Going to 64-bit XP...need boot manager ideas

tcbetka wrote on 9/27/2008, 8:29 AM

I just built a new PC for audio & video work, with a Q9450 quad core CPU, 4gb ram, ABIT XP35 Pro mobo and Windows XP Pro 32-bit. The CPU is a 2.66GHz overclocked to 3.2GHz; it runs efficiently and quite cool (low 50s) at full load. I have four HDs in the machine; a 250gb for the OS/apps, a 500gb for projects, and two 80gb drives. All are Seagate. One of the 80gb drives contain all my Cinescore wave files, and a bunch of audio samples. But the other 80gb drive is empty. So I had a thought...

I am thinking that I could format that second 80gb drive and install XP Pro 64-bit, and Vegas Pro 8.1. Then all I'd have to do is download and install v8.1 and pop in another 4gb ram (I have two open DIMM slots), and I would be good to go. But which boot manager to use? I use the GRUB boot manager on both my laptops, which dual boot to various linux distros, but I have never looked into the Windows boot managers much. Does anybody have a recommendation they would share?

The reason for going to 64-bit is that I am going to move from an SD to an HD camcorder, and I understand that the file sizes will be much greater, and thus the demands on the system will be greater. And as long as the 64-bit version of Vegas Pro is a free download, than what the heck... Other than Vegas Pro and SONAR, there aren't any other apps I need to use in 64-bit, so I would think that the 80gb drive would be more than sufficient for this purpose.

Any opinions would be welcomed and appreciated.

Thanks.
TB

Comments

rmack350 wrote on 9/27/2008, 10:22 AM

If you have two separate drives you could put them in removable trays and then just physically swap them out. Easy to set up but you don't get access to the other drive.

Some BIOS give you an option to choose a boot drive at startup. In HP consumer PCs, for example, you'd press F6 during boot and you'd get a list of drives to choose. Easier than digging into the BIOS (which I'm not recommending because that's too cumbersome).

These are both workarounds. As far as I know, MS provides some sort of boot manager to do what you're asking so you might look around at their website.

If you also had a linux distro on the machine you could configure GRUB to include your xp64 boot volume as a choice.

Hmm, what else? You might find in the end that you just want to install most of your applications on the XP64 volume. VP8c evidently runs on it and VP8c can access 3rd party plugins that don't work in 8.1.

Rob Mack

blink3times wrote on 9/27/2008, 10:56 AM

I use BOOTitNG

The greatest thing since sliced bread. You can boot from any drive, has password, and login protection. It has a toolset that allows you to do disk imaging (any OS including linux), partitioning, booting more than 4 primarys on a drive, BCD edit for vista, Boot.ini edit for XP, and a whole host of other little goodies.

I've been using it for years including the disk image feature.... which has gotten me out of deep trouble many times!

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

tcbetka wrote on 9/27/2008, 11:23 AM

Thanks Blink... Looks like a nice product. I also found Boot-us

http://www.boot-us.com

...which appears to be free. I read that it was a useful boot manager, but this is obviously something you'd like to get right on the first try.

I thought of the bios method--a poor man's boot manager, of sorts. Sounds tiresome though...

TB

rmack350 wrote on 9/27/2008, 11:40 AM

It's tiresome. The f6 method available on HP consumer PCs is a bit simpler than digging into the bios but you still have to be paying attention at boot time. A boot manager would handle booting from different partitions on the same disk, and it will at least pause for a bit to wait for you.

Blink's tool sounds like it brings a lot more to the table than a plain jane boot manager.

Rob

tcbetka wrote on 9/27/2008, 12:27 PM

Rob,

I agree...now that I look at it some more. When the time comes, this is a very attractive option at a very reasonable price, given what you get.

A guy could easily put a light-weight Linux distro on, and use GRUB; as previously mentioned. I have this running on 4 machines now, and it works very nicely. But then you'd have a Linux OS sitting somewhere on your machine, and if there might be some open-source application useful for video processing (haven't looked much), this might be a nice option--have it tucked away, and use it if needed. A minimalistic install of Ubuntu's desktop might be nice, as I am quite familiar with that distro.

But for simplicity on a Windows-only system...that's a nice option indeed.

TB

darg wrote on 9/27/2008, 12:44 PM

TB,

how have you measure the core temperature. I hope you are using CoreTemp. All other apps are getting only the temperature couple from the housing of the CPU and not the die internal tepm couples from the cores it self. 50C sounds a little bit "cold" for a CPU which is running at 800MHz over factory setting, especially for a quad. Is this measured under render load? It might be that you are running actually much higher.

Regards

Axel, San Jose

rmack350 wrote on 9/27/2008, 1:22 PM

Blinks example reminds me a bit of the Linux Sysrescue disk in the sorts of tools it offers. I wouldn't be surprised if it installed a small linux distro on your machine to handle the boot management as well as providing the additional tools. I looked through the manual and it appears that it installs itself as one of the boot options. This is a very Linux-like setup.

Rob

tcbetka wrote on 9/27/2008, 1:55 PM

Darg,

I use the RightMark CPU clock utility to measure the parameters. It was recommended by Jim Roseberry, the audio DAW builder fellow that helped me finalize my choices for components for the PC. The temps I am seeing are in the 50s...I have seen as high as 58 degrees C, but that was only for a short time. Most of the time the temps are between 52-55 degrees, and yes...all cores were running at 100% during render.

When I was OC'ing the machine (again with Jim's help, as I never done it before), I used Prime95 to load all cores to 100% for 12 hours, just to check that there were no errors in core the voltages. During this 12-hour period (well, in all honesty I fell asleep for a couple of those hours...lol) I saw temps no higher than 59 degrees C, and that was only on core 0, for some reason. Cores 1, 2 & 3 were cooler--no higher than the mid-50 degree range. So I am pretty comfortable with these values.

What I haven't mentioned yet is that the case I bought is the Cool Master 1000, with 4 fans. I also installed an Arctic Cooler CPU fan as well. Jim verified that these are the type of temperatures he's seeing in the DAWs he builds for his audio clients, and he's been OC'ing the Q9450 chip (among others) for quite some time.

BTW, it was interesting to note that my CPU, rated at 2.66GHz, was actually running at 2.72GHz when I first fired it up. So I really only OC'd it about 500MHz, and I didn't even have to increase core voltages at all--because it passed the Prime95 test with four greens after 12 hours! And thus far it's be stable as a rock (knock on wood). These things are definitely made to OC, and Jim tells me that the Q9450 (which has been discontinued, apparently) had a lot of headroom in it for doing just that...

TB

darg wrote on 9/29/2008, 3:32 PM

Hi TB,

Ok, you might be on the save side since you did not touched the voltage which is the main reason for higher core temps. It's incedible that all this worked without voltage increase. My E6850 needed a good increase in voltage to be stable and now I'm running at 70C on warm or hot days :-)
Have fun and enjoy the speed.

darg