Anyone know how to dual boot XP Pro with 2 drives? I am using Acronis OS Selector 8.0 But XP on disk 2 doesn't boot. It only boots when only one drive is attached to cable. Email me if you can help...

Hello Ian, You can easily create your own boot menu that will appear when your system starts to boot by adding your own entry to the win xp pro 'boot ini file'. At present you should have somthing like this [boot loader] timeout=30 default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS [operating systems] multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect you just need to add the following to the boot.ini file on the drive thats set as the (master). multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect Just make a copy of your 'boot ini' first incase you need to restore it. Also create a restore point. Which ever drive is booted, that copy of XP will be your C drive. Also doing it this way, you won't need to use your third party boot program. Hope this helps. Regards

I prefer to use a boot menu that only shows the operating system that is being used, and hides the other one.

If that's the case your going to have to wait till someone else comes back to you that has used Acronis OS Selector than. I'm not sure how you would set that up. I used OSLoader at first but I found that the native XP Loader was much better. It loads the OS that you have set as the default if you don't change it in the aloted time. It has a setable timer, mine is set at 6sec. I like it alot. Later, Regards

If your at the boot menu there is no operating system being used yet.At what point do you get to pick the one you want if one is hidden? Jimi_l

I have installed the following os's on my system. I have win98 on C, winMe on D, and winXP on E (these are all partitions on the same drive). Unfortunately, winXP only detects winME! Is winXP actually capable of multibooting or only dual booting? I have thought about manually editing the boot.ini file. It currently reads: [boot loader] timeout=30 default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS [operating systems] multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect C:\="Microsoft Windows" Is there a way of manually editing this so that it will "see" my win98? (don't know why it says 'C:\="microsoft windows" --- that leads to winME on my D drive!) I also have Red Hat Linux 7.3 installed on a second drive. It only detects itself and the winXP bootloader. Will appreciate any advice. Lilly

Hi Lilly, Though I am mid a computer course program, I have not totally mastered all the ways you can edit Boot Ini, but, from what I see you want to do, here is my suggestion: I would get a hold of the software called "System Commander", and install it on Win 98. This has a boot manager which I found really cool, it detects all other O/Ses on your drives et will give you a relly neat looking menu at boot up (with icons of each OSes). With this program, I was able to install XP, Win2000, Win 98, Win 95, Dos 622, Mandrake on one 40Go drive. It worked wonderfully, till I recently tried to install NT4 and that screwed up my FAT and I have not yet found how to unscrew it!! But, that was a dumb mistake anyways...LOL! P.S. With System commander, you not only have a boot manager, but a very powerful partition utility, similar to Partition Magic, but it has more features. I really love that program, I strongly recommend it to Multi OS lovers!! Take care, Marcel