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Confused about dual boot using mint and win xp, pls help

post #1 of 14
5/20/12 at 2:44pm
Thread Starter 

Ok, I had an acer apire 1640Z with a failed hard drive issue. The only way I could revive the laptop was installing Linux Mint on an external hard drive. I have another external hard drive from another  recently failed computer with an older install of Windows XP Service pack 3 on it. Is there a way for me to dual boot using both the external drives? I have several programs on the XP drive I like to use and it is impossible to make a fresh install on it.

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post #2 of 14
5/21/12 at 8:02am
Why don't you clone and backing up this "working" XP drive and try again with a clean installation on it?

cheers ...
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post #3 of 14
6/3/12 at 9:36am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by qhn View Post

Why don't you clone and backing up this "working" XP drive and try again with a clean installation on it?
cheers ...


ok, little confused by how to go about that. I've worked with windows or dos for the 20-some years I've been playing around with computers. This is the first time I have worked with Linux Mint, so a little more step by step would help. What I am working with is a laptop hard drive from a dell 1505 that I put in an external hard drive case. As far as reinstalling XP, I have the XP disk that came with the dell. I didnt think I could use that to do a fresh install?

Thanks qhn, you've been a great help!

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post #4 of 14
6/3/12 at 10:44am
Windows does not support USB hard disk drives as the primary boot device. What you need is putting that external drive into the notebook, do a clean install with the XP "Dell" disk (give it a try), using the COA key underneath your notebook for activation.

cheers ...
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post #5 of 14
6/3/12 at 11:23am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by qhn View Post

Windows does not support USB hard disk drives as the primary boot device. What you need is putting that external drive into the notebook, do a clean install with the XP "Dell" disk (give it a try), using the COA key underneath your notebook for activation.
cheers ...

So there is the confict then. The Acer I am working with has a bad hard drive connector on the motherboard so I am left with no choices other than a new motherboard or forget a dual boot? The only way I have gotten the Acer to work is using Mint on another internal-turned-external hard drive. I have tried a couple of different sized hard drives internally ( one was 20 gig, the other 320 gig). All it will say is remove media and won't let it boot any futher. ( You and I had actually discussed this Acer and the bad connector in another unrelated post. )

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post #6 of 14
6/3/12 at 11:25am
Let's go back one step.

If you boot up the ACER with Linux Installation Disk, would it recognize any hard drives that are being installed internally?

cheers ...
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post #7 of 14
6/3/12 at 11:34am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by qhn View Post

Let's go back one step.
If you boot up the ACER with Linux Installation Disk, would it recognize any hard drives that are being installed internally?
cheers ...


No. As soon as I install any internal hard drives, it would not boot from disk. It simply said to remove all media and reboot.I removed the installation disk and got the same message. Removed the hard drive, stuck the same hard drive in the external case and it installed Mint with no issues at all.

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post #8 of 14
6/3/12 at 11:46am
What are the size of the tried drives?

cheers ...
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post #9 of 14
6/3/12 at 12:08pm
Thread Starter 

One was 20 gig, the other 300 gig

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post #10 of 14
6/3/12 at 12:11pm
the 300gig might cause a problem, don't think your ACER can read that high. Have another one like 40 or 60gig ATA drive to try?

cheers ...
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post #11 of 14
6/3/12 at 12:52pm
Thread Starter 

No. It was a 120 Gig that came out of the Acer and I still have to extract files off it for my daughter before I can mess with it at all. ( With all the computer problems I've had, an angry teen girl is NOT what I need lol) It recognises the 320 gig fine as an external storage drive and I can access files such as music and pictures without issues.
 

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post #12 of 14
6/3/12 at 1:06pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Melissa See View Post

No. It was a 120 Gig that came out of the Acer and I still have to extract files off it for my daughter before I can mess with it at all. ( With all the computer problems I've had, an angry teen girl is NOT what I need lol) It recognises the 320 gig fine as an external storage drive and I can access files such as music and pictures without issues.

 

Reading over 300gig from an external housing is no problem for any comps. BIOS handling it is another story.

I still recommend just for kick to try with another 40-60gig drive as mentioned above. If that does not work then either the internal hard drive connector is bad or the main board is bad where the drive being connected.

cheers ...
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post #13 of 14
6/3/12 at 5:37pm
Thread Starter 

Ok. Guess the next question is there a way to open the windows programs I have on the other hard drive with something like wine? Like I said, I am completely new to Mint.
 

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post #14 of 14
6/4/12 at 12:04am
If I am not mistaken, you must be able to mount the drive in order for Wine to see it. Accessing the programs in another beast since it must set up its Wine registry in order to manipulate the Windows apps.

cheers ...
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