Help installing Windows XP on a second hard drive

S

SylentViper

Posts: 10   +0
i have a laptop with two hard drives (hp pavilion 9000dv series if it helps) and vista is in the main drive (which has a partition for sistem restore) i am trying to install windows xp on the second hard drive (i plan to use both sistems for different things, xp mainly for gaming because vista gives me too much trouble). when i boot the xp installation cd it says that there are no hard drives in the computer.

i would greatly apreciate your help in installing both OS.
Thanks
 
It's possible you need drivers in order for Win XP to see the disks. If you have a floppy drive, copy the drivers to a floppy disk and install them during Windows setup. Press F6 to install the drivers when Windows XP setup first loads.
 
my laptop only has a dvd drive, whould using a flash drive or a memory stick work?. where do i find the drivers i would need?
 
As noted by the answer above you will need to install the raid drivers in order for the hard drive to be recognized. You do not need a floppy to load the drivers. You can slipstream the drivers into your windows disc.
 
I'm sorry but i just saw your reply and no you are not a noob for not knowing how to do that. It's very late here so I will post the instructions tomorrow. The process is not hard at all. Thanks for understanding.
 
nLite

Install nLite from here. Click on the first option. Read this guide. Choose "Intergrate Drivers". Download drivers from here. Put them in an easy to find folder. Find the folder, intergrate the drivers. Now use a burning software and burn to a DVD. Pop it in. Boot from it. Install Windows. Post results. If you need any help, post.
 
i have some trouble using nLite, to integrate the drivers it requires an .inf file but i cant extract it from the .exe, in the guide it says to use winzip, winrar or powerarchiver, but i can only extract a floppy .exe how can i get the .inf?
 
Sorry for not replying to you sooner. Had my own little computer problem going on. Finally said the heck with it and re-installed. Never realize how much junk you have on your computer till you have to go back and re-install it. In any event, you can use a cd-r or cd-rw. You do not have to use a dvd unless you are burning Windows 7. And only then because of the size of the iso file. I'm not sure what error you are getting when trying to intergrate the drivers. I simply use a compressed zip folder and had no problems. I have an Xp folder on my drive. I will slipstream some drivers into it to see if something has changed since the last time I performed the procedure. I think not though. I will get back to you as soon as I have done so.
 
SylentViper said:
i have a laptop with two hard drives (hp pavilion 9000dv series if it helps) and vista is in the main drive (which has a partition for sistem restore) i am trying to install windows xp on the second hard drive (i plan to use both sistems for different things, xp mainly for gaming because vista gives me too much trouble). when i boot the xp installation cd it says that there are no hard drives in the computer.

i would greatly apreciate your help in installing both OS.
Thanks
Click to expand...

Did you format the second disk with vista ?

Download GParted and see whether it can pick up both the discs.

https://www.techspot.com/downloads/4782-gparted.html
 
hey guys, i was on vacation and there was no internet available, i read the recent post and tried it, unfortunately i didn't know how to use gparted but i think i understood what he was saying. using partition magic i converted the hard drive to fat 32 but no luck, it still didn't recognize my hard drive, on a funny note it did so with my seagate external drive, and i still have no succes with nlite.
i appreciate all your help and hope we can find a solution quickly.
 
1. Download the GParted iso from the link
2. Burn it as image to a cd (use nero or other software)
3. Insert the cd in the drive.
4. Restart/reboot windows
5. GParted will run at startup, and offer some screens. Normally choose default.
6. Also language and keyboard selection is possible.
7. After a while, after analyzing your disks and partitions, GParted will show what it has picked up and their attributes.
 
well this has been more trouble than its worth, after successfully slipstreaming the drivers, and beginning the installation of xp in the secondary hard drive it did something to my primary drive and it doesn't boot vista, i physically removed the primary and installed xp with no problem but my primary doesn't boot, trying to use f8 to load last working settings (with the secondary removed) asks for a os to load and in the list only appears a nonexistent windows xp, and apparently it also deleted the windows restore points as trying to load the recovery dvds doesn't find them. is there any way to fix this without doing a restore to factory settings?
 
I could be wrong but I believe your problem is with your boot.ini file or with your boot menu in BIOS. I really am not very knowledgeable on dual boots when each are on a separate hdd. It may work the same as if each are on a partitioned single drive. I will have to defer this to someone with more knowledge than I but I will continue to search and watch this topic as I am very interested in a solution. If you are able to boot to Xp navigate to command prompt and enter bootcfg > press enter. This will list all os currently installed.
 
this really has been an excercise in futility. my laptop bios only recognises one hard drive for booting purposes ie: on the boot options menu there is the usual boot from cd and a very quaint boot from usb floppy (go retro!) plus boot from usb hard drive (dindn't know it was possible) and from a network hard drive, but it only lists laptop harddrive as in only one, no primary and slave, so the only way i was able to boot xp is switching the HDs physically.
i was able to explore my vista HD and the os partition looks fine but the restore partition is empty. perhaps that is a clue to what happened i will check the command prompt and post the results.
hope we find the solution. but hey! at least we are all learning something even if its at my expense.
 
cfgh.jpg


its in spanish but i'll translate.
4th line: boot loader configuration
7th line: boot entries
8th line: boot entry id
9th line: descriptive name
10th line: access path
12th line: os boot options
 
Thanks for posting. And you do not feel lonesome for learning at your expense. I do not claim to know alot but, what little I do know I learned the hard way mostly. I cannot tell you the number of mobos I blew. Of course they were all old and not worth very much but, the point is I blew them learning.

The boot.ini file only shows one installation. But, I am even more confused now since you said (reminded) that it is a laptop. I was not aware you could put two internal hdds in a laptop. Teach me something here and tell me how you accomplished that.
 
they came default, i bought the laptop online, and in the specs it said it had 320gigs of hdd and upon delivery i found out it was 2 160gigs hdd's. the model is hp pavilion dv 9740us.

 
The topic on the link below may give you some insight into this problem. It is as I suspected however. When you install two os on separate drives, one drive must be the master and contain the boot.ini file that list both operating systems. When you install windows on the slave drive it does not automatically write to the file. It must be configured manually. The topic on the link below deals with two xp installations but, the principals are the same. To save yourself alot of agravation of trying to figure out the correct way to configure the boot.ini file simply resize your primary and create a partition to install xp on. Then use the slave drive for all your data. This might not be what you wanted in the beginning but, it may prove to be too much to get the dual boot on separate drives.

https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic4175.html

I now feel really stupid for thinking you couldn't have two hdds on a laptop. I have no idea what I was thinking....lol. I gues I am just getting old and my mind is going...lol.
 
i had thought of partitioning the main drive for a standard double os boot, but the disks are too small, after resetting the laptop to its factory settings i have installed only 3 things: avg antivirus, firefox 4 beta and baldur's gate + totsc and i already have 60gigs of used space. so adding a second os in that drive would make space management a little hectic. one last question the software i used (partition manager) has a "copy drive" function. if i bought a new 500gig internal hdd could i copy the actual c drive to the hypothetical new drive safely? so in the end i had a 500g drive with 3 partitions: hp recovery 12 gigs, vista 250 gigs and xp 200ish gigs?

thank you very much to all that helped me in my quest for dual disk booting!
no seriously thanks.
 
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