Windows server - 2008

Question

Hi I have already installed windows XP in c-drive. Now I want to install Windows Server - 2008 enterprise edition in e-drive so that I can install share point 2010. I am unable to install on e- drive. I want to know how to install windows server - 2008 in the drive which is other than c-drive.

Sam Hobbs · Answer

Okay well my memory is kicking in. As I recall the boot partition has a flag called Active or Primary but I am not sure what it is called. The BIOS looks for the flag to determine what drive/partition to boot. In DOS days we used FDISK to set what partition to boot. So the first step is to determine what program can be used to set that value. I know that if we search the internet there are many articles explaining how to create a bootable CD-ROM. I assume that that software includes something for modifying the partitions. So I would first ensure I had the tools to boot from CD or from a flash drive and modify what drive is the boot drive. Then set the E: as the boot drive and then do the setup. Of course all that might be archaic and irrelevant. In the past the important accomplishment was to get a portion of the OS into the boot partition of the drive or partition. If you do a search as in here then most solutions have been to temporarily remove other drives from the system. If you do that then I would want to ensure that at the time of installation the drive is identified as E: even if it is the only drive in the system. Since others have been successful I hope that is not much of a problem one way or another.

John Penn · Answer

I tried to do this with VMWare. I set up a vm with 2 hard drives and installed XP SP3 on the C drive. When I booted the Server 2008 installer it found the other drive but when I tried to install the OS on it I got an error saying Setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing system partition.

Sam Hobbs · Answer

I don't know how but I assume it is possible. How is the E: formatted? You might need to format it. Can you do that or is there data in it that you need to keep? Is the E: a physical drive or is it a partition in the same physical drive as the C:?

John Penn · Answer

You must install both OS's on the C drive. As far as I know there is no way around that requirement.

srinath · Answer

Thank you for replying ... What should I do solve this problem. Do I need to format my Windows XP OS and Install Windows Server 2008 in C-drive and install Windows Xp on another drive? Is Windows Server editions will not install on other drives except c-drive? I want to know that...

John Penn · Answer

I don't believe this is possible. While you could setup a dual-boot environment with XP and Server 2008 both OS's are going to want to reside (at least partially) on the C: drive.