dual hard drives running win xp

tonya

I have two computers I want to "combine".
One is the kids computer, one is mine, I want to move my hard drive to
the kids computer so that we can share the CPU, but when i want to use
my hard drive I can boot from it, and when the kids are doing their
thing, my hard drive won't be in use (or jeopardy!)
I thought I would run it externally, but it does not appear to be able
to boot that way. Is there a fairly simple way to do this?


--
tonya

Holz

On Mon, 7 Apr 2008 05:49:41 +0000
tonya <> wrote:

> I have two computers I want to "combine".
> One is the kids computer, one is mine, I want to move my hard drive to
> the kids computer so that we can share the CPU, but when i want to use
> my hard drive I can boot from it, and when the kids are doing their
> thing, my hard drive won't be in use (or jeopardy!)
> I thought I would run it externally, but it does not appear to be able
> to boot that way. Is there a fairly simple way to do this?

There is no "easy" way to do so, although it is possible.
Rather than try to play with the boot process, would it be feasible to
just encrypt your drive?

--
Jerry McGuire: Help me, help you...
:-)

Rock

"tonya" <> wrote:
>
> I have two computers I want to "combine".
> One is the kids computer, one is mine, I want to move my hard drive to
> the kids computer so that we can share the CPU, but when i want to use
> my hard drive I can boot from it, and when the kids are doing their
> thing, my hard drive won't be in use (or jeopardy!)
> I thought I would run it externally, but it does not appear to be able
> to boot that way. Is there a fairly simple way to do this?
> --
> tonya


You can't just move a hard drive and have it work to boot. The installation
needs driver installed for the different computer. Also XP is not designed
to boot from an external drive in any event, unless it's SATA and connected
to an external SATA connector or IDE and connected to an external IDE on the
system board.

See this link for moving a hard drive to a different computer.



--
Rock [MS-MVP]

Colin Barnhorst

You would be better advised to use user accounts to share the computer. You
can then copy your files from the second hard drive to the "combined"
system. There is no need to dual boot.

"tonya" <> wrote in message
news:...
>
> I have two computers I want to "combine".
> One is the kids computer, one is mine, I want to move my hard drive to
> the kids computer so that we can share the CPU, but when i want to use
> my hard drive I can boot from it, and when the kids are doing their
> thing, my hard drive won't be in use (or jeopardy!)
> I thought I would run it externally, but it does not appear to be able
> to boot that way. Is there a fairly simple way to do this?
>
>
> --
> tonya

tonya

The comupter I want to use to combine the hard drives does not have a
large enough hard drive to transfer my hard drive to the other one. I
thought of doing that, as well as creating a partition and then doing
it, so as to keep the hard drives "seperate".
I work at home, and I don't want the kids on my hard drive "playing
around", but we are having to consolidate our computer space, so I
would really like to run these two machines in the same space, same
monitor, etc.
I have an external for storage already, I was just thinking if I could
hook my hard drive up someway, and just use it as if it were a combined
partitioned drive, or just be able to select which one to boot from,
then that would be the best option for me. I have seen where you can
run dual operating systems, so I thought maybe I could do this too. I
understand it would be a bit "involved" and not really "easy", but I am
just looking for the best way to do this and I may be way off trying to
dual boot...
thanks for all the input, I am reading the info you gave me, and would
appreciate whatever you can give me;


--
tonya

Colin Barnhorst

You can attach the old drive in the enclosure and use it as a data drive.
You cannot boot your computer from a usb connected drive but you can access
it as a data drive.

"tonya" <> wrote in message
news:...
>
> The comupter I want to use to combine the hard drives does not have a
> large enough hard drive to transfer my hard drive to the other one. I
> thought of doing that, as well as creating a partition and then doing
> it, so as to keep the hard drives "seperate".
> I work at home, and I don't want the kids on my hard drive "playing
> around", but we are having to consolidate our computer space, so I
> would really like to run these two machines in the same space, same
> monitor, etc.
> I have an external for storage already, I was just thinking if I could
> hook my hard drive up someway, and just use it as if it were a combined
> partitioned drive, or just be able to select which one to boot from,
> then that would be the best option for me. I have seen where you can
> run dual operating systems, so I thought maybe I could do this too. I
> understand it would be a bit "involved" and not really "easy", but I am
> just looking for the best way to do this and I may be way off trying to
> dual boot...
> thanks for all the input, I am reading the info you gave me, and would
> appreciate whatever you can give me;
>
>
> --
> tonya

Rock

"tonya" <> wrote

> The comupter I want to use to combine the hard drives does not have a
> large enough hard drive to transfer my hard drive to the other one. I
> thought of doing that, as well as creating a partition and then doing
> it, so as to keep the hard drives "seperate".
> I work at home, and I don't want the kids on my hard drive "playing
> around", but we are having to consolidate our computer space, so I
> would really like to run these two machines in the same space, same
> monitor, etc.
> I have an external for storage already, I was just thinking if I could
> hook my hard drive up someway, and just use it as if it were a combined
> partitioned drive, or just be able to select which one to boot from,
> then that would be the best option for me. I have seen where you can
> run dual operating systems, so I thought maybe I could do this too. I
> understand it would be a bit "involved" and not really "easy", but I am
> just looking for the best way to do this and I may be way off trying to
> dual boot...
> thanks for all the input, I am reading the info you gave me, and would
> appreciate whatever you can give me;


As I said before you cannot boot XP from an external hard drive. Establish
different user accounts, giving your kids a limited account and make yours
an administrator account. There is no additional security to having your
data in a separate bootable partition than user accounts. If the person has
physical access to the drive they can get to and damage the data if they so
wanted.

