Hard Disks and BIOS for with Windows Vista RC-1

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There might be some problems setting up your ROM - BIOS.

On both my p4 system and on the new Core 2 Duo system some careful tuning had to be done.

Both of my systems have a hot swap IDE drive in a drawer.
My goal was to be able to switch from windows XP to Windows Vista by simply changing the IDE hard drive.

Ghost 2003 can be made to work with both SAT and PAT drives on the Core 2 Duo system.
Fixing Ghost 2003
    Make the following changes to the Ghost.ini file.
  1. span(Spanning) = Y
  2. autoname(AutoName) = Y
  3. fni(DisableDirectIDE) = Y

    Boot the system to DOS and run Ghost 2003 normally. All of your hard drive will be seen. 

I now have and can boot from Windows XP, Windows Vista64 and Windows 2000 on the Core 2 Duo system.


Making a Boot USB Drive
  1. sp23213 download and save HP USB Formatter.
  2. boot622 download and save Boot Floppy maker.
  3. Install and run the code you just downloaded. Then create a Windows 98se boot floppy.
  4. Format the USB drive as bootable. NOTE: doing this will erase your Flash drive. Use the floppy you just made as the source for DOS.
  5. Ghost download to the USB Drive


Multi Boot the Easy Way
    The easiest way to boot to several operating systems is to install each of them in the root partition of their own physical drive. My mother board supports 4 SAT drives. I can elevate which of these is to be treated as the boot drive.

  1. Elevate the proper drive.
  2. Install the code from the CD/DVD drive.
  3. Demote the drive if required such that an older opreating system has priority.
  4. VistaBootPRO was developed to make changes to the Windows Vista Boot Configuration Data (BCD) registry quickly and easily.
    Download