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partitions, booting, large hard drives
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Posted by: candypants
Here's the deal:
I have a 200GB hard drive (Western Digital) that is on a SCSI controller card in a PCI slot (I hear that this is the only way I can get Windows to recognize the full 200GB, and not cut me off at 137).
Obviously, this drive is not at IDE 0, so it is not the system drive.
I have partitioned the drive as such:
primary partition 1: 4GB
primary partition 2: 5GB
extended partition:
- empty space: 4.5 GB
- logical drive 1: 40GB
- logical drive 2: 30GB
- logical drive 3: 2GB
- logical drive 4: 100GB
I want primary parition 1 to be assigned drive letter 'C'. I want to install DOS on this drive.
I want to install Windows XP on primary partition 2 so that it is not on 'C' (I read this advice somewhere, maybe it is for avoiding viruses; does anyone have any comments on this?). I want to boot from this Windows installation (but it is not on the system drive).
Any advice on how to do this?
I have done a lot of research on my own, and as such I still do not have a clear understanding of just how a computer decides which operating system to load,
the differences among or definitions of system, boot, and active partitions,
nor limits concerning operating system placement on a disk, i.e.- can i put the scsi drive into the bios boot sequence and succeed in loading an OS (in this example, Windows XP)?
- can it be put on a logical drive and still succeed, or can it only boot from a primary partition?
- if it can only boot from a primary partition, does it have to be the first primary partition?
- if so, can I assign the letter 'C' to the second primary partition and some other letter (like 'W') to the first, even when it holds the OS?
- does the partition with the OS have to be placed within 8GB or some other distance from the beginning of the drive?
Any comments or input would be welcome! I know I have asked a lot of questions, and if you can answer any of them (even if not all) or shed some light on the matters that I do not understand, please do so!
Thank you all, even if for just reading this short novel 
Posted by: redwench
of course you can boot from the scsi as normal.
as for the rest, is there a concrete reason you dont want C as your boot drive? the setup youre describing is a dual boot setup. are you planning on booting into dos on a regular basis? if not, that setup is going to be more trouble than its worth. stick xp on the first partition and call it C and be done with it.
Posted by: candypants
I was not planning to regularly boot into DOS; I just wanted to have it there if I were to need it, and so that there would be something on the C drive.
One more thing: if there is no hard drive on the onboard IDE controller, can I still boot from the SCSI?
Posted by: redwench
yes.
Posted by: candypants
Thank you for your help!
I am still looking for anwers or online resources that address the second, third, and fifth questions in my bullet list and the paragraph that comes before it. Thank you again.
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