So here's my crazy idea (HELP!)

[Theory?]

I want to essentially turn my computer into two computers sharing a hood.

Right now, I have Windows booting from an 80 gig SATA drive. I use that drive strictly for Windows and Apps. I have two IDE drives and an external drive for music, documents, files, porn, etc.

My mobo has 3 free (4 total) SATA ports, and 4 free (4 total) RAID ports.

I built this machine to be used as my main audio box, and I do use it for that, but I also use the internet and stuff, and I bought this awesome video card (ATI Radeon 1900XTX) so I want to get back into PC gaming, because otherwise I feel like I wasted money. However, a gaming rig is very different from an Audio rig. So what I want to do is create a dual boot system with two seperate physical Windows/Apps drives that read from seperate arrays of drives.

To better explain, I will have two seperate installs of Windows. Each install will be on a unique, physical SATA drive. There will be two configurations. One install will be used for surfing the internet, playing games, listening to music, and all the other normal BS you do on a computer. It will be connected to the internet, etc. The second installation will be strictly audio. Thy entire install will be modified and optimized for audio purposes.

So here's where I need help. I need a few things to be true, but I don't know how to make it so.

The gaming install is going to use the IDE drives and the external drive for all it's data. The Audio install will rely on two new SATA drives that I'm going to install, as well as any RAID drives I may put in there as well.

I need it set up so that each install only looks at the drives I want it to. In layman's terms, when I go into "My Computer" in the gaming install, I should only see the two IDE drives, and the external drive listed. Similarly, when I go to "My Computer" under the audio install, the only drives I should see are it's relative drives.

Can this be done, and how?

On top of that, the audio install is going to be 100% away from the internet. However, I want to be able to receive internal packets, such as access to a network drive I set up, or if my roommate needs to send me a file, stuff like that.

I'll be upping my RAM to 4 gigs of DDR400, and my CPU to a dual core athlon 64.

[nightwng2000]

Not sure about hiding drives at any given time, but is this something along the lines of what you want? There are several different proucts that might interest you or at least lead you to other possibilities.

http://www.v-com.com/product/System_Commander_Home.html

[Thefremen]

I want to essentially turn my computer into two computers sharing a hood.

Right now, I have Windows booting from an 80 gig SATA drive. I use that drive strictly for Windows and Apps. I have two IDE drives and an external drive for music, documents, files, porn, etc.

My mobo has 3 free (4 total) SATA ports, and 4 free (4 total) RAID ports.

I built this machine to be used as my main audio box, and I do use it for that, but I also use the internet and stuff, and I bought this awesome video card (ATI Radeon 1900XTX) so I want to get back into PC gaming, because otherwise I feel like I wasted money. However, a gaming rig is very different from an Audio rig. So what I want to do is create a dual boot system with two seperate physical Windows/Apps drives that read from seperate arrays of drives.

To better explain, I will have two seperate installs of Windows. Each install will be on a unique, physical SATA drive. There will be two configurations. One install will be used for surfing the internet, playing games, listening to music, and all the other normal BS you do on a computer. It will be connected to the internet, etc. The second installation will be strictly audio. Thy entire install will be modified and optimized for audio purposes.

So here's where I need help. I need a few things to be true, but I don't know how to make it so.

The gaming install is going to use the IDE drives and the external drive for all it's data. The Audio install will rely on two new SATA drives that I'm going to install, as well as any RAID drives I may put in there as well.

I need it set up so that each install only looks at the drives I want it to. In layman's terms, when I go into "My Computer" in the gaming install, I should only see the two IDE drives, and the external drive listed. Similarly, when I go to "My Computer" under the audio install, the only drives I should see are it's relative drives.

Can this be done, and how?

On top of that, the audio install is going to be 100% away from the internet. However, I want to be able to receive internal packets, such as access to a network drive I set up, or if my roommate needs to send me a file, stuff like that.

I'll be upping my RAM to 4 gigs of DDR400, and my CPU to a dual core athlon 64.

Personally I dual boot between windows and slackware but if you wanna show your dedication to Bill Gates feel free.

