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Dual boot windows XP

Curtis - Mar 29, 2003

		Curtis	Mar 29, 2003
		I was just idly wondering if it would be possible to dual boot two copies of an OS like windows XP? There are a few drivers I'd like to try out without destroying a perfectly good install, so I'm curious...

		Myname	Mar 30, 2003
		You might be able to do it without, but Partition Magic might be the best way to do it.. Just split your current partition into 2 and start the install on the new partition from within Partition Magic.

		Curtis	Mar 30, 2003
		Partition Magic eh? Does that have some kind of boot loader?

		Myname	Mar 30, 2003
		Yeah, Boot Magic .

		mtxblau	Apr 1, 2003
		Or, rather than using a dual boot, get yourself Norton Ghost, and take an image of your perfect install. If there's a mistake, reformat and reload. It's saved me countless times, and let me tell you, it's much easier to mess around with your computer knowing there's a backup somewhere. There are other programs like this, but Ghost by and far is the most robust and useful (it can image Linux partitions as well). It all operates from one bootdisc, and you can burn the image directly to a CD-R if needs be (it supports multi disk spanning).

		Quadriflax	Apr 1, 2003
		Isn't this what the system recovery is for? Couldn't you just make a restore point right before you install the drivers? If things screw up, go back to that. Reading through a number of posts in alt.os.windows-xp suggests to me that using Partion Magic and XP is not a good thing. Specifically: http://tinyurl.com/8mp8... Kadaitcha Man is probably one of the only people in that group that knows his stuff. Though much of it seems to be specifically referring to Partition Magic 7. Dunno about 8.

		Curtis	Apr 1, 2003
		Well the reasoning behind my need for two XPs is that I want a system setup with some specific sound drivers... so that I can experiment with some recording software. These drivers have some limitations (in terms of gameing), but also some advantages (in terms of rcording) and it would be a hassle to constantly switch between the regular SBLive drivers and these using System Restore and Ghost. I'd also like an install of win98 and linux.

		Gallstaff	Apr 1, 2003
		You can install windows and linux? Man that sounds like a world of trouble. I've only ever heard of windows/windows.

		mtxblau	Apr 1, 2003
		Hmm, Linux and windows isn't all that bad. Mandrake Linux (probably others too, I don't know, haven't tried) allows you to make a folder an virtually mount Linux, so you don't have to reformat or anything like that. It's stable, but a bit slower - however, it doesn't require making partitions. Or you can just leave some unpartitioned space and format/mount it in the setup. Either way works. The one thing I'm not terribly crazy about is not being able to access files in windows from Linux. You can do it the other way around though. Comes with the territory, I suppose. And Gallstaff, I've done Windows 98/ 2000/ Linux at one time. LILO is one heck of a bootloader. In any event, I imagine if you wanted to do all four at once, you'd set up four or five partitions, install 98 first, in the first partition (always in the first partition) then XP, then XP in the third, and Linux in the fourth. Lilo should recognize the first three partitions (if that's what you use, I think it's being included in most distros these days) and write a fourth for itself. But that's a helluva a lot of work. If anything, you can install everything but the drivers in partition 2, then ghost it and overwrite partition 3 (after installing XP), since the boot.ini is in drive C. This is applicable with or without Linux, although I imagine you'd need a separate bootloader. ---- Personally, the time you'd spend setting up two XPs may make system rollback/ghosting better. I mean, after you figure out which drivers are better, wouldn't that make one of the XP's moot? Or maybe I'm misinterpreted what you're saying, and that one XP is purely for recording and the other is for gaming (isn't that what hardware profiles are for?).

		Quadriflax	Apr 1, 2003
		Yeah, there's always the driver rollback. If a driver doesn't work, just use that to go back. I think you could easily switch back and forth with at most a reboot inbetween switching from one to the other. Install--> record--> roll back to others--> play games repeat. I know a friend of mine who had a Linux/Win2k duel boot. It took him quite a while to get it setup right. Granted he was quite new to Linux at the time, but still. Seemed like more work than it was worth. But while we're on soundcard drivers... I have an SB Live XGamer. I d/led and installed the latest drivers from Creative when I installed XP a month ago. But I've had some performance issues that I hear are somewhat common (MP3 playback is crackly sometimes). I've also noticed that when I do a Windows Update there's a suggested d/l for Driver Updates: Creative Media Driver Version 5.1.... I'm not sure what this is all about. Is this a MS thing? Just curious as to what they are.

