Hard drives for multiple operating systems.

[NyteOwl]

I have dual drive/dual boot between Windows XP and Slackware Linux. The machine boots normally off the first HD (as set in BIOS) and presents a menu from the boot loader where I can select what OS I want to boot. If you don't select one in about 10-15 seconds it will boot into whatever is set as the default. If you want more in the future you can add them to the boot loader. At this point the BIOS has only loaded the bootloader so once a selection is made the loader will jump to the start of the code to load the selected OS, no "restart" necessary. I have done this in various combinations of Win98/WInXP/Linux/BSD/OS-2. I haven't tried it with Vista yet so I can;t speak to how well behaved its bootloader is.

[Lima]

Originally Posted by MacJunky

Why not just slap a bootloadter onto a small USB flash drive, connect it to one of the case's internal USB connections or something then have that set as your boot device that you use to select the other HDDs? That way you could easily swap the real HDDs in and out and such and if the HDD with your bootloader failed you would still have an easy time with the other HDD and replacement?
I know that messing about with an HDD that had a bootloader and OS on it pissed me off a while back so now I just use the boot device selector thingy by pressing F8 at boot.

I dunno.

This sounds interesting. All I' d have to do is install it onto a USB flash drive, set it to boot from USB in BIOS, plug it in and reboot? No configuring?

Using that method or the F8 one, must I install each OS on each HDD one at a time? Meaning, plugging one HDD at a time, installing the chosen OS onto it and then plugging them all onto the motherboard.

He he, aside from that, I got all my Operating systems and drives ready. I found the drives locally, not only was I able to get the exact part number I wanted, the drives were cheaper as well. If anyone is interested, OEMExpress.com - Canada's source for Computers, Laptops, Parts, & More! .

[ipaine]

Originally Posted by NyteOwl

I have dual drive/dual boot between Windows XP and Slackware Linux. The machine boots normally off the first HD (as set in BIOS) and presents a menu from the boot loader where I can select what OS I want to boot. If you don't select one in about 10-15 seconds it will boot into whatever is set as the default. If you want more in the future you can add them to the boot loader. At this point the BIOS has only loaded the bootloader so once a selection is made the loader will jump to the start of the code to load the selected OS, no "restart" necessary. I have done this in various combinations of Win98/WInXP/Linux/BSD/OS-2. I haven't tried it with Vista yet so I can;t speak to how well behaved its bootloader is.

That method works with vista as well. But with vista I found it easier to just use the bootloader that comes with it. I had a hell of a time with trying to us a Linux bootloader, plus after you selected vista in the other bootloader it would only load Vista's bootloader. So it was completely redundent, easier to just use the Vista one. As long as the Vista drive is the first drive set to boot in the BIOS you will be fine. Once you are into the Vista bootloader (or any bootloader for that matter) it doesn't matter where your other OSes are. The bootloader just tells your system which partition to boot from, it doesn't matter which drive it is on.

I currently have Vista and XP on the same drive (differnet partitions) but when I was first trying Vista RC1 I had it on a complete seperate drive and had no issues.

[Tazer-[X]]

hmm, I wonder what the operating system that is called OpenVMS does?

[death_hawk]

I like physically swapping HDDs myself.
This: NCIX.com - Buy Kingwin KF-1000-BK SATA Hard Drive Hot Swap Mobile Rack W/ Key Lock - KF-1000-BK In Canada.
makes swapping easy.

Less messy than Dual Booting.

[enaberif]

Originally Posted by death_hawk

I like physically swapping HDDs myself.
This: NCIX.com - Buy Kingwin KF-1000-BK SATA Hard Drive Hot Swap Mobile Rack W/ Key Lock - KF-1000-BK In Canada.
makes swapping easy.

Less messy than Dual Booting.

Yes but those will really only work well if you have a bunch of small drives.

Don't work well if you want to try and have multiple OS's

[miggs78]

Isn't there a way to not install Grub and have the windows boot menu select what OS to run. I thought I read something about that.

[Phobia]

Originally Posted by Lima

Hmm. from what I understand, I will get a boot menu to choose which OS to boot into. Now, I have not done this before so I am unsure of what the outcome will be. Will I still get the "jump through BIOS hoops" with a boot menu?

Un true. I have xp on 2 HDDs in raid 0 and vista on 2 HDDs in raid 0. I do not get a boot menu. I have to physically go into bios and change which drive i want it to boot off of. I know there are tools where you can get it to ask you when it starts to boot. However, i also heard if you don't know what you're doing, you can wreck your HDD and have to reformat. So, i just decided to go into bios when changing. However i mostly use xp pro over my vista 64 ultimate. Vista keeps crashing, and giving me the BSOD so i just got tired of it :P

[ipaine]

Hmm, I wonder if the reason you have to go into the BIOS to change the boot order is because of the RAID, because you shouldn't have to. The Vista bootloader can handle booting into just about any OS. Unfortunately I am off to work, but when I get back I will look through my bookmarks and try to find the guide that I have used to get everything under the Vista boot menu. That included Vista, XP, and Ubuntu and they all ran without issues.

[enaberif]

Originally Posted by miggs78

Isn't there a way to not install Grub and have the windows boot menu select what OS to run. I thought I read something about that.

Windows Boot Menu is severely limiting.

You'll need a 3rd party boot menu to run multiple OS's