saoud
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two hard drives
I have two hard drives C and D......They are all installed, but the problem is that i can't boot from the second hard drive( D, which has another OS that i want to work with) ..When i boot from d, it says that there is no active partition for D and when i go to fdisk to set active partiton for D, it says that only drive 1(which is C) can be set active! what should i do to work with the two drvies and choose one to boot from by just changing the boot sequence in the bios?? please i need a complete clear answer
How did you get Win95 onto the D: drive? There are programs like System Commander that will let you install and run multiple OS's, however simply installing on C: in one computer and then moving over as D: on another computer will not work. Some BIOS will let you set the boot drive as Primary Master, Primary Slave, secondary master or slave, CD-ROM, SCSI, LS120, etc. You will still have to set the partition bootable if your bios will let you set D: as the boot drive.
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Windows and Windows 95 can't normally boot from a second hard drive or an extended partition without a separate program installed on the hard drive to redirect the bootstrap process to the secondary drive. OS/2 uses Boot Manager, for example. There are other utilities that you can use as well. These utilities must be installed in their own prtition on the first hard drive, usually a very small one. They act to redirect the bootstrapping process to one of the other partitions.
You siad: "Both hard drives are set to be master! my OS on C is win98 and in D is win95(non-english version)"
Setting the drive to be a master in your bios has nothing to do with which one will be bootable. The drive assigned the letter "C" is the one that must be used.
You siad: "Both hard drives are set to be master! my OS on C is win98 and in D is win95(non-english version)"
Setting the drive to be a master in your bios has nothing to do with which one will be bootable. The drive assigned the letter "C" is the one that must be used.
To summarize, I think from what you are saying you are trying to set both drive as IDE master devices on the cable, and incorrectly believe that this should make it possible to set either drive to contain the active partition and boot from it. This is not possible case with standard windows 95/98 or DOS setups. It requires another OS or program to install a special boot partition on the drive.
ASKER
I said that i use win98 for drive C and win95(non-english version) on drive D, what are the software that enables me to install more than one OS in one drive and how does it work?
Windows will not like to boot off of a second drive with any of the multiboot utilities I have used. Two versions of windows is not possible with OS/2 warp for example. Windows has to be on the first partition. This is true with all multiboot utilities I have used. Most secondary OSs like OS/2 install happily on a second drive, but window can't.
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to rosefire: you don't have to care about the drives if they are master or slave( i just wnated to provide more information!) what are the utilities that i can use to help slove my problem ? and can i download them from the internet? Does my problem has something to do with bios version ?? and what do you mean by ( It requires another OS or program to install a special boot partition on the drive.?) actually, it's working with my friend! the only difference between my computer and his is the bios version!
OS/2 warp comes with Boot Manager, which installs in a small partition on the first drive. When you start your system it boot to the utility in that partition. I think Linix has something similar. The boot manager comes up when you boot your system and gives you a menu asking which OS you want to boot. OS/2 comes with the multiboot tool to give them a bigger market share in a world of windows software.
There is no free multi-boot utility I know of, but you could check download.com.
It is possible that some company has a utility in their BIOS that allows the hard drives to be swapped c <--> d. That may be the BIOS difference you are referring to. I know that my adaptec 2940 SCSI controller will allow me to set any of the hard drives to act as the boot drive "c". Are you running a SCSI system? That would be changed in the adaptec card setup.
Your problem has nothing to do with BIOS settings.
There is no free multi-boot utility I know of, but you could check download.com.
It is possible that some company has a utility in their BIOS that allows the hard drives to be swapped c <--> d. That may be the BIOS difference you are referring to. I know that my adaptec 2940 SCSI controller will allow me to set any of the hard drives to act as the boot drive "c". Are you running a SCSI system? That would be changed in the adaptec card setup.
Your problem has nothing to do with BIOS settings.
OS/2 warp comes with Boot Manager, which installs in a small partition on the first drive. When you start your system it boot to the utility in that partition. I think Linix has something similar. The boot manager comes up when you boot your system and gives you a menu asking which OS you want to boot. OS/2 comes with the multiboot tool to give them a bigger market share in a world of windows software.
There is no free multi-boot utility I know of, but you could check download.com.
It is possible that some company has a utility in their BIOS that allows the hard drives to be swapped c <--> d. That may be the BIOS difference you are referring to. I know that my adaptec 2940 SCSI controller will allow me to set any of the hard drives to act as the boot drive "c". Are you running a SCSI system? That would be changed in the adaptec card setup.
Your problem has nothing to do with BIOS settings.
There is no free multi-boot utility I know of, but you could check download.com.
It is possible that some company has a utility in their BIOS that allows the hard drives to be swapped c <--> d. That may be the BIOS difference you are referring to. I know that my adaptec 2940 SCSI controller will allow me to set any of the hard drives to act as the boot drive "c". Are you running a SCSI system? That would be changed in the adaptec card setup.
Your problem has nothing to do with BIOS settings.
ASKER