Multiple XP's to boot on one drive by xpuser3 on July 06th, 2005 08:07:15 PM
I then used partition magic to copy this partition to 2 others. This gives me 3 xp pros to boot into. One for my wife and one for each kid. So you used PM to copy the system partition in order to create two additional partitions with the same contents?i_XpUser |
Multiple XP's to boot on one drive by rearsley4 on July 06th, 2005 08:24:27 PM
Yes! I figure, since only one system can be active at a time there shouldn't be a problem with the liscense. All 3 partitions ae on the same hard drive on the same system. This way each user can make any changes to their system without effecting the others. Back on win/me I originally had 1 system with 3 id's, but certain changes one makes shows up on the desktop of the others. Also if one of them does something that blows away their system, it hurts everyone if they are all on the same system in the same partition.What I didn't say is there is actually a second hard drive that has an original copy of one of these systems. That partition is marked as hidden. And that hard drive is not connected so it is not running. The purpose is that if one of my kids or wife, blows their system away, I can simply connect the second drive, copy the partition into place and have a prebuilt and preconfigured system ready in less than an hour. Otherwise, I'd have to reinstall from scratch and re-install all of the software. That would take several evenings.Thanks |
Multiple XP's to boot on one drive by xpuser3 on July 06th, 2005 08:29:28 PM
Yes! I figure, since only one system can be active at a time there shouldn't be a problem with the liscensePM does not copy contents of a HD. It only create/delete partitions as the name implies. Can you enlight me how you did it? Regarding the license, it's a different matter.i_XpUser |
Multiple XP's to boot on one drive by rearsley4 on July 06th, 2005 08:37:16 PM
Start Partition magic 8. If your system has free space, as mine did. I was only using 40gb of 120gb. If you right click on the existing partition a popup menu shows. One of the options is 'Copy'. You simply select that and tell it to copy into unassign hard drive space. By default pm will copy the partition at the same size. You have the option of resizing any or all of the partitions, or you can create another copy.PM will shut down the system and perform the hard drive functions (copy or resize) during the boot cycle.After PM is done, your first partitionwill boot.You then have an exact duplicate of your original partition.You can also tell PM to mark a copy of the partition as 'Hidden'. This means that no application or opsys can see it. It is as if it does not exist.FYI, copy works to the same drive or to another drive. It does not care.Thanks |
Multiple XP's to boot on one drive by xpuser3 on July 06th, 2005 08:44:41 PM
Alright then beside PM "copying" a partition contents did it also changed the drive letters assigned to the system files?i_XpUser |
Multiple XP's to boot on one drive by rearsley4 on July 06th, 2005 09:11:03 PM
The first time you boot into the original partition, this system sees and knows the new partitions by their newly assign drive letters. In my case, because I have a cd-rom and cd-rw drive they became 'F' and 'G'. I then go into those partitions and edit their own copy of boot.ini to correctly know that they are booting from a different partition. I can use PM to hide the 1st and 3rd partitions and mark the 2nd as active. Then with a reboot, the second partition boots.I can also use PM to mark the 1st and 2nd partitions as hidden and make active the 3rd partiton and boot to it.The problem is if all 3 partitions are not hidden with the 1st active, the multi boot menu shows 3 systems that can be booted, but it will always boot to the first partition no matter which selection you pick.I can't figure out what to change to make the selections work and boot to the correct partition.Any ideas?Thanks |
Multiple XP's to boot on one drive by xpuser3 on July 06th, 2005 09:16:04 PM
You cannot "clone" one drive to create three XP bootable partitions and expect it to work miraculously. Windows XP has to be installed from the CDROM.i_XpUser |
Multiple XP's to boot on one drive by mattie3 on July 06th, 2005 10:09:03 PM
well ... i'm not familiar with boot magic for i'm using BootStar ... my approach in that case would be:clone the first partition to the others using ghost (local, partition to, partition), then hiding all other partitions for each boot option with BootStar, so nobody can mess around with someone else's files, which seems to be the whole idea of this project.p.s. may i suggest 4 partitions? use the last (could be a pretty small one) to keep a clean installation image, in case someone needs a 'proper' system restore :-)Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.'icq 10183575 |
Multiple XP's to boot on one drive by ham302 on July 07th, 2005 12:07:05 AM
"You then have an exact duplicate of your original partition."That's a problem. The copied systems both think they are on drive C:. So all the Registry entries refer to drive C:. This is not good.The right way to do this, is to do a fresh XP install on each of the two new partitions. |
Multiple XP's to boot on one drive by mattie3 on July 07th, 2005 12:38:40 AM
"the copied systems" won't know of each other ... when you HIDE all other partitions with your boot manager ... they all "think" they are on a C: driveToday's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.'icq 10183575 |
Multiple XP's to boot on one drive by ham302 on July 07th, 2005 01:01:42 AM
Right on Mattie! If the other two partitions are hidden it 'should' work fine. |
Multiple XP's to boot on one drive by rearsley4 on July 07th, 2005 01:08:48 AM
After Mattie posted the info about BootStar, I went to the site and was reading up on it instruction pages. They have a discussion on the boot.ini file. It gave me an idea. I think I know how to get it working without bootstar.A few years ago I was working on my masters in computer networking and we installed multiple NT's on a single drive. That was what I was trying to do, but with XP. I think my boot.ini files in the extra partitions are not as correct as I thought they were.Like you said, when the other partitions are hidden, each thinks it is C, which should mean that they all think they are in the first partition. I have the boot.ini files set up to know which partition they are truely in.I'm going to try playing with the ini files again. Should that fail, I'll give the trial version of bootstar a try.Thanks |
Multiple XP's to boot on one drive by wanderer4 on July 07th, 2005 06:34:28 AM
It is incorrect that they all see themselves as on c:To do that you have to do thishttp://www.computing.net/howto... am the authorPrevious posts on the subject have shown that the OS on the second partition will continue to use the profiles/pagefile on the first partition. EVEN IF YOU "HIDE" partitions unless you follow the procedure I posted above. |
Multiple XP's to boot on one drive by ham302 on July 07th, 2005 08:55:48 AM
I suspect that Wanderer is right. WinXP kinda takes complete control. I have disabled drives in the Bios and XP goes ahead and uses them anyway. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he ignores the hidden indicator. |
Multiple XP's to boot on one drive by xpuser3 on July 07th, 2005 05:05:00 PM
To do that you have to do thishttp://www.computing.net/howto... am the author Hi Wanderer - Your article is excellent. As you know PQ is no longer an entity. Do you feel it's now time to update the article? The other thing is I have no idea if pqboot.exe is still supplied with Symantec's PM.i_XpUser |
Re: Multiple XP's to boot on one drive by Anonymous Ghost on August 17th, 2005 05:29:52 PM
Interesting!
Whatever boot manager I use I always end up with a DOS screen asking me which Windows XP I require; XP, XP#1 XP#2 etc. How do I remove this step?screen |
