Too old to crawl under the desk

[whs]

When I wanted to install an independent system (e.g. Win8) on another drive than my current OS drive, I used to crawl under the desk, remove the side panel, disconnect the cable of the OS disk and proceed. When the installation was done, same procedure in reverse order. I am really to old and too lazy for those gymnastics.

I wonder whether disabling the driver of the OS disk in device manager > properties would accomplish the same thing. Question is whether a) that would work and b) would the driver come back on reboot. Does anybody know??

PS: I could try it out but I like to first weigh the odds.

 

[DustSailor]

could put your computer on top of the desk

 

[smarteyeball]

Question is whether a) that would work and b) would the driver come back on reboot.

Haven't tried it, so it's an edu-guess but I suspect not.

And unless you permanently delete the driver (and from the winsxs folders as well) it's almost a certainty that the driver would be re-installed upon next reboot.

 

[whs]

Question is whether a) that would work and b) would the driver come back on reboot.

Haven't tried it, so it's an edu-guess but I suspect not.

And unless you permanently delete the driver (and from the winsxs folders as well) it's almost a certainty that the driver would be re-installed upon next reboot.

If it comes back with the next system reboot, that would be OK because for the e.g. Win8 installation I would boot from the CD/DVD reader.

could put your computer on top of the desk

That's the setup I have in Germany. But here I have absolutely no room on the desk.

 

[smarteyeball]

During the W8 setup procedure, the installation is still going to 'see' the current OS drive thanks to the BIOS, so 'hiding' the active OS drive from the OS itself will unfortunately be rendered superfluous.

 

[whs]

During the W8 setup procedure, the installation is still going to 'see' the current OS drive thanks to the BIOS, so 'hiding' the active OS drive from the OS itself will unfortunately be rendered superfluous.

Yeah, I am afraid you are right. But I think I can disable the drive in the BIOS too. Have to explore that. I'll do anything to stop the gymnastics.

 

[Qdos]

This topic is precisely the reason I like to have external switches for the power supply to each drive...

 

[whs]

Yeah, tell that to Dell, LOL

 

[billman87]

Umm there is this really cool feture in the BIOS from the 90's it's called boot order. No need to disable drives.

 

[smarteyeball]

But I think I can disable the drive in the BIOS too. Have to explore that.

If that is possible (although I've never seen that feature availble in a BIOS) that would be sufficient - you wouldn't need to remove/disable any drivers on the OS level.

I'll do anything to stop the gymnastics.

Entirely understandable. I hope I'm wrong about the BIOS level disabling

 

[whs]

Umm there is this really cool feture in the BIOS from the 90's it's called boot order. No need to disable drives.

That's not good enough. The e.g. Win8 installer will still plunk the bootmgr into the first active partition it finds and not on the HDD where I want it.

 

[smarteyeball]

Umm there is this really cool feture in the BIOS from the 90's it's called boot order. No need to disable drives.

That's not good enough. The e.g. Win8 installer will still plunk the bootmgr into the first active partition it finds and not on the HDD where I want it.

Exactly.

 

[Qdos]

Yup. That won't work. Unfortunately. All I did with my system was switch the ground wire to each drive, so when the system is at rest I can select which drives will be found at boot. It was worth doing

 

[whs]

I had a look into the BIOS. There seems to be a disabling function, but I am not sure whether that only applies for the boot sequence. The picture was taken from the boot tab.

 

[billman87]

Umm there is this really cool feture in the BIOS from the 90's it's called boot order. No need to disable drives.

That's not good enough. The e.g. Win8 installer will still plunk the bootmgr into the first active partition it finds and not on the HDD where I want it.

Exactly.

So changing boot priority does not change which is the first available drive, OK?
I must be operating under false pretenses.

 

[profdlp]

Whenever I get the urge to set up a dual boot system I use something like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817998175http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817997036

It's not actually dual boot, really, just more like two completely independent systems. It does keep the alternative OS I'm playing with from messing up my main system, though.

 

[cyclic]

It should suffice to turn that controller off in BIOS setup, if it's on it's own controller.

 

[smarteyeball]

So changing boot priority does not change which is the first available drive, OK?
I must be operating under false pretenses.

It does, but in this case the setup procedure ignores boot priority and adds to any existing OS MBR. (ie Windows 7) It looks for the MBR on ALL detected drives.

WHS wishes to leave the existing MBR 'unmolested' by the W8 installation. With the existing OS drive disabled and unseen by the setup procedure, it will create it's own MBR etc.

All boot priority does is change which drive/device is looked at first for boot instructions.

 

[boohbah]

perhaps you need some motivation to get under the desk wolfgang

 

[whs]

perhaps you need some motivation to get under the desk wolfgang

That is my current solution. But she is not happy either about the gymnastics.