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need hard drive boot help

Tags:
  • Hard Drives
  • Windows Vista
  • Boot
  • Windows XP
  • Storage
Last response: in Storage
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April 18, 2007 8:45:30 PM

if i want to boot xp and vista off different drives can i have one be ide ata100 and one be sata 3g/s or do they have to be the same.

More about : hard drive boot

a b G Storage
April 20, 2007 10:43:59 PM

Yes, but you might want to change the boot order of the drives for it through the BIOS so that the Vista Drive(usually) is the 1st or the 2nd drive in the boot order list.
April 21, 2007 12:51:52 AM

Here's how I would do it:

In the BIOS set the IDE hard drive as the boot drive and install XP on it. After installing XP install Vista to the SATA drive. Vista will replace XP's bootloader with its own on the IDE drive. You'll then be able to boot both from both drives.

Another, less elegant, solution would be to set one of the drives as the boot drive and install Vista on it. Make the other drive the boot drive and install XP. Then change the boot drive in BIOS depending on what OS you want to boot. Like I said this is very inelegant solution; although some motherboards allow you to pick a boot drive without entering the BIOS by pressing a hot key at POST.
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