Two hard Drive same OS on both ??

I have two HDDs installed with win XP on both.one is IDE another is SATA.In my BIOS SATA is set to highest priority.Now what is annoying me is that I m not sure which XP i am booting in.There is no dual boot set up on the system.

My boot.ini reads this :

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

But when I check with "diskpart" utility in command prompt...it shows

*img222.imageshack.us/img222/9369/55676422.gif

disk0 is the IDE one and disk1 is SATA.I want to boot into Disk 1 so the boot.ini file should be edited with disk(1) in place of disk(0) ???

D

Why on earth have you installed WinXP on both?
Set the first boot priority in the BIOS to make the SATA the default boot drive. Format the IDE drive. Use it for the pagefile preferably.

I have set the first boot priority to SATA drive.As far as 2 OS are concerned...i just attached the old drive from my previous system as it was.

I think i am having Win7 installation problem because of this reason only.When the setup is run by mouting,it shows a error message stating "it can't find a location to store temporary files" even if my drive c: is almost having 21GB of free space...

D

Edit the boot.ini file and boot from the SATA. Then format the IDE, and you should be able to install Win7 on it.

I'm pretty sure the method you said (replace disk(1) in place of disk(0)) is correct but if it isn't you won't be able to boot at all. Make sure you backup your important data before you change the boot.ini file.

I have set the first boot priority to SATA drive,so it should boot from SATA.isn't it ??

How could I delete the partitions on the IDE hard drive,it has 4 partitions in it.Any software for this ? I am thinking to use the old IDE one as a backup drive and install Win7 on one of the partition of the current SATA drive.

Should I proceed deleting the partitions of the old hard drive without editing boot.ini ?? but before that recommend softwares to do so.

D

Assuming you don't know which drive you are booting from since XP is installed on both, just go the 'My Computer' and right click on the partition of the IDE drive that has XP installed and choose to format it. If the PC has booted from the IDE drive, it will refuse to format it (since Windows is currently using it).
But if the PC has booted form the SATA, it will get formatted.

Similarly format all the partitions of the IDE drive.

Now go to 'Administrative Tools' --> 'Computer Management' --> 'Disk Management'.

Delete all the partitions of the IDE HDD.

You will now see the entire IDE drive as unused space.

Choose to make as many new partitions of whatever size you want, from that free space.

To make space for Win7 on the SATA drive use a software like Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8.5 SE or EASEUS Partition Master (Home Edition).

drvarunmehta said:
To make space for Win7 on the SATA drive use a software like Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8.5 SE or EASEUS Partition Master (Home Edition).

I will install windows 7 on one of the partition of the SATA drive and before installing win7 i would format that partition.In that case do i need third party s/w ??

D

If you already have partitions on the SATA drive then you don't need any third-party software.
Third-party software is only required to shrink an existing partition to create free space for a new partition.

Thanks..drvarunmehta for ur help...

I am facing another problem...and this time with win7 installation...need ur help...

I mounted the ISO image on drive X: using deamon tool.After clicking Install Windows 7 the screen shows copying files....and then the error message pops up.

"Windows Setup cannot find a location to store temporary files.To install Windows,make sure that a partition on your boot disk has 685 MB of free space."

I have XP in drive C: and there is 21 GB of free space.I am trying to install Win 7 on drive F: which has 58GB of free space.

I know its not the right way to install Win7 but many have successfully installed in this way.

D

Mounting in Daemon tools and installing only works with Vista, not XP.
Burn the image to a DVD and boot from it.

I will try that very soon.Btw after dual booting with Win 7 and Xp and for some reason I need to format or repair my XP then would dere be any problem with the boot loader ?

D

Yes, but it's nothing that you can't manually edit in boot.ini itself.

My printer doesn't support Vista so Win 7 is a long go...so is it possible to make it work on Win 7 ? What about windows XP compatibility ..will it work ??or its just for softwares and not for hardwares/drivers ?

D

Don't know if it will work. Probably not.
Just do your printing jobs from XP. Easier than trying to get Win7 to recognise an old printer.