I am going to give you guys the details of the problem as best as I can remember. I can give you the exact information that might be needed later on if need be seeing how I am not near my computer at the moment.
Problem number one:
What I want to do is have Windows XP Pro and Windows 2000 Pro installed on the same hard drive but on two different partitions. I already had Windows XP installed on my 30GB hard drive. That was a one 30GB partition (100%) of the disk usage.
So what I did is I ran Partition Magic 8. I resized the 30GB partition to a 20GB partition and made another partition with the remainder 10GB with the NTFS file system.
I then booted off the Windows 2000 Pro CD. Setup came up and I installed Windows 2000 pro on the 10GB partition that I just created. The installation went fine. It booted into Windows 2000 without a problem. Everything was fine and dandy. It showed the C: drive as my Windows XP installation and D: drive as the Windows 2000 installation and E: drive, as my CD-Rom. That’s the way it should show.
Now when I boot up if obviously gives me the option of booting into Windows XP or Windows 2000. It had Windows 2000 as the default selection if no selection is made in 30 seconds. I went and changed that option (right clicked on system – properties- startup and recovery options, I selected from the drop down list to have Windows XP /fast detect).
So I do that and reboot the system, Windows XP is selected as default. I push enter to select it instead of letting the counter reach 0. As I select Windows XP it shows the Windows 2000 boot up screen and then stops and says that it cannot find the proper files to boot up Windows 2000. This is where I am confused. Why on earth is it trying to boot Windows 2000 instead of Windows XP.
I tried to run the recovery option on the Windows XP CD. It asked me to select a partition to perform the recovery. I select the C: drive , which should be my Windows XP partition. It asks me for the admin password and I enter that. Then it says checking the disk configuration … takes a bit then brings me to the c:\windows command prompt. Is that supposed to happen? I never used the recovery option off the CD. Is it supposed to do something more?
So, at this point I decide to select the Windows 2000 option at the boot up. It loads fine. I tried changing the startup option to select Windows 2000 instead of XP. So basically putting the options back to the way they were before. I rebooted and select Windows XP. Same thing happens.
So as it stands right now, I can boot into Windows 2000 professional fine but I cannot boot into Windows XP because it seems to try and boot into Windows 2000.
I assume that installing Windows 2000 screwed up my startup file. I am thinking it might be easier to format the entire drive and install Windows 2000 first on a partition and then Windows XP secondly on a second partition. However, I do not feel like formatting my hard drive and I am someone that seems to for some reason apply self inflicted pain when it comes to computers.
Does anyone have any ideas of what the problem might be or what I can try to do to fix it?
Problem number two
This one is less urgent but it’s one of those “Why the fuck is it doing that?”
My current setup I have a 30gb hard drive as the primary master on the primary IDE cable. I then have the second connector of the primary IDE cable plugged into a 120gb hard drive. The jumpers of that HD is set to primary slave.
Those both get detected at the BIOS upon boot up.
Now I have a CD burner I use as a CD-ROM. I have a secondary IDE cable hooked into the burner. It’s a Ricoh burner if that helps any. The jumpers of that CD-ROM are set as master. So, secondary master. Now, BIOS does not detect or at least list the burner at the BIOS upon boot up. However, when I boot up into Windows XP the first time it detects new hardware, installs it and it works fine. Upon rebooting after that has happened, BIOS still does not list the burner as secondary master in the BIOS.
So, when I boot into the CMOS and change the boot routine to CD-ROM first then the floppy drive, then primary hard drive and reboot the computer. It does not detect the burner and cannot boot up off the CD. To fix this I simply remove the secondary hard drive from the second connector of the primary IDE cable. I plug the burner into that connector without even changing the jumpers on the burner from master to slave. It then detects the burner and I can boot off a CD.
I have tried going into the CMOS and tried to auto detect the burner but it does not work. I have an ASUS motherboard.
So my question to you guys is. Should having my primary connector (the one at the end of the cable) of the primary IDE cable connected to the primary hard drive with jumpers as master AND the second connector of that primary IDE cable hooked into the second HD with the jumpers set to slave AND a second IDE cable hooked into the burner with it set to master be a proper setup? Should they all be detected without a problem with this current setup?
If I am unclear feel free to ask questions and I will try and answer them as clearly as possible.
Thanks in advance guys!!
