i need a boot manager

Hi

i'm looking for a boot manager

i have on one hardisk xp sata
on a different hard disk w7 sata

and i have a ide hardisk

i would like to install a bootmanager on the ide hardisk and set the bios to boot from the ide

and have the ability to select which os should start xp or w7
EasyBCD did a mess
thanks

 

The only one I can recommend is EasyBCD. Its the easiest one to use out of the ones Ive tried.

 

but it should be installed on windows 7 or vista

 

Acronis Disk Director Suite

Grub
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_GRUB

Smart Boot Manager (SBM)
http://btmgr.sourceforge.net/about.html
is small like GAG, but has a text-based interface instead of a graphical one. Also like GAG, it can be booted from a floppy, CD or hard drive. SBM’s advantage over GAG is that it has a more advanced auto/scheduled booting system and plus other useful features.


Bootstar
http://www.star-tools.com/english/

 

Review of DualBootPro which is VistaBootPro updated for Win7:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2358925,00.asp
http://www.dualbootpro.org/

 

but i want to install a bootmanager on my ide hardisk is empty
i don't want to edit the windows 7 bootloader

thanks

 

BootIt Next Generation (paid). Is a boot manager, partition manager and imaging all in one software.
GAG, The Graphical Boot Manager (open source)
PLoP Boot Manager v5.0 (free)

Panagiotis

 

thanks
may i run under xp and install on a third hard disk (eide)
i don't want the bootmanger could overwrite my xp or w7 mbr

 

None of them will just rewrite over it unless you tell them to. I expect thats what you did with EasyBCD.

 

BING is fine, it's fully functional 30-day trial. Check out the video tutorials.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootit-next-generation-tutorials.htm

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/howto/index.htm

 

I recommend reading http://www.multibooters.co.uk/index.html for background information. In particular, look at http://www.multibooters.co.uk/managers.html for Vista-tested boot managers. I plan on using XOSL.

 

I use grub4dos. Boots about anything, in a straight forward fashion. Nothing pretty here, just a menu. Bootland has many articles on it. As does msfn. I use it on hdds and optical media.

Sul.

 

I like system commander V-com its old but it works with Vista/Win7

 

may i install on a floppy or in a fat32 hard disk

 

Another vote For BiNG (BootIt Next Generation) here.
Using it for many many years, never had any problem.
It's also clever, a simple recovery disk boot is all what's necessary after adding another OS. It will revive itself automatically.

Wonderful software.

 

hello i guess you get confused they dont write to your mbr until you want it to i mean if you install it on default mode all you need is give the path

for example you get windows 7 and then window xp

then from window 7 you need to tell the location of window xp or vice versa

now what you are trying is 2 hard-disk with 2 mbr and dont want to mess with eachother right if one fails other will boot auto

now what happen is from bios it check for 1st disk and its mbr(disk1) for bootloader then it searches for 2nd disk(disk2) and its mbr for bootloader

now all you need to do is use easy way easybcd or any other easy tool and give the path of your second disk it wont mess with your mbr of any disk untill you rewrite it from easybcd
please read this

http://vlaurie.com/computers2/Articles/bootini.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTLDR

http://mirror.href.com/thestarman/asm/mbr/bootini.htm

You can not use BOOT.INI with these operating systems! Vista and Windows™ 7 require the use of a new boot manager ("bootmgr") and other associated files in order to boot

now one more thing you can do is make your window 7 disk 1st and xp disk 2nd from bios install easy bcd on window 7 then make xp to boot 1st aka default system....... if you like .........but from bios it search window 7 bootloader 1st

why we do this is because backward compatibility is always there in parent-child

if you need to install 98>nt>2000>me>xp>vista>window7 you need to do in that order.........

booting order higher to lower recommended always if parent go child with start to play

now if your window 7 crashed it will take xp mbr and start booting 99%...... 1%if not you can add in bios to xp to disk 1 and get it

from window 7 all are recognized but from xp you cannot boot vista or window 7 without help of 3rd party tool

i wont say vise versa wont work but this is always recommended (installation lower to higher and booting order higher to lower) and its mostly trouble free



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5szrahD4-v0

 

Or you could instead not use the Microsoft bootmanager.

 

you can use floppy if you want, I installed installed in in a FAT16 Win98 100 meg boot partition,, my previous machine was running FAT32 WinMe Dos boot drive.

 

My impressions of XOSL so far:

Pros:

• free
• has many features and is very flexible in handling diverse multibooting scenarios
• XOSL installer/uninstaller is available on Ultimate Boot CD for DOS

Cons:

• installer overwrites disk signature bytes in MBR with 0s; changing disk signature on disks containing Vista or Win 7 will result in unbootable system; unbootable system can be remedied beforehand by using MBRtool (available on Ultimate Boot CD for DOS) to restore volume bytes (aka disk signature) from a saved copy of MBR; unbootable system can be remedied after the fact by using bcdedit commands as described at http://social.technet.microsoft.com...p/thread/cb6175b0-e031-4f81-b8b6-2c845e627cf9
• USB mouse will not work (but you can still use keyboard)
• partition sizes are sometimes misreported, probably due to today's much larger partition sizes that didn't exist when XOSL was released
• partition labels are sometimes not reported

I will use XOSL as my boot manager .

 

Comparison of boot loaders