If it's just an issue of space, then get a larger hard drive.

--
Rock [MS-MVP]

Colin Barnhorst

Well, you can boot from an external SATA drive, but not from usb or
firewire.

"Rock" <> wrote in message
news:%.gbl...
> "tonya" <> wrote
>
>> The comupter I want to use to combine the hard drives does not have a
>> large enough hard drive to transfer my hard drive to the other one. I
>> thought of doing that, as well as creating a partition and then doing
>> it, so as to keep the hard drives "seperate".
>> I work at home, and I don't want the kids on my hard drive "playing
>> around", but we are having to consolidate our computer space, so I
>> would really like to run these two machines in the same space, same
>> monitor, etc.
>> I have an external for storage already, I was just thinking if I could
>> hook my hard drive up someway, and just use it as if it were a combined
>> partitioned drive, or just be able to select which one to boot from,
>> then that would be the best option for me. I have seen where you can
>> run dual operating systems, so I thought maybe I could do this too. I
>> understand it would be a bit "involved" and not really "easy", but I am
>> just looking for the best way to do this and I may be way off trying to
>> dual boot...
>> thanks for all the input, I am reading the info you gave me, and would
>> appreciate whatever you can give me;
>
>
> As I said before you cannot boot XP from an external hard drive.
> Establish different user accounts, giving your kids a limited account and
> make yours an administrator account. There is no additional security to
> having your data in a separate bootable partition than user accounts. If
> the person has physical access to the drive they can get to and damage the
> data if they so wanted.
>
> If it's just an issue of space, then get a larger hard drive.
>
> --
> Rock [MS-MVP]

Rock

"Colin Barnhorst" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Well, you can boot from an external SATA drive, but not from usb or
> firewire.
>
> "Rock" <> wrote in message
> news:%.gbl...
>> "tonya" <> wrote
>>
>>> The comupter I want to use to combine the hard drives does not have a
>>> large enough hard drive to transfer my hard drive to the other one. I
>>> thought of doing that, as well as creating a partition and then doing
>>> it, so as to keep the hard drives "seperate".
>>> I work at home, and I don't want the kids on my hard drive "playing
>>> around", but we are having to consolidate our computer space, so I
>>> would really like to run these two machines in the same space, same
>>> monitor, etc.
>>> I have an external for storage already, I was just thinking if I could
>>> hook my hard drive up someway, and just use it as if it were a combined
>>> partitioned drive, or just be able to select which one to boot from,
>>> then that would be the best option for me. I have seen where you can
>>> run dual operating systems, so I thought maybe I could do this too. I
>>> understand it would be a bit "involved" and not really "easy", but I am
>>> just looking for the best way to do this and I may be way off trying to
>>> dual boot...
>>> thanks for all the input, I am reading the info you gave me, and would
>>> appreciate whatever you can give me;
>>
>>
>> As I said before you cannot boot XP from an external hard drive.
>> Establish different user accounts, giving your kids a limited account and
>> make yours an administrator account. There is no additional security to
>> having your data in a separate bootable partition than user accounts. If
>> the person has physical access to the drive they can get to and damage
>> the data if they so wanted.
>>
>> If it's just an issue of space, then get a larger hard drive.


I believe I said that in my original reply.

--
Rock [MS-MVP]

Rock

"tonya" <> wrote in message
news:...
>
> The comupter I want to use to combine the hard drives does not have a
> large enough hard drive to transfer my hard drive to the other one. I
> thought of doing that, as well as creating a partition and then doing
> it, so as to keep the hard drives "seperate".
> I work at home, and I don't want the kids on my hard drive "playing
> around", but we are having to consolidate our computer space, so I
> would really like to run these two machines in the same space, same
> monitor, etc.
> I have an external for storage already, I was just thinking if I could
> hook my hard drive up someway, and just use it as if it were a combined
> partitioned drive, or just be able to select which one to boot from,
> then that would be the best option for me. I have seen where you can
> run dual operating systems, so I thought maybe I could do this too. I
> understand it would be a bit "involved" and not really "easy", but I am
> just looking for the best way to do this and I may be way off trying to
> dual boot...
> thanks for all the input, I am reading the info you gave me, and would
> appreciate whatever you can give me;
> --
> tonya


Tonya there is another consideration that hasn't been mentioned yet. What
kind of installation of XP is it on the hard drive you want to move to the
different computer? If it's a retail license then fine, it can be moved,
but if it's an OEM license, such as a version installed by the computer
manufacturer when it was bought, that can't be moved to a new system. It is
tied to the computer it first come with.

--
Rock [MS-MVP]