Can this be done with success are there any downsides to this functionally

[STUDIO-DE-ARIEL]

At one time the harddrives had a cable select option if you put the drive at a certain spot it would boot the

Drive in that spot. You see i dont want to dual boot so i figure i can use two drives on cable select and just switch drives .

I got a couple of those handy dandy mobile racks and i figure i can put one opperating system on one and one on another

and if i want to run one put it on the other drive slot and swap them out thus running one drive or the other and not having dual boot

later on when ever that occurs i can put the new work on the other drive and walah who cares

when it hapens i will be ready for either opperating system at any time. And when ptotools 5.4777

hits all i have to do is switch drives and load the driver and i am ready. Do the new drives all have the cable select option /does it pass through the promise card as such

Maby others can try this i thought about rigging a switch to the jumper that makes the drive a master but this seems easier.

Also if I made one drive primary master and the other secondary master on the promise card would that mess up the through put the drives being on different cables?

This is Good for now I guess Thanks

That is all "spoken in a sci fi tone like a robot but not one losing its memory bank.!

BAE S-D-A Ariel Studios U. S. A.

[Ultraslide]

I think I see what yer getting at.
I use a similar rig for changing the boot drive with mobile removable racks. Heres what I do.
Mobo - Abit BE6-2 (not rev2)
Highpoint ATA66 on the mobo.
My removable tray is on the primary channel of the controller. I have two drives that use the tray, one with ME, XP Pro dual boot. The other currently with Redhat Linux. I set the drives as master because some Linux distros dont like the cable select option. Windows shouldnt have this problem. Be sure to set the bios so the drives are auto-detected.
I cant speek to the performance issues because the 2 drives are of different speeds and sizes. But I have had only one problem.
I had a similar rig setup for data drives as the slave on the primary channel of two different PCs. When moving the data drive from a ME PC to an XP Pro (FAT32) PC and back again (using the removable trays), the partition table became corrupted. I was able to recover my data and I cannot rule out the possibility that something I did caused the problem. Just a heads-up. Currently I dual boot from ME to XP Pro (FAT32) and have had no problems with the second (slave) drive.
To move data from PC to PC I use a firewire disk or burned CDs.

the 'slide

[STUDIO-DE-ARIEL]

hmmm

How tough is the dual boot to acomplish? Ultraslide?

Beau

[Mr_Seven]

Some bios allow one to choose which Hard drive will boot.

[Ultraslide]

Setting a dual boot on 1 drive isnt that hard. But if you havent used fdisk before or set up a dual boot before its best to have help on hand. There is a potential for massive data loss!
You'll need full copies of the OS CDs. Restore disks provided by OEMs wont work as they just wipe the whole drive and start over.

Heres a synopsis of the process-
1- Partition the target drive in to 2 parts, 1 primary and 1 extended. Divide up the disk space according to your needs. I gave ME more space than XP to make room for game installs [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
2- Format the partitions with FAT32
3- Install ME to the C: drive (1st partition)
4- Install XP to the second partition (might be the D or E drive depending on your setup) During the XP install you'll be asked if you want to format the drive or leave the file systems intact. Leave the drives intact, they should be FAT(32).
5- After the XP install completes you'll be given a choice of Win XP or Winodws (ME) and 30 seconds to decide which one to boot into. If you've used NT this will be very familiar.

There many other steps in between these. But this is VERY general overview.
Sound like a fun way to spend an evening? [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

If there isn't a geeky buddy that can come by and help, I would just swap out each OS disk in the removable trays, like you proposed. It's definately faster, safer and easier.

the 'slide

[STUDIO-DE-ARIEL]

just slideum in and out switchum around etc huh sounds easy the dual boot as well i have low level formated drives put opperating systems on them all that stuff i have two full copys of windows 98 se and xp so i am a bit reluctant to use them both we will see thanks ultra slide
beau