Dual Booting
SoulSkorpion
Join Date: 2002-04-12 Member: 423Members
Join Date: 2002-04-12 Member: 423Members
<div class="IPBDescription">amusing story included absolutely free!</div> At the moment in our neighbourhood it is "put out all your junk that's too bulky to be thrown out and you no longer need" week. I think the idea is that everyone gets to salvage stuff and afterwards the local government sends trucks around to pick up the stuff nobody wanted.
Anyway, this time someone had thrown out a computer. Can you believe people do that?... Yeah, so can I; it had only one of those huge, old keyboard ports and no apparent mouse port at all. I figured it would be fun to grab it and cannibalise it for parts to test other machines with, also to have a machine to be free to do what I liked with (seeing if I could take it apart and put it back together, looking at exactly where everything goes. In short, having a good ole geeky fun time with it <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->).
So I took the machine and headed for home. I could hear some wierd rattling noises coming from the case. It generally didn't sound healthy at all, and I assumed that there were all sorts of broken parts inside. Well, I got it home and opened it up to discover exactly what was making all the wierd noises.
It turns out there were three things.
1: A spanner had been left in the machine, wedged in place. My jaw dropped. I can maybe sorta understand a <i>screwdriver</i> being left inside a computer, but computers don't have bolts to undo (let alone ones that are 1.5cm across.)
2: A thin chain which I think was a crappy necklace of some sort. The metal definately wasn't silver. Still trying to figure out how this one got inside.
The third thing we found the most hillarious. Upon removing the CD-ROM drive, I discovered that the rattling noise was due to a CD. <i>Outside</i> the drive, faced down. Rattling in between the CD-ROM drive, the hard disk and the sides of the case. I can only imagine that some confused user attempted to insert the CD into the computer but mistook the gap between the components for the drive itself. What was even more hillarious was that it was an audio CD of Christmas songs <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->.
Anyway, to cut to my original intention of this post, I yoinked the hard disk out of that machine and stuck it in my machine using the bus and power cables from my hard disk for the new one (since I couldn't quite get them to reach). It turns out there was still a functional copy of Windows ME on it, and after a bit of driver-installing I played some old games on it (which won't run under XP). So I got the idea of possibly leaving that hard disk unformatted and using it for old games, dual booting between it and XP. I re-fiddled my machine to get both hard disks plugged in, booted up to find myself back in ME (the FAT partition on my old hard disk is visible, so it works. Whee!). Anywho, all the instructions I've been able to Google so far on setting up dual booting involve starting from a clean format and partitioning hard disks. Is there no way to have the different operating systems on physically seperate hard disks? Preferably without reformatting?
Anyway, this time someone had thrown out a computer. Can you believe people do that?... Yeah, so can I; it had only one of those huge, old keyboard ports and no apparent mouse port at all. I figured it would be fun to grab it and cannibalise it for parts to test other machines with, also to have a machine to be free to do what I liked with (seeing if I could take it apart and put it back together, looking at exactly where everything goes. In short, having a good ole geeky fun time with it <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->).
So I took the machine and headed for home. I could hear some wierd rattling noises coming from the case. It generally didn't sound healthy at all, and I assumed that there were all sorts of broken parts inside. Well, I got it home and opened it up to discover exactly what was making all the wierd noises.
It turns out there were three things.
1: A spanner had been left in the machine, wedged in place. My jaw dropped. I can maybe sorta understand a <i>screwdriver</i> being left inside a computer, but computers don't have bolts to undo (let alone ones that are 1.5cm across.)
2: A thin chain which I think was a crappy necklace of some sort. The metal definately wasn't silver. Still trying to figure out how this one got inside.
The third thing we found the most hillarious. Upon removing the CD-ROM drive, I discovered that the rattling noise was due to a CD. <i>Outside</i> the drive, faced down. Rattling in between the CD-ROM drive, the hard disk and the sides of the case. I can only imagine that some confused user attempted to insert the CD into the computer but mistook the gap between the components for the drive itself. What was even more hillarious was that it was an audio CD of Christmas songs <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->.
Anyway, to cut to my original intention of this post, I yoinked the hard disk out of that machine and stuck it in my machine using the bus and power cables from my hard disk for the new one (since I couldn't quite get them to reach). It turns out there was still a functional copy of Windows ME on it, and after a bit of driver-installing I played some old games on it (which won't run under XP). So I got the idea of possibly leaving that hard disk unformatted and using it for old games, dual booting between it and XP. I re-fiddled my machine to get both hard disks plugged in, booted up to find myself back in ME (the FAT partition on my old hard disk is visible, so it works. Whee!). Anywho, all the instructions I've been able to Google so far on setting up dual booting involve starting from a clean format and partitioning hard disks. Is there no way to have the different operating systems on physically seperate hard disks? Preferably without reformatting?
Comments
I'm going to need just a liiiitle more help, here...
Of course, there's a free one called LILO... the Linux Loader, which CAN be used to switch between multiple OSen, various Windows flavors included.
Beyond that, you could head to Radio Shack and pick up a HDD switch, allowing you to physically switch between the drives before boot.
Of course, there's a free one called LILO... the Linux Loader, which CAN be used to switch between multiple OSen, various Windows flavors included.
Beyond that, you could head to Radio Shack and pick up a HDD switch, allowing you to physically switch between the drives before boot. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thanks for the help <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I may just be dumb, but wouldn't that only give him access to one HD at a time?
And SoulSkorpion have you tryed running the old games in compatability mode?