2 Hard drive question

[bmoster]

I recently installed a new 30gig hard drive. It works fine I couldnt decide what to do with my old one so i decided to keep it in the machine also. my question is can these two hard drives be used as if they are two computers(2 seperate o.s.). and if so how would you switch between the 2 drives. and would they be totally independent of each other. Thanks in advance

 

[TBP]

generally speaking a computer means CPU, main memory, and I/O devices. Hard drive is very insignificant that a computer can do just fine without a hard drive.

Now back to your question. Yes you can have two or more OS on one or more hard drives. However there is no way you can load both simultaneously.

 

[thorin]

You could install two seperate OS' and use System Commander or some other boot manager to select your OS of choice at startup.

Thorin

 

[thorin]

"However there is no way you can load both simultaneously. "

That'd be funny to see someone try that.

Thorin

 

[bmoster]

Yes but if i boot to my second hard drive (d) and i have a second operating system on that hard drive. then what if any effect does this have on my first (c) drive. does any information get stored on my c drive if i boot to my d drive and use the operating system on my d drive.

 

[cavingjan]

In some cases, the second OS can't even understand the first drive. Example: you have 98 installed on the first drive with Fat32 and NT on the second drive with NTFS. Neither operating system can understand or access the other's drive.
My preference in a system like the one you proposed is to get a set of removable drive cages and then physically switch the drives in and out as needed. But that's my preffered method (note its been a while since I've run a dual boot system). A boot commander also works well for this application.