Should I use EMBR for this?

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PsychBiller
Posts: 61
Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2012 4:45 pm

Should I use EMBR for this?

Post by PsychBiller »

I have one hard drive. My desire is to have the following:

Primary - BootIt BM installation
Primary - WinXP SP3 for personal use
Primary - WinXP SP3 for business use
Primary - WinXP SP3 baseline that can be used to quickly replace either of the other two WinXP partitions
Someday Primary - Win7
Extended - Data

That's six primary partitions. I already installed BootIt BM and limited it to four primary partitions. Can I go back and change that? I've already built two of the WinXP SP3 partitions just the way I want them, so I'm really nervous about screwing them up.

I've read the manual, FAQ, knowledge base, etc., and don't quite see an answer to how do you go from limiting to 4 primary partitions to unlimited primaries, and even more importantly, WILL THIS WORK? Obviously, none of the Windows installations should see each other.

I'm new to Terabyte products, but really like them so far.

Thanks!
TeraByte Support
Posts: 3598
Joined: Thu May 05, 2011 10:37 pm

Re: Should I use EMBR for this?

Post by TeraByte Support »

The MBR can only hold 4, but you can disable the "Limit Primaries" option in
"settings". At which point your boot item (via "boot edit") determines
which 4 are in the MBR when you boot a particular boot item. What people
typically do is have the primary OS (the boot partition) and the extended
partition with the data volumes in the MBR and leave the other items out of
the MBR.

"PsychBiller" wrote in message news:2884@public.bootitbm...

I have one hard drive. My desire is to have the following:

Primary - BootIt BM installation
Primary - WinXP SP3 for personal use
Primary - WinXP SP3 for business use
Primary - WinXP SP3 baseline that can be used to quickly replace either of
the other two WinXP partitions
Someday Primary - Win7
Extended - Data

That's six primary partitions. I already installed BootIt BM and limited it
to four primary partitions. Can I go back and change that? I've already
built two of the WinXP SP3 partitions just the way I want them, so I'm
really nervous about screwing them up.

I've read the manual, FAQ, knowledge base, etc., and don't quite see an
answer to how do you go from limiting to 4 primary partitions to unlimited
primaries, and even more importantly, WILL THIS WORK? Obviously, none of
the Windows installations should see each other.

I'm new to Terabyte products, but really like them so far.

Thanks!

TeraByte Support
Posts: 3598
Joined: Thu May 05, 2011 10:37 pm

Re: Should I use EMBR for this?

Post by TeraByte Support »

.....I should point out that for each OS you install, just follow the sample
at http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/howto/ for installing an OS to its own
partition (you don't want the OS installer creating partitions for you).

"PsychBiller" wrote in message news:2884@public.bootitbm...

I have one hard drive. My desire is to have the following:

Primary - BootIt BM installation
Primary - WinXP SP3 for personal use
Primary - WinXP SP3 for business use
Primary - WinXP SP3 baseline that can be used to quickly replace either of
the other two WinXP partitions
Someday Primary - Win7
Extended - Data

That's six primary partitions. I already installed BootIt BM and limited it
to four primary partitions. Can I go back and change that? I've already
built two of the WinXP SP3 partitions just the way I want them, so I'm
really nervous about screwing them up.

I've read the manual, FAQ, knowledge base, etc., and don't quite see an
answer to how do you go from limiting to 4 primary partitions to unlimited
primaries, and even more importantly, WILL THIS WORK? Obviously, none of
the Windows installations should see each other.

I'm new to Terabyte products, but really like them so far.

Thanks!

PsychBiller
Posts: 61
Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2012 4:45 pm

Re: Should I use EMBR for this?

Post by PsychBiller »

Thank you for the swift reply! I'll try it while holding my breath. :-) My first PC had DOS 3.3 on it, and things just get more complex as the years go by. Glad there are products like yours to help manage it.
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