Dual booting with 2 hard drives: no modification to internal

Message

sbddude · #1 Post by **sbddude** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 1:04 pm

I have 2 hard drives that I would like to boot from in my T43. One for work, one for personal. Is there a way to choose between booting from either the main hard drive or the ultrabay drive without modifying the main hard drive? I don't want to keep swapping them out of the main hard drive bay every day.

mrpaulin · #2 Post by **mrpaulin** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 1:16 pm

Go into the BIOS setup and change the boot order. You can make the ThinkPad boot off either hard drive that way. My T41 boots Windows XP off the drive in the internal bay, and it boots Windows Vista off the drive in the Ultrabay Slim 2nd HDD adapter.

leegaard · #3 Post by **leegaard** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 3:59 pm

Catch it in the boot process with F12

christopher_wolf · #4 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 4:22 pm

The previous two posts are correct regarding that; you can choose which device you want to boot from during the BIOS splash screen. Simply hit F12 and choose, then hit enter. You should boot just fine.

JHEM · #5 Post by **JHEM** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 4:31 pm

BEWARE!!!

Just make certain that both installations know where they're residing!

If they both think they're on the C: drive there will hell to pay in the Registry!

DAMHIK!

Regards,

James

lithium726 · #6 Post by **lithium726** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 4:35 pm

why?

they both have their own registry... the internal hdd will be a D drive for the ultrabay install and the ultrabay hdd will be the D drive to the internal install. I dont see a problem, ive done that before with no issues at all.

christopher_wolf · #7 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 4:49 pm

lithium726 wrote:why?

they both have their own registry... the internal hdd will be a D drive for the ultrabay install and the ultrabay hdd will be the D drive to the internal install. I dont see a problem, ive done that before with no issues at all.

I think that was if you are dual-booting two Windows OS on different drives; you only need to worry about telling GRUB or LILO where to mount root on a Linux dual-boot with a 2nd HDD in the Ultrabay.

lithium726 · #8 Post by **lithium726** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 10:13 pm

in that case, why not just use the windows bootloader?

as i understand it, he wants to do this without having a bootloader and is running windows on both drives... i couldve misinterpreted though.

JHEM · #9 Post by **JHEM** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 11:21 pm

lithium726 wrote:why?

Because if both OS's were originally installed on different machines, or even the same machine with the drive internally, they'll both think they're occupying the C: address on the IDE port.

I don't believe the IDE addresses "switch" depending on the F12 switch on BOOT.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I ran into this problem on my old T40.

Regards,

James

christopher_wolf · #10 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 12:42 am

JHEM wrote:
lithium726 wrote:why?
Because if both OS's were originally installed on different machines, or even the same machine with the drive internally, they'll both think they're occupying the C: address on the IDE port.

I don't believe the IDE addresses "switch" depending on the F12 switch on BOOT.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I ran into this problem on my old T40.

Regards,

James

The IDE addresses won't switch when you do a transfer/swap of the HDDs or the F12 switch. That just tells the BIOS which one to go ahead and boot from. You would have to let the 2nd Windows install know darn sure of which HDD it is on; lest you get some very nasty funkiness with the Registry.

JHEM · #11 Post by **JHEM** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 6:55 am

Exactly Chris.

Regards,

James

giasoldacastlar · #12 Post by **giasoldacastlar** » Wed Feb 07, 2007 11:14 am

Unfortunately I read this tread when it was too late and I already booted from a second HD with the same configuration as the main one (just different data and programs).

I can confirm what others said that the registry of the HD I booted with in the tray is now a mess. It doen't even finish booting now ...

Dual booting with 2 hard drives: no modification to internal

Dual booting with 2 hard drives: no modification to internal

Who is online