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czl273

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4248

September 14th, 2010 20:00

Everything works great, but......

Hello out there!  I have a Dimension 4700 thats been great.  I have a 160GB Western Digital HDD thats part of the original case/desktop.  I've recently installed a 2TB Western Digital, installed XP on it...everything is great.  No probs what-so-ever.   My issue is I'd like to have my 160GB as a slave/storage drive, and only for storage.   However, upon boot up, my PC recognizes XP on both drives, and asks me which do I want to use.   The 160GB or 2TB??  Naturally, I want it to solely look for the 2TB to boot straight from without having to ask me.   It gives 30secs to decide which drive to boot from, if no choice is made and the clock runs out it boots from the 2TB drive, which is good.  However, I want to bypass this part altogether to where it doesn't look at the 160GB upon boot up.  I have the 160GB SATA plugged into SATA-0, and the 2TB SATA plugged into the SATA-2 on the motherboard.   I've gone into the Bios/Setup screen, and looked to see what I could do, but I'm just not seeing it or if I am seeing it & try to make a change, it doesn't seem to matter.   Any help/ideas/suggestions??

Morath

19 Posts

September 15th, 2010 21:00

Here you go...you have to modify the Boot.ini file in XP

In Windows XP, you can quickly and easily locate the Boot.ini to verify and/or edit the file.  If you have XP on both drives you'll have to do it the old fashioned way, as described below...if you have Vista on one and XP on the other follow the second set of directions as this is much easier to do in Vista

It is suggested to backup the Boot.ini file before editing. The first tasks will involve modifying folder option so as to view hidden files and then backing up the Boot.ini file.






Save a Backup Copy of Boot.ini

  1. Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
    -or-
    Click Start, click Run, type sysdm.cpl, and then click OK.
  2. On the Advanced tab, click Settings under Startup and Recovery.
  3. Under System Startup, click Edit. This opens the file in Notepad ready for editing.
  4. In Notepad, click File on the Menu bar, and then click Save As.
  5. Right click in an empty area of the Save As dialog box, point to New in the context menu, and then click Folder.
  6. Type a name for the new folder, for example temp, and then press the ENTER key to create the folder named temp.
  7. Double-click the new folder named temp, and then click the Save button to save a backup copy of the Boot.ini file.


Edit the Boot.ini File

To view and edit the Boot.ini file:

  1. Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
    -or-
    Click Start, click Run, type sysdm.cpl, and then click OK.
  2. On the Advanced tab, click Settings under Startup and Recovery.
  3. Under System Startup, click Edit.


Sample Boot.ini File

This is a sample of a default Boot.ini file from a Windows XP Professional computer.

[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



This is a sample of the above Boot.ini file with a previous installation of Windows 2000 on a separate partition.

[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="Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect





Modifying the Boot.ini

While you can modify the Boot.ini file using the Startup and Recovery dialog, where you can select the default operating system, change the timeout value, or manually edit the file, the following method uses the command line utility, Bootcfg.exe.

Note The Bootcfg.exe utility is only available in Windows XP Professional. This utility is not available in Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition. Therefore, this section does not apply to Windows XP Home Edition.

  1. Click Start, and then click Run.
  2. In the Open text box, type cmd.
  3. At the command prompt, type bootcfg /?.
  4. The help and parameters for BOOTCFG.exe will display.


Adding an Operating System

At the command prompt, type:

bootcfg /copy /d Operating System Description /ID#

Where Operating System Description is a text description (e.g. Windows XP Home Edition), and where # specifies the boot entry ID in the operating systems section of the BOOT.INI file from which the copy has to be made.




Removing an Operating System

At the command prompt, type:

bootcfg /delete /ID#

Where # specifies the boot entry ID that you want to be deleted from the operating systems section of the BOOT.INI file (e.g. 2 for the second Operating system that is listed.




Setting the Default Operating System

At the command prompt, type:

bootcfg /default /ID#

Where # specifies the boot entry id in the operating systems section of the BOOT.INI file to be made the default operating system.




Setting the Time Out

At the command prompt, type: bootcfg /timeout# Where # specifies the time in seconds after which default operating system will be loaded.




Open the Boot.ini File to Verify Changes

  1. Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
    -or-
    Click Start, click Run, type sysdm.cpl, and then click OK.
  2. On the Advanced tab, click Settings under Startup and Recovery.
  3. Under System Startup, click Edit.

Then reboot to make sure it works.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

If you have Vista on one hd and XP on the other follow the directions below....

 

If you are running a dual-boot setup with more than one Windows operating system, It’s pretty easy to configure the default boot operating system with the GUI interface. Note that if you are using Windows 7 or Vista as one of the operating systems, you will need to make this change from 7/Vista, not XP.

First, you’ll need to right click on Computer and select Properties:

Next, click Advanced System Settings

Now click on the Settings button under Startup and Recovery

And just select the operating system you want to use:

Easy stuff. You could also use the bcdedit command to do the same thing from the command line, but it’s probably easier this way.

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