2 boot drives

[rayb]

I just installed a Wd 13gig drive as my master and kept my older 1.6 gig drive as a slave on the same ide cable. I want to install win 98 on the new drive and keep win 95 on the old one. I like to know if there is a way to be able to boot to either drive if I want to? I know there is a program called system commander that will let you do this, but I want to be able to do this without any specialized software. Is it even possible to boot to a slave drive?

[sf]

i hope you don't take this the wrong way, but why the hell would you want to do that? win98 is a horrible os. 95 is much better. i was forced to "upgrade" to 98 after my 95 folded, and i HATE it. next week, i'm fdisk-ing my hd so i can go back to using 95. if you're going to dual boot with anything, do it with win95 and nt. 95 and 98 are virtually the same os except 98 has a few more dll's.

if you are really hell-beant on doing this, you could use system commander to get it working right. if you use 95/nt, you won't have to do it, as nt will take care of it for you.

[hoang201]

Do you have any luck with that, I try to do the same thing too...HN

[JP]

What is so horrible about 98. Liek you said, they are bassically the same.
-JP
http://members.xoom.com/PSComputers

[cxim]

easy to do, look in your bios.

most bios now allow boot from master or slave + other choices. have done this for about a year. boot either win98 or 95 on 2 diff HD.

It has an advantage in that you have full access to the other HD/OS partition in either win version.

no special SW needed

[hoang201]

I don't recall that any Bios let you select that, my friend system Bios is 4 yrs so I doubt it...but I found a page that have instruction :
http://www.webdev.net/orca/Dualboot.htm

I haven't got a chance to try that yet, at least for another couple weeks, but if you guys can get it working please post...HN

[ram]

Come on now.. Just get System Commander and
you put anything ya want on a hard drive. Then it asks which one ya want to boot up to.It is a cool small program.
ram

[Interrogator]

Most newer BIOS's will let you choose which drive to boot from, and allowing you to have access to the other drive in either OS (if compatible, of course). If you don't want either OS to know about the existence of the other drive just go into your standard CMOS setup, and set the drive on the channel that you do not want to boot from at the moment to "NONE". Then, when you reboot, the computer will only see one hard drive, and will boot from it no matter if it is the slave device or master, doesn't matter. The drive that is visible will become the C drive regardless of whether slave or master. When you are ready to boot the other OS, enable that OS's drive, and disable the other if you want. Works either way. If you want access to both drives in either OS, then just leave all the drives on "AUTO". If you set a drive to "NONE", the BIOS does not allow any OS to see it, can't write to it, nothing. Easy and cheap way to dual boot if you have more than one drive.


Interrogator

[cxim]

well said Interrogator,

the exception is the Intel win95 BM drivers, that bypass the bios settings. you still swap boot HD, but HD set to none still is accessable, the drive letter assignment is different tho.

This does not apply to win98, only win95 & only to the Intel BM drivers, maybe a fat32 thing.

[hoang201]

>Then, when you reboot, the
computer will only see >one hard drive, and will boot from it no >matter if it is the
slave device or >master, doesn't matter. The drive that is visible will become the C

Don't you have to change the Master/Slave jumper everytime for the computer to recorgnize it ?

To Ram: Where to get system commander...HN

[This message has been edited by hoang201 (edited 03-13-99).]

[rayb]

I have upgraded my bios in Sept. 98 but it doesn't support dual boot drive. Can an older bios be updated to suport this feature?

[cxim]

To rayb,

I guess this would depend on the chipset of the MB & the bios. do not know why it is not present with bios of that date ? check at both bios makers web site & MB makers web site. there is usually a summary of when options are added to the different bios versions.

to hoang201,

no jumpers have to be changed to do this. the jumpers determine master/slave. the bios lets you boot from master or slave.

most bios since early 1998 support this feature. with normal setting, all you will see is boot from c: a:, etc.

you have to step through the choices. this was present in a bios on Biostar TX MB, award bios 6/98, when I first saw it. It is now a common feature.

Intel chipsets since TX support this, do not know if AMI bios does. also do not know if it is supported by older other chipsets. It has been an option on all recent MB, that I have seen.

[This message has been edited by cxim (edited 03-14-99).]

[CMonster]

Now let's keep this post at the top of the heap!!!!

CUI here so forgive any mistakes - I have found the boot loader from Linux, Lilo, (Redhat 5.1)works great, and so does the boot loader for BeOS - It's such a simple **** boot loader that I run it on dual boot systems that don't even have Linux.

Who the hell wants to rewrite BIOS everytime they want to boot a different OS??? System Commander is probably the best, but you can get Lilo for free.

And yeah, 4 out of 5 of my BIOS let me select the boot sequence/drive/etc bla bla bla...

Well, that my 2 cents

[CMonster]

see, that's Internet Explorer for ya - now I've double posted..or is it doubel vision???

[This message has been edited by CMonster (edited 03-14-99).]

