Dual hard disk 64-bit and 32-bit Win XP coexistence tips revealed

        The current 64-bit operating system does not have a Chinese version, and due to compatibility issues, the establishment of an independent multi-system has clearly become the best solution. Many friends have purchased SATA hard drives when configuring 64-bit hardware platforms, but there are also a lot of friends who have SATA and PATA hard drives. Here is how to build 32-bit and 64-bit Windows XP independent on these two hard drives. Dual system.

One. Setting up SATA hard disk

Description: The hard disk used for the test is: Seagate 40GB of PATA interface and Seagate 80GB hard disk of SATA interface. How to set up a SATA hard disk is determined by the motherboard. This article takes the setting method on the Soltek SL-K8AV2-R1L motherboard as an example. When you want to use this feature, please refer to your own motherboard manual.

1. Set the SATA hard disk to IDE mode

After entering BiOS, select “Integrated Peripherals” on the main interface to enter the setting interface. Set the "OnChip SATA" item to "Enabled". Set the "SATA Mode" item to "IDE".

2. Select Active Hard Disk

Select the second item in the BIOS main interface, “Advanced BiOS Features”, and then select “Hard DISK Boot Priority” to observe the following content:

1.Ch0 M : ST340014A
2.Bootable: Add-in Cords
3.Ch3 M: ST380011AS

The first one is the IDE hard disk, the third one is the SATA hard disk, press the page turning key on the keyboard. Then choose which hard disk to install the system on. For the convenience of description, we will refer to the selected hard disk as the active hard disk.

Note: Select “First Boot Device” under “Advanced BiOS Features” to set the boot order of devices such as CDs and hard disks. But you can't choose a SATA hard drive. Specifically, how to make the SATA hard disk boot first, you have to set it under "Hard DISK Boot Priority".

II. Installing the System and Conversion

Through the previous discussion, we have been able to select the active hard drive. What you need to do now is to install any operating system on an active hard drive, then set the other hard drive as the active hard drive and install another system.

Once the installation is complete, you can access the contents of another hard drive in Windows. This way, installing the system on one hard drive does not hide the other hard drive and does not generate a boot menu. It is very convenient to access another hard disk under any operating system, and it is very convenient to read and write data of another hard disk.

But switching from one system to another is relatively cumbersome and must be set up in BiOS as previously provided. Perhaps this is the only drawback to installing dual systems on dual hard drives.

If you install dual systems in the usual way, the two systems will rely on the boot.ini file to form the boot menu. If the 32-bit system fails, especially when the 32-bit system cannot After the startup or boot.ini file error, the 64-bit system is in a state of paralysis, which brings great inconvenience to the maintenance. This problem does not exist in the construction of dual hard disk dual systems. At the same time, each hard disk is more independent, even if one of them is damaged, the other can work independently, which is unmatched by a single hard disk and multiple systems. In terms of the implementation method, there are also great differences, mainly reflected in the choice of the installation carrier.