Question about Dual OS.

[drdallon]

I know there are a million guides on how to do this out there but i trust you guys the most.

I have two hard drives, one is a WD Caviar 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s, and a 150GB version of the same HD. I want to run XP on the smaller hard drive for video games(primaily because of the issue Wireless-G has with vista), and use the 500GB HD for Vista(already being done). I know it would be fairly easy to install XP on the second hard drive. But what i really am asking is how do i use both?

When i boot up is it going to give me an option of which to boot from?

My idea is to have the 150gbhd for video games and video games alone because wireless-g is givng me problems with vista, idk if its the drivers the company put out for my card but its up to date and i still have the problem. And the 500gbhd will be used for video editing, my media collection, and music.

Any help would be appreciated!

EDIT: Also, there shouldnt be any conflicts between the two hard drives since they are not going to be communicating with each other right?

Before i forget, when i do this do i need to do anything special with the jumper pins? IE make them both master or make one a slave ect.

Again thank you for your time!

 

[zombine210]

there are no master/slave jumper pins on sata drives.

you can do this two ways:
install xp after vista and have a boot loader to select which drive/os to boot. you get this option every boot.

the way i do it is go into bios and select which is the first boot drive. every time i boot my pc it automatically boots from that drive. if i need to boot to my second os, i go into bios and select that drive to boot.

also, you can see all drives from any windows os. just don't mess with them and you should be ok, but you might be able to hide them from each other.

 

[drdallon]

there are no master/slave jumper pins on sata drives.

you can do this two ways:
install xp after vista and have a boot loader to select which drive/os to boot. you get this option every boot.

the way i do it is go into bios and select which is the first boot drive. every time i boot my pc it automatically boots from that drive. if i need to boot to my second os, i go into bios and select that drive to boot.

also, you can see all drives from any windows os. just don't mess with them and you should be ok, but you might be able to hide them from each other.

Is the "boot loader" an option that you have in your bios or is it a separate program i have to download and run?

Thanks alot btw

 

[Bob692006]

Is the "boot loader" an option that you have in your bios or is it a separate program i have to download and run?

Thanks alot btw

It's a BIOS thing that should detect both OS's automatically and give you the choice. The only problem is that I've heard of a lot of people having issues with loading XP after they already have Vista on the same system. Don't know how that is going to work out for you.

 

[drdallon]

It's a BIOS thing that should detect both OS's automatically and give you the choice. The only problem is that I've heard of a lot of people having issues with loading XP after they already have Vista on the same system. Don't know how that is going to work out for you.

Can any one verify that this is a problem?

Thanks for all the help btw.