Dual-boot?
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Posted on Apr 09, 2003 02:02 am
MSHARC
Member Since: Apr 05, 2002
Can anyone point me to a website that will hold my hand through creating a dual boot system? I posted the user accounts articles and it was suggested that I install a second version of XP and use that for my recording. Sounds good, but I'll admit, I am afraid that somewhere in my haste I am going to screw the pooch and lose everything. That would suck. Thanks for the help in advance.
Sharc
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TadpuiI am not a crook's headMember
Since: Mar 14, 2003
Apr 09, 2003 10:56 pm I found this out accidentally just the other day: insert the XP installation cd. If you have autorun enabled, select 'inatall' from the splash screen. If no autorun, browse the CD in explorer and run Setup.exe.
After entering the cd key and all that, you should be prompted to either install to the current partition or create a new partition. Create a new one, and install XP to that partition. After the arduous install procedure is over, your computer will reboot and you will forever be greeted at bootup with a choice of installs to boot into. It's always a good idea to defragment your hard drive before making a new partition, too.
The bad thing is that both installs are named the same thing. The top one should be the new install and the bottom one should be the old install. Good luck, and if anything looks fishy, back out. Back up your data just to be safe!
juesContributor
Since: Dec 30, 2002
Apr 10, 2003 08:48 am Hey, sorry I took so long to get round to replying to this...
Right first off you need to understand the basics of Hard Disc managment. In order to have a dual boot system you need to partition your hard disk so that you have two partitions on your main boot drive. If you already have two paritions on the main boot drive - great, if not then you need to repartition it.
First off you will need to back up everything that you want to keep on the C: drive. The easiest way to do this is to copy all your data from the main boot drive to another physical hardisk (if you don't have a second hard disc drive, then now would be a good time to invest in one. It is always a good idea to have a fast second hard disk drive (7,2000rpm $ ATA133 perferably with an 8Mb Cache) soley for audio work.
Once all your files have been backed up onto the other hard disc (or CD-r if this simply isn't an option) then you will have to re-install WinXP again.
Place the XP cd in your CD-Rom drive, ignore the setup program that launches as we wish to do a clean install, wiping out the old installation. Restart your computer and make sure that it boots from the CD-Rom drive as opposed to the hard disc drive. You may have to hold down the C key or maybe go into your BIOS and select the CD-Rom drive to be the primary boot device (if you have difficulties with this then be sure to check your motherboard's / computer's manual - if you are still stuck, post your motherboard's manufacturer and the model number and I will try to find out how to achieve this for you.)
The comptuer should now be booting off of the XP install CD. When it asks you what you wish to do, tell it you wish to Install a fresh copy of XP (NOT repair the current installation or upgrade one). It will now ask you which Physical Hard Disc Drive you wish to install XP onto.
You should now be at a screen which shows the Physical Hard Discs you have on your system along with any partition information you have. Select the main boot drive (the first one in the list) and delete the partition - Windows will ask you to confirm your choice - do bear in mind that this will delete everything from your main hard disc drive - so make sure you have made sufficient backups first!. When the partition has been deleted you will now have a nice empty hard disc to work with.
Now depending on the size of the disc, you will wish to create 2 or maybe 3 partitions. Make the first two partitions around 6-15Gigabytes in size. If you have a large hard disc then you may wish to create a third partition which you can use to store data - make this last partition as large as you can with the remaining space.
So, for example, if you have an 80Gb Hard Disc Drive then I would partition it thusly:
Partition 1 -- 15Gb
Partition 2 -- 15Gb
Partition 3 -- 50Gb
Once you have created these partitions you will need to format them. I would personally opt for the NTFS fileing system - tho there are some people that believe FAT32 is better for Audio work (and there are some people that say that Pepsi MAX tastes nice... :\ ). Make sure you do proper formats and not 'Quick Format' as Quick Format will not check the drive for errors - it will take a while to format these new partitions (depending on the size of them and the speed of your hard disk). Once they are formatted, we are ready to start installing Windows (yay!)
Select the first partition (one of the 6-15Gb ones) to install Windows XP onto - install XP as per usual.
Wait
Wait a long time
Setup will be completed in 5 minutes
Wait some more
Hurrah! Now install all your drivers and configure your internet applications - make WinXP the way you want it - this is now your General Usage partition, where you do all your internet browsing, play games, install Microsoft Office (oh, already mentioned playing games...), etc, etc. When everything is the way you like it, be sure to Name your Hard Discs in 'My Computer'. Call the first Drive something like 'OS and Programs' call the second one (the other 6-15Gb partition) 'DAW OS' and if you created the third drive (the large one that used the remaining space on the drive) call that 'Data' or something equally bland.
Right, now we are ready to install Windows XP again - joy! except this time you don't have to faff around with partitioning the drives, because we have already done that (yay!)
Restart the comptuer with the XP installation CD in the Drive (like we did last time) and this time tell it you wish to install a fresh copy of Windows XP onto your 'DAW OS' partition (which should be completly empty) - installation will now commense as per usual... so go get a cup of tea, read a Jane Austin Novell and then if you have time, watch every episode of South Park ever created (including the one with Bryan Boytanno).
Have a good chuckle at Kenny's expense...