[hoang201]

System comander is not a share ware is it, what about Lilo, where can I get it & does it work with WinBlows...TIA...HN

[Interrogator]

Hey cxim, those Intel BM drivers cannot "bypass" the BIOS. The BIOS is what loads FIRST. If you set a drive to "NONE" in an Award BIOS, then the OS does not even know of its existence, and the computer will boot from the next available drive, whether master or slave, and assign it a drive letter/designator accordingly. This is a feature of all newer awared BIOS's. I have 4 motherboards with Award BIOS's, all with Award BIOS's version 4.51, and they all work this way regardless of the type of chipset (1 BX, 1 TX, 2 VIA MVP3 in case you are interested). Now, if you have previously loaded the Intel BM drivers with each drive in a certain configuration, then I could see where it would cause problems because you are changing from the driver's "expected" configuration. I don't use the Intel BM drivers, so I could not say for sure. In any case, they do not "bypass" the BIOS, and it would be very easy to correct this problem. I know that with the standard Windows BM drivers, it works fine. You should not have to change the boot order (c, a, etc.) unless you actually want to use the two drives at the same time, in which case this just swaps the drive letters in the OS. the C drive will always be the master drive if master and slave are present, the D will be the slave, etc. But if you set the master (or slave drive for that matter) to "NONE" in Standard CMOS Setup, then the next drive on the channel will become C (which is now, in effect, the "master" drive), regardless of master/slave configuration. Now all this only applies (that I know of) to newer Award BIOS's and a standard IDE configuration, which probably applies to 90% of people.


Interrogator

[CMonster]

If you insist on the BIOS route, you might as well just have two computers and plug either one in according to what you want.

LILO regarding Lilo, which you can get for free with almost any linux distribution *(and can be downloaded); if you have a friend into Linux you should be able to talk them into setting it up for you. LILO can be installed into the master boot record of your primary hard drive so that each time you bootup where it will display the list of boot options you have set up. To install LILO involves at least having a recent version of the program on a Linux boot disk - so it can be intimidating for a first time user.

[cxim]

sorry Interrogator, did you think I made this up ?

Intel BM drivers do bypass the bios settimgs for HD, Both on Tx & BX chipset MB, using win95, the sector size info is used. this is probably because those settings are still present in the bios unless type 47 is set back to blank.

when you set to none in bios, the system boots from the other HD, but the "none" HD is still available in win95, it is not available in a straight dos boot. the drive letter assignment is changed.

for instance drive 1=2 parts, drive 2=2 parts. normal boot from primary on HD1. letter assignment.

C:=pri HD1
D:=pri HD2
E:=sec HD1
F:=sec HD2

when you just change the boot drive to HD2.

C:=pri HD2
D:=pri HD1
E:=sec HD2
F:=sec HD1
we all agree so far, yes ?

when you set HD1=none in bios, & boot, you get.

C:=pri HD2
D:=sec HD2
E:=pri HD1
F:=sec HD1

or if you set HD2=none, you get:

C:=pri HD1
D:=sec HD1
E:=pri HD2
F:=sec HD2

this is with award 4.50 & 4.51 bios & Intel TX, BX , & Apollo pro chipsets.

every thing works, to get no E: & F: with this, you have to set type 47 to all zeros. if you autodetect the HDs at each boot, this does not happen.

if you have the HD setup in the bios, not autodetect at each boot, then go into bios & set the drive to none, it will still show up in win95 & have full access by win95. the letter assignment is changed as I said above. I expect this is an undocumented "bug"

why do you think that the intel BM drivers use the BIOS and do not bypass it ? another point, the Intel MB drivers give the HD manufact & ID in device Mgr. this is not in the bios. to get that info the bios has to be bypassed and direct access to the HD done.

If you have never used the Intel win95 BM drivers, you obviously would not know about this feature or bug, or what ever you call it.

It does make keeping up with which partition is which, more difficult. it helps to give each partition a name.

[Interrogator]

Well cxim, I don't mean to offend you in any way, so don't take what I am about to say personally.

First of all, I can only assume that you are making it up, since you are obviously not speaking from experience.

When you are talking about the Intel BM drivers bypassing the BIOS, you are obviously talking about when the OS is running. Now, in case you weren't paying any attention earlier, we are talking about before the OS is loaded. Remember the BIOS "hands-off" control to the OS. Before the OS is loaded there is no way the Intel drivers can bypass the OS before it is loaded, since the OS, and hence, the drivers, are NOT LOADED YET. The BIOS tells the OS what is and is not present, not the other way around. The chipset also has nothing to do with it, it is a function of the Award BIOS, not a particular chipset. Now, I don't know if AMI BIOS's do this or not.

Now, I know for a fact that you are not speaking from experience on the drive being available to the OS when set to "NONE", because I do this every day with a dual boot configuration, and the OS DOES NOT have access to a drive set to "NONE" in STANDARD CMOS SETUP. When the drive is set to "NONE", the BIOS reports no drive there, so the OS cannot "see" it as you claim, regardless if the other drives are set to "AUTO" or "USER DEFINED".

Yes, the Intel BM drivers do show the drive name and type in Device Manager, and may bypass the BIOS for the drive info (WHILE THE OS IS RUNNING), but when a drive is set to "NONE", the BIOS tells the OS "hey, there is no drive here". Now, why would the Intel drivers just ignore this and get the drive information directly from the drive. Keep in mind, I am not saying that it is not possible, I am just saying that it wouldn't make sense. I know for a fact that other drivers (XStore, Win98, etc.) do not work this way, (bypass the BIOS for the drive information and ignore what the BIOS reports), and I highly doubt that the Intel BM drivers do this also. Why would they? And why would it only be in Windows 95 with these drivers? Just because it shows the drive name in Device Manager does not mean that they bypass the BIOS for the information. The BIOS DOES in fact know the name, manufacturer, and perimeters of the drive. It is in the drives firmware, which the BIOS can read also. But as I have said before, I don't use the Intel BM drivers, so I COULD be mistaken.

This all applies to award BIOS version 4.51 or later.

Please do not be offende by the "interrogative" tone of my post, as I do not mean to offend you, just to state my point more clearly in case you did not get it the first time. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif




Interrogator