Two copies of Windows 2000 on one drive?

[epbrown]

I did a search, but anything with Windows in the search terms pulls too many useless posts. Here's the situation:

I've got 3 active Thinkpads, 2 Transnotes and an IBM 600X. One t-note is my "daily driver" and I recently upgraded to a 7200 rpm 100GB drive. The other t-note is my back-up machine, the 600X my home desktop machine. What I'd like to do is upgrade the 600X to the same drive, but I'd also like to be able to immediately use the same drive in my back-up t-note if disaster strikes.

Would I be able to insert the blank drive in the 600X and install W2K and the necessary drivers, then put it in the t-note and install a 2nd copy with those drivers, then select between the two on boot depending on which machine the drive is in? I've run dual boots of different OSs on one machine, but never tried the same one on 2 machines...

[jdhurst]

I think if I were going to try that, I would use Partition Magic. I believe PM would accomodate your scenario, but I have not tested it that way.
... JD Hurst

[AndyL]

My hunch is that what you described will work - even just with Win2k's own dual-boot option, no 3rd party product. Only way to know for sure is to try it though. I think I might be inclined to test it first on an old hard drive if you have one.

Applications could be a bit tricky - you will definitely need to install them all twice, once on each operating system. Some may be happy to be installed in the same location on both OSes, so you only need one copy of the stuff under c:\program files; others may get confused by that and need to be installed in separate folders under the two OSes. If you've run dual boots before I'm sure you're familiar with all those issues though.

I'll be interested to hear whether you're successful with this.

[Nolonemo]

Here's what I'd try (because it sounds like you only want to swap the drive in an emergency, i.e., very rarely).

You have your drive installed on one machine, with necessary drivers, etc., now pop it in the other machine and fire it up. Win2k will detect the drivers it needs, will auto install the ones it already has resident, and will prompt you for the others (which you will install).

After that's done, I'm betting that whenever you change machines, W2k will run though the appropriate driver install automatically and run just fine. You may need to keep some drivers on your HD if W2k doesn't auto-install them (but I think it will).

It does take a little time for the OS to go through all the driver changes after a swap, but it doesn't sound like that would be an issue in your situation.

P.S. Yes, I know you should always do a clean install on new hardware, but I've done enough quick and dirty mobo swaps in desktops to know that W2k and XP are pretty robust in that regard.

[davidspalding]

... Would I be able to insert the blank drive in the 600X and install W2K and the necessary drivers, then put it in the t-note and install a 2nd copy with those drivers, ...

I suspect that the Windows installer wouldn't let you do this. MAYBE if you hid the partition or something. But Partition Magic or a competitor might make this easier. If you have a use for Ghost, you can buy them both in a bundle like I did.

[edit]Oops, I was mistaken.

[AndyL]

I suspect that the Windows installer wouldn't let you do this.

I'm pretty sure it will - if it detects an existing installation of the same OS on the drive it will prompt you to install in a different directory. Then when you boot up you'll get a menu asking which one you want to use.

Actually I like Nolonemo's suggestion though. Provided both machines use the same HAL (check size and version information on c:\winnt\hal.dll) it ought to work. However there is some slight risk that it won't - just maybe some 600X driver will cause a bad crash on the Transnote. In that case you'd be falling back on reinstalling Windows. I guess you'd have to weigh up that cost vs. the risk.

[epbrown]

I've done the "swap disk/let it spot drivers" thing before, and it's a crap shoot with 2 models a lot closer than a hotrod 600X and a bone-stock t-note. I'd only try it between my t-note and X20/21 model, and even then...

You're right about Windows, though. One of my Transnotes offers two Windows 2000 options already - it's where I got the idea. I think the previous owner of my back-up machine was attempting to remove his old info and re-install Windows and simply installed another copy. I never bother booting the 2nd version, and this weekend I'm pulling the sucker anyway.

[davidspalding]

I suspect that the Windows installer wouldn't let you do this.

I'm pretty sure it will - if it detects an existing installation of the same OS on the drive it will prompt you to install in a different directory.

Y'know, I've seen this, and had forgotten. Mea culpa.

[epbrown]

Well, it worked and it didn't work. W2K had no problem giving me 2 copies, and even the hardware setup seems okay. Unfortunately, it seems pretyt much all Windows software has trouble with the Registry. Even booting from the 2nd copy of Windows still directed the software to the WINNT directory. I formated and re-installed with 2 directories named WIN600 and WINTN and that confused the install routines even more. Ah well, it was worth a try. I gave up, cloned my t-note install, and went back to work on my other computer issue - one of the t-notes seems to have trouble with my Sierra PC5220.