pakime said:
I have to change BIOS settings (hard drive boot sequence) in order to boot from a given disk.
That's correct: Your computer will boot off the
first harddisk according to the BIOS settings.
What Im trying to do is to have a dual boot option at power-up.
If you want to boot Windows from any harddisk other than the first one, then you will need to use a boot manager that supports temporarily remapping the disk order, so that the Windows loader is made to believe that it sits on the first harddisk. (Then, as soon as Windows takes over, the disk order will return to normal.)
One such boot loader is
GRUB, which I use to select between two Windows XP installs on my first harddisk, one Windows ME install on my second harddisk (well - that has been removed recently), and two additional Windows XP installs on my third harddisk - plus a number of Linux distributions. Works like a charm! In order to install GRUB, you will need access to a Linux system, though; a Linux Live CD (which runs off a CD, and needn't be installed to your harddisk) is sufficient, since you will no longer need it once GRUB is installed.
I've read about adjusting lines to the boot.ini files, but hoping to hear second opinions, anyone ?
That would work only if you install the Windows versions in the right order, I believe. Personally, I have never tried this, and, to be honest, I wouldn't want to rely on
boot.ini for multi-booting, since it will be next to impossible to repair should anything go wrong. As long as it works, I guess it will work great, but the least bit of trouble will likely render your computer unbootable, in my opinion.