What you do is pop in your windows disk on boot, do a new install of windows on the other drive, and then after it should autoconfig the boot.ini (iirc) so that it'll wait a few secs before going to an install. You'll get a chance to select from which one you want. If both versions are the same you'll have to remember if it is 1 or 2, unless you change the names. You can edit boot configuration by either using bootcfg from the recovery console, or in windows go to control panel>system>advanced tab>settings under startup & recovery. Using this window, you can change the delay name, and change the names of the choices given to you (although better to change the names during the install process, but same result either way). BTW, your original install of windows will be (0) and the next will be (1) and so on in that manner.

OK so that solves the first part of your problem, as for the next part if you go to the device manager in control panel, you can select which hardware to disable. If you disable a HDD in windows in this manner, it will no longer be usable in that particular install.

BTW, you should use a seperate partition for both your windows installs, something like 5 gigs will do it, that way when windows is beyond ruined you can delete thar partition without hurting your other data (like MP3s).

BTW, if you didn't know already, RAID 0 arrays are like saying "Oh please, please fail so i lose my data!".

$70 for a GUI when Windows and Linux already have excellent bootloaders? sounds like a great investment!

[Tollwutig]

The first problem you're going to have is getting Windows set up to do correctly boot. Since you'll need SATA drivers running with the initial Boot.ini, my suggestion is to make the SATA drive the boot drive, and your primary Windows Boot. You can change the default Windows boot later on if you want the default to be the gaming/everyday use machine. I would look up some white papers on Dual booting Windows to learn about configuring it correctly.
Theoretically the dual boot sequence should be possible.

As for hiding the drives in each Windows box there are 2 ways I know that would work. The first would be just to simply go into device manager and Disable the hard drives you don't want seen in each version of Windows. I've never tested this so can't actually verify it working, but it should work. The other way would be to use Partition Magic and disable those drives, again I've never tested this to see if it allows another version of Windows to see the drives.
An easier way would be to use Windows TweakUI (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx). It won't physically remove the drives but you can prevent them from showing up in My Computer and being accessible drive paths.


Now as for your Internet/Networking issue. The simplest way to do this would be to set up your Audio Boot as a Static IP Address, outside of the range your DHCP server is issuing.
You can alter the range of your DHCP on your Broadband Router, and look up how to set a static IP address in Windows through Google, or Microsoft it's pretty easy.
Once your Audio boot has a Static IP address you can just go into the Router and use it's Firewall to block all External Traffic to that IP address. Thus nothing from outside your network can get to the Audio boot.

[Theory?]

Personally I dual boot between windows and slackware but if you wanna show your dedication to Bill Gates feel free.

What you do is pop in your windows disk on boot, do a new install of windows on the other drive, and then after it should autoconfig the boot.ini (iirc) so that it'll wait a few secs before going to an install. You'll get a chance to select from which one you want. If both versions are the same you'll have to remember if it is 1 or 2, unless you change the names. You can edit boot configuration by either using bootcfg from the recovery console, or in windows go to control panel>system>advanced tab>settings under startup & recovery. Using this window, you can change the delay name, and change the names of the choices given to you (although better to change the names during the install process, but same result either way). BTW, your original install of windows will be (0) and the next will be (1) and so on in that manner.

OK so that solves the first part of your problem, as for the next part if you go to the device manager in control panel, you can select which hardware to disable. If you disable a HDD in windows in this manner, it will no longer be usable in that particular install.

BTW, you should use a seperate partition for both your windows installs, something like 5 gigs will do it, that way when windows is beyond ruined you can delete thar partition without hurting your other data (like MP3s).

BTW, if you didn't know already, RAID 0 arrays are like saying "Oh please, please fail so i lose my data!".

$70 for a GUI when Windows and Linux already have excellent bootloaders? sounds like a great investment!

Can't game on Linux, and I can't do audio on Linux. And while I can install Windows on a Mac, I can't install Mac on a PC, so I'm stuck with Windows.

The RAID drives, if I ever get them, will be 4 500gig drives arranged in two pairs of RAID I chains. So basically I will have a terabyte (roughly) of actual storage, and an exact copy just in case I lose everything. In audio, your tape is your life, but in my studio, my "tape" is my hard drive, so redundancy is key. I wouldn't store original files on the RAID drives, it would just be obscene redundancy to the SATA drives, which all my apps will be using to access files, etc.

Seems simple enough. I figured it was possible, there's no reason it couldn't.

Now all I need to do is figure out how to solve the noise problem.