Once XP is installed, configure it soley for Audio Work - this means not installing Microsoft Offce, Monkey Island 4 or anything else that will slow the system down. Simply install your Audio Card Drives, set up the correct Graphics Drivers and then install whichever Audio Apps you use (eg: Cubase, Vegas, CaKeWalK!, etc) and then leave everything else alone - this installation will be the lean, mean XP install just for Audio. If you have other people who use the comptuer, you may wish to put a password on this XP installation to stop people coming along and installing Monkey Island, etc on it. Also, if you wish to test out any new programs (including Audio ones) - it would be a good idea to install them onto the 'General Purpouse' XP partition until you know that you want them on the DAW OS one. My main point here is keep the DAW OS partition as clean and lean as you can - it will work better that way.
Right, now when you boot up the computer you should be presented with a little menu that pops up before XP boots which lets you choose between XP Professional / Home or XP Pressional / Home. Hmm, these two choices may appear quite cryptic, but luckily there is a nice easy way to edit their names. Choose the first option on the list and with a bit of luck it will boot into your General Purpouse XP install.
When everything has booted up, Open up the control pannel and double click on the 'system' icon. Click on the Advanced Tab and then click on the 'Start up and Recovery' Settings button. This will bring up a new window with your boot options in it. About 1/3 of the way down on the Right Hand Side is a button marked "Edit" - click on this.
Notepad will now open up with your Boot Configuration file - be careful when editing this, because if you hash it up you could possibly damage your XP installations.
You will now be presented with something like this:
[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Windows XP" /fastdetect
Now you see the bottom two lines, I have highlighted what you want to change in bold characters. You want to change these two to something a bit less cryptic - eg:
[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="General" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="DAW" /fastdetect
Now save this file and restart the comptuer - you should now be greeted with a slightly less cryptic menu.
Right, I think that just about covers it. As you can see this is a rather mammoth operation and I would reccomend that you don't undertake it unless you are confident with computers ... if you feel a bit unsure then by all means ask some questions, but it would probably be a good idea to get a friend who is knolegable about such things (or maybe just someone to hold your hand and agree with your decisions :) to help you out with this undertaking.
Oh, one point to add. Although I said that you have to delete all your data when creating new partitions on the hard disc - this is not 100% true. The company 'PowerQuest' make a program called 'Partition Magic' which will allow you to create and resize partitions on the fly. It is quite costly, but it will save you all the hassle of having to backup all your data and then reconfigure all the system's partition information in the XP install.
Right, that's just about it - any questions, feel free to ask.
oh and Good Luck!!!
jues :)
Apr 10, 2003 08:50 am Well, jues, how about you submit that post as an article? It would be nice to keep this info more visible over time.
juesContributor
Since: Dec 30, 2002
Apr 10, 2003 09:03 am Cool, let me spell chuck it and I will go grab some screen shots...
jues.
Apr 10, 2003 09:04 am Ya, go ahead and "spell chuck" it :-)
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Apr 10, 2003 07:57 pm Ya, I heard if you use spell chuck it will correct your mistooks. :-)
juesContributor
Since: Dec 30, 2002
Apr 10, 2003 08:23 pm dwen spweel ch0oks are f00keen g34t!!!!!!!!!
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Apr 10, 2003 09:15 pm ROTFLOL
Apr 10, 2003 09:56 pm y'all are twisted
MSHARCMember
Since: Apr 05, 2002
Apr 11, 2003 01:28 pm Ok, well, I had already done the second install of XP before I read that awesome post. But, I wasn't as concerned about the first install of Xp because everything works fine in it, except for SONAR. I installed it to the second hard drive and so far, the things that I have used in the new install are running a LOT smoother and my CPU meter is staying a lot lower than it was before. All good signs. Just playing back a few bigger files, I haven't had a dropout yet. And, I still have a few things to tweak in XP so I can hopefully free up some more resources. My question now is though, all of my "projects" don't want to open when I try to do it from my new install pulling from the old location. Bundles open fine, but should I just copy over that entire folder to the new location, will that let them open? I know there is some type of "manager in SONAR, but I am trying not to lose anything and I know that cleans things up. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again, and thanks for the great post.
Sharc
juesContributor
Since: Dec 30, 2002
Apr 11, 2003 08:14 pm I would be more than happy to answer this question, but (un?)fortunatly I am a Cubase SX users and so don't know anything about said problem.
God bless SX. =D
jues.
Apr 12, 2003 02:41 am i bet you have to copy the folder contents over like you said.. or change the default temp file folder from within Sonar.
I'm running the old Cakewalk Pro Audio 9 with which Sonar is reverse compatible. I have assigned a temp file directory, d:\temporary\ on mine, and when I save a WRK file all the audio data gets dumped in the temp folder. I'm sure Sonar will be the same.
Don't know about Sonar, but in Pro 9 you go up to the "Options" menu and choose "Audio", then pick the "Advanced" tab from the windows that opens. That's where I set my "data" folder up to recieve and retrieve temp files. Hope that helps :OD -j
Apr 12, 2003 04:26 am that was a great post. if i ever need to do this. article!
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Apr 12, 2003 11:12 am Yes MSHaRC, you can just copy the contents from folder to folder. But make sure you copy the contents of all the related Sonar folders, as if you have any stray stuff from files saved as .wrk or normal files this will allow Sonar to find everything. My advice is to always use the bunlde option, that way it is all in one place.
