Problem setting up system to boot from 2 drives/2 OS

[geep]

I have just upgraded my T61p’s hard drive with a new Hitachi 7K200 200gb running Vista Ultimate 64. My original drive is now in the Ultra Bay which has as an OS Vista Ultimate 32.

I’d like to be able to boot from either my primary hard drive (Vista 64) or an Ultra Bay drive (Vista 32). The boot order in the bios lists as (1) the primary and (2) the 2nd HDD in the Ultra Bay. During the boot process I hit F12 which gives me the option to choose which drive to boot from.

All goes well with the primary if chosen, but when I choose the 2nd HDD, the machine seems to recognize the drive – but after a moment or two the blue error screen pops up. What issues should I look at. I need some guidance here. Thanks.

[erik]

when the original drive with vista 32 is installed in the main bay, does the system boot normally?   i have vista x64 on the main drive and XPP on the ultrabay drive and i can chose between them at boot with no problem.   both OSes were installed with each drive installed in the main bay.   after that they can be swapped between the main bay and ultrabay with no issues.

[geep]

The original drive (Vista 32) was installed from the main bay and would always boot fine from there. The new drive installed with Vista 64 was also installed from the main drive and is booting fine as well.

However now when I choose the original drive now housed in the ultrabay the drive is read for at least 30 secs and then finally the usual Microsoft scrolling bar appears but before the vista logo appears I get a dreaded blue screen. The system then automatically reboots to the new drive successfully. (thanks for helping me Erik). [/quote]

[Jike]

Geep it sounds like your original disk has ahci drivers. That is for sata drives. Although you can use the disk in ultra bay it operates in pata mode.

You can either use your original disk for data only or install new os to it in ultra bay (you will need the advanced dock or a usb cd / dvd drive or install from network).

If you are patient you can remove the new disk, put back the original disk, go to your bios and change sata mode to compatibility mode, intall the os, go back to bios and change sata mode to ahci mode, put original disk in ultra bay and it will boot. That way you can use your new disk in ahci mode and the original disk will have the correct drivers to load os from ultra bay.

Complicated eh?