Anyone know of any good fan-less solutions? My case is supposedly tested to support a fan-less setup. It also has built in ports for liquid cooling, but those use fans too, and I still need my case fans for the HDD's.

I'm gonna replace the fan on my video card, that thing is so loud.

The first problem you're going to have is getting Windows set up to do correctly boot. Since you'll need SATA drivers running with the initial Boot.ini, my suggestion is to make the SATA drive the boot drive, and your primary Windows Boot. You can change the default Windows boot later on if you want the default to be the gaming/everyday use machine. I would look up some white papers on Dual booting Windows to learn about configuring it correctly.
Theoretically the dual boot sequence should be possible.

As for hiding the drives in each Windows box there are 2 ways I know that would work. The first would be just to simply go into device manager and Disable the hard drives you don't want seen in each version of Windows. I've never tested this so can't actually verify it working, but it should work. The other way would be to use Partition Magic and disable those drives, again I've never tested this to see if it allows another version of Windows to see the drives.
An easier way would be to use Windows TweakUI (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx). It won't physically remove the drives but you can prevent them from showing up in My Computer and being accessible drive paths.


Now as for your Internet/Networking issue. The simplest way to do this would be to set up your Audio Boot as a Static IP Address, outside of the range your DHCP server is issuing.
You can alter the range of your DHCP on your Broadband Router, and look up how to set a static IP address in Windows through Google, or Microsoft it's pretty easy.
Once your Audio boot has a Static IP address you can just go into the Router and use it's Firewall to block all External Traffic to that IP address. Thus nothing from outside your network can get to the Audio boot.

That's why I love ya baby!

I just need clarification on the first point you made. My current Windows install is running off a SATA drive. It's an 80gig SATA drive. My mobo has 3 more free SATA slots. I wanted to use my current install as my gaming/everyday machine, and then add an additional (probably 150gig) drive for my Audio install.

I want it set up so that neither installation is actually aware of the other. I would like the bootloader to be the only place I see them side by side, and as far as each install knows, its the only one in the case...how do I do that? Because once that's set up, then I can change global Windows settings as I please without consequence towards the other.

It seems too logical and practical to be impossible, or even relatively difficult. I would assume it would just require me to set up an external bootloader before installing the second Windows.

[Tollwutig]

That's why I love ya baby!

I just need clarification on the first point you made. My current Windows install is running off a SATA drive. It's an 80gig SATA drive. My mobo has 3 more free SATA slots. I wanted to use my current install as my gaming/everyday machine, and then add an additional (probably 150gig) drive for my Audio install.

I want it set up so that neither installation is actually aware of the other. I would like the bootloader to be the only place I see them side by side, and as far as each install knows, its the only one in the case...how do I do that? Because once that's set up, then I can change global Windows settings as I please without consequence towards the other.

It seems too logical and practical to be impossible, or even relatively difficult. I would assume it would just require me to set up an external bootloader before installing the second Windows.

Actually what you're doing will work. Now saying that I think you may have to leave the other boot drive enabled in Windows or else the Bootloader may not see it.

Now all I need to do is figure out how to solve the noise problem.

Anyone know of any good fan-less solutions? My case is supposedly tested to support a fan-less setup. It also has built in ports for liquid cooling, but those use fans too, and I still need my case fans for the HDD's.

I'm gonna replace the fan on my video card, that thing is so loud.


You can always try the Cooking Oil Method (http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/01/09/strip_out_the_fans/), although filling your case with cooking oil may be a little extreme, but it does eliminate the noise of the fans. Plus you can have Fresh French Fries while gaming. :D

[Theory?]

Actually what you're doing will work. Now saying that I think you may have to leave the other boot drive enabled in Windows or else the Bootloader may not see it.

I may have to leave the other boot drive enabled in Windows? Sorry for sounding incompetent, but I don't follow. Also, I don't know how to use an external bootloader, or the name of one to use, or how to install it.


You can always try the Cooking Oil Method (http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/01/09/strip_out_the_fans/), although filling your case with cooking oil may be a little extreme, but it does eliminate the noise of the fans. Plus you can have Fresh French Fries while gaming. :D

I saw that, I think KN showed it to me. I thought it was genius.

