspect this was my main drive wich i dont want to destroy maybe it is safer just to run one o/s after all

Can't you just disconnect your other hard drive while you do the install? I would do that anyway just because I'd be paranoid about accidentally choosing the wrong drive.