Separate drives for OS and "other apps".

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yornoc

Guest
A friend of mine said he partitioned his HD and installs his OS on one partition and all other apps on the other. This enables him to change OS (for whatever reason) without all other apps and files being affected.

Has anyone on here done this? It sounds like a good idea to me but I've never explored it. I'm thinking about building a computer soon and this is sounding good to me.

Any thoughts?
 
K

Kizzy

Guest
I partitioned 2 gb of space on my hard drive for no reason what-so-ever just to see if I could do it. I have never heard of such a thing, but I thought most application files/programs are dependant on the OS files??
 
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yornoc

Guest
I'm not sure how the apps will work. I think they are treated as if they are on another drive. The OS will access it when instructed to do so. The guy who did it said he has no problem with it. I'll be building a machine for my son (hopefully before Christmas) so I might just experiment a little. I'll post again about it (even if it's a failure).:razz2:
 
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Y

yornoc

Guest
I just did this at work and so far it works fine. I partitioned the drive and put the OS on C and the apps on D. I read about this in a counter hacking book... it can be used as a security counter-measure to lock down a firewall (or server). If the only access to the firewall (or server or PC) is controlled by the C drive, then access can be denied to remote access for all other drives.

This is one more obstacle for an intruder to overcome.

As for home use, (I think) the best result would be having OS problems without it affecting your apps and other "stuff".

I could be all wrong since I'm just testing stuff. Has anyone else tried this (or something similar)?
 
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sleuth

sleuth

Livin' Like Thanksgivin'
dunno about this

I've installed applications on other drives without problems, but your friend's claim on reinstalling the OS without the Apps doesn't sound right to me.

Most applications make modifications to the registry and to windows files, which means if you reinstall the OS, you still have to reinstall the Apps.

I could be wrong, but I don't think I am
 
SeaRide

SeaRide

......
Re: dunno about this

Originally posted by sleuth14
Most applications make modifications to the registry and to windows files, which means if you reinstall the OS, you still have to reinstall the Apps.

I could be wrong, but I don't think I am
Click to expand...
Slueth, You are right. Trust me.

Look at the snapshot below. See the *.dll with the same date being install in different paths. If you install a different OS, the atl.dll in C:\winNT\system32 will be gone and the AIM app won't work.
 

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Y

yornoc

Guest
sleuth14... thanks for pointing that out. I thought about that but since I've never tried to reload an OS with the Apps residing on another drive, I was not sure.

You've possible saved me from future frustration. :cool:
 
C

cgr8818021

New Member
Two hard drives partitioning app's from OS is something I've often heard of being done, but I don't remember the technical details either. Is it possible that the app's normally retrieve the OS files they need via RAM while both are running? Possibly the app's end up with their own redundant copies of whatever Windows files they need to share?

It seems to me that all drives are accessible to Windows whenever the system is running so long as those drives are operational, although there can be confusion arising from how the drives are named. Even with one hard drive, the OS endeavors to load whatever files are needed to run the app from the c:\ drive to RAM. If the setup is correct, the OS should be able to load the same files from two drives instead of one, shouldn't it?

By the way, another reason for having two hard drives is so you can have Unix and Windows on one machine, and optionally use one or the other OS and associated app's. Interesting concept, to me anyway. Results might be comical if there were a way to screw this up and boot both OS's at once, lol.
 
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yornoc

Guest
Originally posted by cgr8818021

By the way, another reason for having two hard drives is so you can have Unix and Windows on one machine, and optionally use one or the other OS and associated app's. Interesting concept, to me anyway. Results might be comical if there were a way to screw this up and boot both OS's at once, lol.
Click to expand...

At work we have a few computers with removable hard drive. We use them for testing applications. If we need Win 95, 98, NT, 2k, .net or any other OS, we just plug in the correct HD and fire it up. That saves a lot of money by giving up more options with the same machine.
 
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cgr8818021

New Member
Originally posted by yornoc
At work we have a few computers with removable hard drive. We use them for testing applications. If we need Win 95, 98, NT, 2k, .net or any other OS, we just plug in the correct HD and fire it up. That saves a lot of money by giving up more options with the same machine.
Click to expand...


Wow, that's cool, Yornoc....is there anything special about how these drives are set up that make them removeable, or is it just a matter of realizing that this can be done? Is one permanent OS/HD kept on the "test" computers which needs to detect the plug-in HD, or do they have no OS installed at all until someone puts one of the HD's in?

This makes me think of a couple of other questions for anyone who might know:

(1) I use Win 95, and I have a problem where the machine stopped recognizing the CD-ROM drive. (My research of the infamous Microsoft Knowledge Base and other sources only led to confusion; apparently, the method by which Win 95 operates various types of CD-ROM is a topic of endless debate.) My question is: if the OS needs to interact with the CD-ROM drive for it to work, how does the computer detect and operate the drive in order to install Windows from a CD when there is no OS yet installed?

(2) If you remove your HD fully loaded with OS, various app's and your personal files, what is involved in reinstalling that drive? Is it simple P&P like a floppy drive? Can it be easily reinstalled in the same PC? What about installing it in a different computer?
 
Y

yornoc

Guest
The hard drive is mounted where you would normally see a CD drive. All you have to do is buy a chassis (that takes rails) and buy the rails and mount the drive to it. You can just power the computer down, switch drives and boot up from a different OS. The computer will not boot up without a drive installed so it does not matter which drive is in... as long as one is.

As for your questions,
1. I have a similar problem on my old 133 but unfortunately I have not gotten to it as yet.
2. I'm not sure what you are asking....
If you remove your HD and install a new one, you can enter BIOS during start up (it will say press F1, F8 or something like that) and change the boot sequence to suit you. You then have to format the drive and load the OS. If you want the stuff from the old drive, there are several ways to do it. I think there is a thread on here that explains a few options (using software i.e. ghost, using a cable, etc).
You can also ask questions on
tech support forum .
 
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