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    Boot Manager Software

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by keytar, Jun 27, 2006.

  1. keytar

    keytar Newbie

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    Hello everyone,

    New member here. I just purchased XPS1210 and should be getting it two weeks from now! Once I get the machine, I need to repartition it and install two Windows OSes (1 for General use and 1 for my Music stuff). So my harddrive which is 100GB will be:

    Partition 1: 30 GB
    Partition 2: 10 GB
    Partition 3: 60 GB

    Can any one recommend any boot manager software so I can do dual boot? I would prefer something that does not require additional partition to run and able to hide other partitions (ie, hide partition 2 when booting on partition 1 and vice versa). I saw BootIt and seems a good candidate. Anybody use it? Also, can anybody recommend software to backup hard drive/partitions?

    Appreciate the help!

    Thanks,
     
    keytar, Jun 27, 2006
    #1
  2. ma401

    ma401 Notebook Geek NBR Reviewer

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    You know, it might be simpler than you think. AFAIK if you install another version of Windows on a system that already has an existing install, it should automatically add itself to the built in boot manager. For example, if you install XP on drive A and 2K pro on drive B, you should be prompted automatically as to which you'd like to run each time you boot up.

    To steal from here:

     
    ma401, Jun 27, 2006
    #2
  3. Drio

    Drio Notebook Geek

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    There are a lot of fancy bootmanagers around
    Just remember that everything that accepts more than 4 primary partitions on a disk (actually 3 primary and one extended if you ar using MS) is not standard according to MS, so if you uninstall such a manager while using this feature you may have trouble.

    There are generally two flavours (apart from the microsoift way)
    1. installed in it's own little partition (thus taking up 1 primary partition)
    2. installed in the MBR
    If your system already has a modified MBR (e.g. for system recovery) this option may destroy your modified MBR. Note that this is probably the case for your XPS.

    Note: that in both cases there may still be some part (the configuration bit) installed in another partition, e.g. in normal windows.

    I use bootus ( http://www.boot-us.com/) which gives both the MBR and the partition options.
    I tried Bootitng ( www.terabyteunlimited,com) which gives the multi-multi options. It does the job, bot MBR and own partition.
    And I tried symantec bootmagic (came with paritionmagic)and Acronis OS selector, but could ot get them to work with my need for 3 primary partitions (apart from the extended one) but that's probably my impatience.

    All the above have the option of "advanced" hiding, that is scrambling the non-boot windows partition in such a way that Windows does not detect that there is already a windows copy installed. So it enables fully independent windows installations (which isn't the case if you go for the "MS way".
    Note that this "scrambling" has it's own disadvantages in case fo a breakdown.

    Just my 2c

    Drio
     
    Drio, Jun 28, 2006
    #3
  4. Daetlus

    Daetlus Notebook Consultant

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    Boot Manager? Whatever happened to a good old batch file?
     
    Daetlus, Jun 28, 2006
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