		Curtis	Apr 1, 2003
		MTX: Yes, one set of drivers would be purely for recording, the other for gaming. Using Partition Magic/Boot Magic I should be able to workout a multiboot system. I'm a little concerned about the boot boundries for the various OSes (eg windows 98 must boot from the first 2gb, XP from the first 8) although there seems to be some workarounds for that. Quadriflax: I'd say the drivers offered on the Windows Update site are just the latest ones signed by MS. They are probably older than the ones offered by Creative. I'm confident that I could use Lilo to triple boot 98/XP/Linux - I've done dual boots this way before - adding the extra XP complicates things. Still, what's life without a challenge? Not a problem for now though...I still need to scpare together the funds for this new setup.

		TheXev	Apr 1, 2003
		Well the reasoning behind my need for two XPs is that I want a system setup with some specific sound drivers so that I can experiment with some recording software. These drivers have some limitations (in terms of gameing), but also some advantages (in terms of rcording) and it would be a hassle to constantly switch between the regular SBLive drivers and these using System Restore and Ghost. Actually, there is a way you can have your cake and eat it too without installing Windows completely twice (although a duel install XP/XP is quite possible, any NT based OS should have no problems doing it). What you can do is go into the âhardwareâ tab of your system properties (where Device Manager sits), and click the âHardware Profilesâ� button. Make a copy of your current config and name the copy something else, like âRecording config.â� Reboot and you will get a menu that will allow you to select Hardware profiles. Select the ârecording configâ� and let Windows boot. Uninstall the normal sound drivers and install the recording optimized ones on this config. You should be able to switch over to the âGaming configâ� and those drivers will automatically load up, while ârecording configâ� will load with the drivers you installed. Give it a shot! If it doesnât work, I suppose you should duel install Windows XP (it is doable, so long as you know what you are doing).

		Curtis	Apr 1, 2003
		Originally posted by TheXev@Apr 2, 2003 @ 10:09 PM ...(it is doable, so long as you know what you are doing). That's always the trouble, isn't it? Thanks for the tip - I'll give it a go when I get some time to pull appart my current "test" system.

		TheXev	Apr 1, 2003
		Originally posted by Curtis+Apr 1, 2003 @ 11:12 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Curtis @ Apr 1, 2003 @ 11:12 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'> <!--QuoteBegin-TheXev@Apr 2, 2003 @ 10:09 PM ...(it is doable, so long as you know what you are doing). That's always the trouble, isn't it? Thanks for the tip - I'll give it a go when I get some time to pull appart my current "test" system. [/b][/quote] Actually, a duel setup of XP would be very easy, so long as you used separate logical drivers for the installation. Simply install Windows XP once on the C: drive, then run setup again and tell it to go on the D drive, leaving the C alone. You would get a boot menu that would say "Windows XP Professional" twice, but you could open boot.ini and fix that real quick.

		Taelon	Apr 2, 2003
		With all this talk about the sound drivers, one thing seems to be lost... See, usually you get two ways - supported by two different sets of drivers - of accessing your soundcard for recording/playback in Windows. One is DirectSound, which all games will use. The other, used by Windows itself (desktop sounds) is the normal Wave device. You can configure pretty much any music player and recording software to use either device, for both playback and recording. Interestingly enough, most music software will by default use Wave, not DirectSound. There is a THIRD way of doing this, namely by what's called an ASIO driver. I don't know whether Creative supports ASIO, but these are extremely low-latency drivers specificially made for professional recording, and I know that at least n-Track Studio... (an excellent shareware multitrack recorder) has support for ASIO drivers. The bottom line? Play around with all available devices/options and see if that isn't sufficient for you after all, without having to dualboot or swap installed drivers etc.

		Curtis	Apr 2, 2003
		ASIO is the magic word here. The drivers I mentioned are ones that provide (unofficial) ASIO support for the SBLive and Audigy series - Creative does not do this except for the Audigy 2, as far as I can gather. I'm just interested to see how good they are without having to kill a perfectly good install of the SBLive standard drivers. It can be really tricky to switch between the two - I've done it in the past. Maybe I'll just buy an Audigy 2 and solve all my problems.

		Taelon	Apr 3, 2003
		Good idea After all, ASIO leads to professional home recording, and home recording leads to 24-bit/192kHz goodness, which only the Audigy 2 even has That is, 24-bit RECORDING .... IIRC, previous soundcards up to and including the first Audigy still had 16-bit recording...

		Curtis	Apr 3, 2003
		Ironically, while the Audigy 2 does support 24bit 96k recording, the stock models don't have an ASIO driver for it. You have to pay the big bucks for the Platnium Super EX Alpha version to get them. Still ASIO for 16bit 48k is good enough for me.