[Thefremen]

Even with liquid, you will still need some air if you're going to have 6 HDD (if i'm counting this right), an optical drive, a top-o-the-line video card and some pci in there too. For the CPU you can under-volt it (I know, something no good decent gamer would do, but I did it since my CPU is perfectly stable slightly under-volted) but no matter what, you'll have to have some air moving to keep from busting a cap in your own ass. HDD, GPU, chipset, CPU can all be water cooled though, if you get an awesome setup.

And yeah, the two windows installs will be totally seperate. You can **** one up to your heart's content whilst the other will be fine.

[Tollwutig]

Water cooling still requires a pump, which is noisy. I swear one of these days' I'm gonna build a mini fridge with a computer cabinet built into the side.

Think about it you could build a computer Hutch into the side of a Mini fridge then put a power outlet inside. A USB Hub, a Monitor/Audio through put, and a Cat5 Bridge, and you'd have your Computer isolated in a cooled environment.
You could dump the heat from the computer into a mini-pizza warmer on top, and put another door to store your soda. :D

[Jabrwock]

You could also just look into some quieter fans. I've been poking around with HTPC setups, and the quieter ones have 2-3 large & low rpm fans moving the same amount of air as one small highspeed one. Drops the noise significantly. The other trick is to maximize airflow to where it's needed. Use of airflow guides to make sure all the air coming in goes to the heatsinks and isn't wasted will improve the cooling efficiency.

[Thefremen]

Water cooling still requires a pump, which is noisy. I swear one of these days' I'm gonna build a mini fridge with a computer cabinet built into the side.

Think about it you could build a computer Hutch into the side of a Mini fridge then put a power outlet inside. A USB Hub, a Monitor/Audio through put, and a Cat5 Bridge, and you'd have your Computer isolated in a cooled environment.
You could dump the heat from the computer into a mini-pizza warmer on top, and put another door to store your soda. :D

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118015

very nearly totally silent. Also, internal kits can be quiet if you surround the pump with some of that foam stuff.

[Jabrwock]

According to the stuff I'm reading, winXP won't hide partitions by itself, but if you use Symantec's PartitionMagic & BootMagic, you can exclude each bootable OS from seeing certain partitions.

http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/19973/19973.html

OS Loader 2000 has some flakey documentation, but claims it can do a lot. I fired off a question to their help desk, see if they can answer me.

[Thefremen]

According to the stuff I'm reading, winXP won't hide partitions by itself, but if you use Symantec's PartitionMagic & BootMagic, you can exclude each bootable OS from seeing certain partitions.

http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/19973/19973.html

OS Loader 2000 has some flakey documentation, but claims it can do a lot. I fired off a question to their help desk, see if they can answer me.


I don't think he wants to hide partitions so much as just keep them from showing up in my computer.

[Jabrwock]

I don't think he wants to hide partitions so much as just keep them from showing up in my computer.
Err yeah, that's what it does. Drive A holds XP 1. Drive B holds XP 2. Neither OS can "see" the other's drive.

[Theory?]

Err yeah, that's what it does. Drive A holds XP 1. Drive B holds XP 2. Neither OS can "see" the other's drive.

I don't understand the need for this, unless its for people who have both installs operating at once, but I've never heard of such a thing. If the OS thinks the drive is disabled, then it will ignore it. Right?

[Thefremen]

I don't understand the need for this, unless its for people who have both installs operating at once, but I've never heard of such a thing. If the OS thinks the drive is disabled, then it will ignore it. Right?

Exactly. Instead of Use this device (enable) select Do not use this device (disable).

BAM!

[Jabrwock]

I don't understand the need for this, unless its for people who have both installs operating at once, but I've never heard of such a thing. If the OS thinks the drive is disabled, then it will ignore it. Right?
Oh SURE, do it the EASY way. :p

[Thefremen]

Oh SURE, do it the EASY way. :p

Well hey I tried to talk him into installing BeOS, Linux and OS/2 warp on seperate partitions but hey what're ya gonna do?

Btw, I just realized theory? may be able to get all this done with user profiles too, but using windows xp without the admin login is nearly insane.

[Theory?]

Well hey I tried to talk him into installing BeOS, Linux and OS/2 warp on seperate partitions but hey what're ya gonna do?

Btw, I just realized theory? may be able to get all this done with user profiles too, but using windows xp without the admin login is nearly insane.

I tried that already, but I need to disable a lot of services, and a lot of registry nonsense, which is all global stuff...so, yeah. I could do it, but it would be difficult, and annoying.