Duel Booting: Windows XP and Norton Ghost

Issue: I want to create a duel boot option. The first being to load
Windows XP. The second being to load Norton Ghost.

Setup: I have a laptop with a 60 GB HDD. Now I've split up the HDD
into 2 partitions using Partition Magic 8. The first parition is the
majority of the drive except for the last 5 gigs at the end, which
were made into the second partition. Using Ghost, I made a complete
clone of the primary partition onto the secondary one. Also, Windows
XP was setup to disregard the secondary partition, so it is as if it
does not exist (when in windows). Both partitions have ghost.exe in
the root directory... and have the exact same setup.

I am finding it annoying that I have to boot up the laptop with a cd
(it has no floppy drive) and load norton ghost manually everytime I
would like to copy the backup partition on over to the primary
partition. So I would like to figure out an efficient way of creating
a duel boot setup, where the primary boot is directed to boot Windows
off the first partition, and the secondary boot is directed to boot
Norton ghost (not windows) off the backup partition.

In my mind, this is definitly possible. However, I am not sure where
to start or what to do. I've searched around and found some
documentation on boot.ini, however nothing really goes indepth enough
to specify what I am looking to do. Im sure that it would probably be
easier to use a 3rd party boot loader to do what i'm asking, however
I'm aiming to keep the system looking as natural as possible. If its
not possible to edit boot.ini to do this, then I guess I'll have to
settle for a 3rd party program, so I need some suggestions for
alternative boot options. Though I seriously doubt it, in the ideal
setup, I would be able to trigger the bootscreen by tapping some sort
of hot-key during startup; kinda like how you tap F8 to get to your
startup options, however I doubt I could possibly edit that menu.

If anybody has any ideas or knows how to do this, please, post back or
email me at [email]sub2k1@optonline.net[/email]. Thanks in advance! -Subliminal

"Subliminal Demise" <sub2k1@msn.com> wrote in message
news:43af9073.0406122245.1dc14ca7@posting.google.com...[color=blue]
> Issue: I want to create a duel boot option. The first being to load
> Windows XP. The second being to load Norton Ghost.
>
> Setup: I have a laptop with a 60 GB HDD. Now I've split up the HDD
> into 2 partitions using Partition Magic 8. The first parition is the
> majority of the drive except for the last 5 gigs at the end, which
> were made into the second partition. Using Ghost, I made a complete
> clone of the primary partition onto the secondary one. Also, Windows
> XP was setup to disregard the secondary partition, so it is as if it
> does not exist (when in windows). Both partitions have ghost.exe in
> the root directory... and have the exact same setup.
>
> I am finding it annoying that I have to boot up the laptop with a cd
> (it has no floppy drive) and load norton ghost manually everytime I
> would like to copy the backup partition on over to the primary
> partition. So I would like to figure out an efficient way of creating
> a duel boot setup, where the primary boot is directed to boot Windows
> off the first partition, and the secondary boot is directed to boot
> Norton ghost (not windows) off the backup partition.
>
> In my mind, this is definitly possible. However, I am not sure where
> to start or what to do. I've searched around and found some
> documentation on boot.ini, however nothing really goes indepth enough
> to specify what I am looking to do. Im sure that it would probably be
> easier to use a 3rd party boot loader to do what i'm asking, however
> I'm aiming to keep the system looking as natural as possible. If its
> not possible to edit boot.ini to do this, then I guess I'll have to
> settle for a 3rd party program, so I need some suggestions for
> alternative boot options. Though I seriously doubt it, in the ideal
> setup, I would be able to trigger the bootscreen by tapping some sort
> of hot-key during startup; kinda like how you tap F8 to get to your
> startup options, however I doubt I could possibly edit that menu.
>
> If anybody has any ideas or knows how to do this, please, post back or
> email me at [email]sub2k1@optonline.net[/email]. Thanks in advance! -Subliminal[/color]

I'm not sure what you mean by "booting into Norton Ghost".
Is this some sort of DOS-derived boot environment for running
Ghost?

Anyway, the most elegant solution would be to load a third-party
boot loader, e.g. XOSL, into its own partition of 15 MBytes. It
would give you a nice little boot menu, with a settable default
boot system. Furthermore it allows you to selectively hide any
partition from any other partition. Best of all, it's free. And by
the way, I always thought that "duelling" is done with pistols
at dawn, not with boots, and that PCs can be dual-booted? :-)

Subliminal Demise wrote...
[color=blue]
>I am finding it annoying that I have to boot up the laptop with a cd
>(it has no floppy drive) and load norton ghost manually everytime I
>would like to copy the backup partition on over to the primary
>partition.[/color]

Not sure what you mean by "copy the backup partition on over to the
primary partition." Could you re-phrase it? Do you mean to use
Ghost to do a ___restore___ ?
[color=blue]
> So I would like to figure out an efficient way of creating
>a duel boot setup, where the primary boot is directed to boot Windows
>off the first partition, and the secondary boot is directed to boot
>Norton ghost (not windows) off the backup partition.[/color]

Try Acronis True Image 7.0.
IMHO, it is much better than Ghost.
It can backup your OS while it is running.
It will boot to its restore program to do the restore.