Can you have two HDDs running two OS's on your PC?

eatingrich

Alright folks! Another odd question...

Basically I've come across an abundance of hard drives, and in the past few weeks I've also come across games that are too old to run in XP, but too new to run properly in DOSBox. I can get Daggerfall to work but not properly, and games like Settlers3 and Creatures 2 I can't use.

So I was wondering if its possible to set up another hard drive on my pc, which has Windows98, and then when I boot up choose which hard drive I want to use.

My bro-in-law doesn't think you can do it but I was using this other PC and when I pressed F8 or something similar during bootup it asked me what I wanted to use for bootup, floppy disk, cd-rom or EITHER hard drive in the PC, so I'm now wondering if its possible after all.

Hope you can help, thanks in advance!

CDsDontBurn

yes, it is possible to do. however, when you do it, you'll want to install win98 first, then install winXP. installing winXP first may cause issues w/win98. Not very difficult to do at all .

eatingrich

thanks for the reply, its good to know. I have a spare 20GB HDD and a spare 80GB, which do you reckon will be best for Win98? I think 20GB simply because I can sell the 80GB one for more and I'll only have a few games installed on it really.

When you say, install Win98 first, you know I mean two seperate Hard Drives, right? I already have the first hard drive up and running with WinXP, if I use a seperate computer to install the 20GB HDD with Win98, then put it in my current PC that has the WinXP HDD in it, will that work?

Also, how should I set the jumpers on the hard drive? They can't both be masters I presume?

Thanks again!

CDsDontBurn

you should keep both drives. install win98 on the 20Gb drive, and then install winXP on the 80Gb drive. Also, DO NOT install any OS on a seperate machine then bring that drive to the machine where the drive will be used. it messes everything up. It's very likely, that you'll need to install both OSes at the same time.

and the drives should be set up in master/slave configuration if they will be on the same IDE controller.

but, another question has arised. Have you ever used winXP compatibility mode?

temeteus82

It won't work. If you don't know how to boot from winxp cd to it's recovery console and run bootcfg (not recommended for newbie).... hard drives usually have pic where you can see all the jumper configurations...

Dyre Straits

I, too, was wondering if you've tried running those old games under XP Compatibility mode? It's actually quite simple to do once you know how to do it the first time.

Install the game under XP. If you opt to put an icon on the Desktop, once the game's installed, just right click on that icon. Then select Properties from the bottom of the popup menu. There will be a Compatibility tab in the next screen. Click on that and then select the compatibility mode you want to use. If that one doesn't work, try another.

If you don't select to create an icon on the Desktop, you can do the same procedure by going to where you installed the game and right click on the game.exe. Follow the previous steps from that point.

Good luck!

AND, like CDs said, you can't install an OS on another computer and then simply put the hard drive into another one. BAD, bad, bad things happen.

Judas

hmmm..

You "could" with 2 hardrives,

to keep things completely isolated (best way anyways)

is to setup xp on one drive (usually the larger one) for your main OS as the primary hd,

set the bios to boot from that one,

and then when done, and wanting to isntall 98, you could, go into the bios, and set the primary boot for the secondary drive, and isntall away, this should keep the MBR on both completely seperate, and the windows files and registry settings completely seperate, the windows XP OS will see the secondary drive as simply another HD, while when running windows 98, (and ntfs used on the windows xp install) shouldn't see anything for the first drive at all.

The only thing is, you'd have to go into the bios and manual change which drive you would like to boot from every time you'd want to change.

OR

in some motherboard setups, they allow you to set no boot drive at all, and to bring up a bootloader choice for which device to boot from. But that's usually a rareity.

Freulein

would it be more clever to install win98 or a DOS - Box on your current winxp installation virtual ?
maybe you like to use 'software virtualization solution', software at www.altiris.com/download.aspx ; key www.altiris.com/svs-free .
packages ready to use ? www.svsdownloads.com

Dowaco

PangingJr

Layers of Multi-Booting...
http://cquirke.mvps.org/multboot.htm#PBR

H3X4D3C1M4L

Why bother... use Microsoft's Virtual PC then install windows 98 on that. Virtual PC is free and you can install and try any OS in it and its actually quite fast.

Your games would have no problems with that.

BlueMak

Since when is Virtual PC free? Care to provide a link?

temeteus82

BlueMak: take a look of this link...
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/vir...loads/sp1.mspx

BlueMak

Hmm, I will try to download it, but I have XP Home, not professional.

BlueMak

It does work under XP Home.

Mousey

i was running OSX 10.4.3 and OSX 10.4.6 (after upgrade) on one HDD and XP on the other and everything was fine, provided i unplugged the Windows HDD or the OSX HDD when i wanted to use eitheir

H3X4D3C1M4L

VMWare is free now too. Xen 3.0 has always been free and it works astoundingly well for virtualization enthusiasts

eatingrich

thanks for all the answers guys.

I have tried it in XP under compatibility mode, to be honest I've never ever known it to make a difference even though I do still try it.

This Virtual PC thing sounds interesting, I'll look into it.

It sounds like the easiest thing to do would be to install the second, smaller HDD as a slave drive, then set BIOS to boot up from that instead, install Win98 and whenever I want to use that drive particularly for Win98 just change the order of booting up in my BIOS. Sounds easiest!

Thanks again, I'm intrigued by these virtual PC apps...

H3X4D3C1M4L

Its better than a 2nd hard drive IMO... less power consumption and hassle. Plus it seems like every device you tell Windows about slows it down by minimum 20%

eatingrich

Well I downloaded Virtual PC but when I started to install it says for Windows2000 or Xp Professional only, are you sure it will work on XP Home without screwing up my computer?

OldBuzzard

HyperOS 2004SE It isn't free, but will do what you want to do. HOS 2007 and OneClick won't work because they don't support Win98.

http://www.hyperossystems.co.uk/ Click the products button at the top of the page, then scroll down till you find 2004.

BlueMak

I have XP Home and it worked just fine. The only problem is the very bad graphics card you are forced to use in the vpc (an old trio 64 with 4 or 8 ram).

eatingrich

cool, thanks. I think an 8MB card will be good enough for the games I'd most like to run. As long as it works on XP Home! Thanks again!

eatingrich