is It possible to run 2 HD's 1 with xp the other with vista, rather than dual boot

[sam sarrha]

[Duer 157099]

1. Can't see why not

Unless Vista is so deviant and evil that it insists on being the only kid on the block. Even so, I'd trick it by making the 2nd hard drive invisible to it, at least temporarily, if I had to. Or disconnect it altogether while dealing with installing the other drive.

But then I'm constantly moving hard drives around and disonnecting them, so maybe I take it for granted.

Of course, once both systems are installed and connected, you can only be running one at a time, but shutting down and rebotting to the alternate drive shouldn't be a problem (although I can imagine some stumbling blocks that might be tossed in the way, but nothing insurmountable).

[sam sarrha]

3. i thought of disconnecting one.. i hear you can set one to boot and the other you go into BIOS and

set it to boot to disc

i don't have step by step walkthru's tho

[Duer 157099]

6. Do you know how to get into your bios settings?

Sometimes it's the "Del" key, sometimes F1, depends on the system - but you press that right after powering on, usually just keep hitting the key until it goes into the CMOS/BIOS menu. From there it's usually obvious how to set the boot drive priority, but if not, let us know which version of bios you're using and I'm sure we can point you to the correct setting.

Another option is to make yourself a custom boot.ini file with all your possibilities, so that you're presented with a menu to choose from (if you're feeling adventurous that is). It's a good idea to have your basic boot files on a floppy (or cd if no floppy drive) just in case you run into trouble (eg, for XP those would be: ntldr, ntdetect.com and boot.ini)

[sam sarrha]

7. thanks.. i built this computer knowing nothing about it, i put the BIOS in and set up, made some

mistakes on auto settings.. i couldnt tell you how i did it, but it booted first thing and worked ever since. since i was 6 i have been called a psychic mechanic.

i believe BIOS is 0408 Asus Rampage, the only updates have been fan speeds.

i would like to do this your way.. there are just a few things i need the XP for..,some games, till they fix vista, and voice recognition dragon10, they wont update drivers for vista till late next year.. maybe

[Duer 157099]

9. This might be useful to bookmark

That looks like a mighty nice motherboard.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/7054-asus-rampage-formula-x48-motherboard-review-6.html

If this is what your bios menu looks like, then notice the "Boot" entry on the top menu -- that would be the place to go to set your boot drive priority

edit to add 2nd photo of that menu...

[sam sarrha]

10. this is a good walkthru 4 dual boot , one problem is vista checks all the drives, link>>

this is for dual boot from Microsoft.. there are 4 pages,

i'm still researching this, haven't made up my mind, ..actually I'm still looking for something that says.. "this is easy, simple, always works, no problems..bullet proof"

need to go over this a couple more times. i have read that vista can crash and burn doing this in other forums. this is nice with the feedback added on

Dual Boot Vista and XP with Vista already installed
http://www.syschat.com/dual-boot-vista-xp-vista-already-1946.html

IN THE COMMENTS BELOW THE INSTRUCTIONS IT GOES OVER 2 hd'S.. post #7

[hobbit709]

2. Most of the newer motherboards let you select boot hard drive.

I got one with 4 drives. One's running XP, one Vista Ultimate, one Mandriva 2009 and one Ubuntu 8.10. I just select which one in BIOS to boot from.

[sam sarrha]

4. i have this riged

ANTEC 900 Case.
ASUS Rampage Formula X48.
Intel Xeon 3110 3MHz Core2 Duo.
VISTA 64bit Home Premium.
Silent Knight2 CPU cooler.
8GB OCZ Reaper HPC DDR2 1400.
2x Western Digital Caviar 500GB HD RAID1.
VisionTec Radeon HD 3870 X2.
OPTI UPS Battery Back Up.
Cosair 750 watt PSU

how is your bios set to do that.. i dont mess with the Matrix much

im asking on the ASUS FORUM, but im not holding my breath

[hobbit709]

5. In my BIOS, under Advanced Settings

There's a "set hard disk priority." Another way is to get a couple of removable drive trays and swap them out for different systems.

[sam sarrha]

8. meant to put #7 here.....

[sam sarrha]

11. found this.. virtual pc

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx

[Gore1FL]

12. yeah. Just hit F12 on boot and select on drive or the other

You have to have recent BIOS, and you may have to set the bios so both are available as boot devices, but it's not difficult.

You could even put them on two partitions of the same disk, but that gets a little trickier.