Dual Boot Vista & XP

Oma-Lan-DP · 3 Feb 2007 at 21:37

Hi, Can anyone tell me how to dual boot XP & Vista using 2 disks.

I intend to use Vista for everything, except Autocad 13 & Softengine 3 (softengine is an old addon program for Autocad & crashes Vista when i try to install it) which has to go on XP.

I have a 80gig drive which i can use for XP & a 120gig drive for Vista, I have installed Vista & XP on each individual disk, but HOW do i get a CHOICE (MENU) to boot to whichever one i want after i boot up.

regards David

Mike UK · 3 Feb 2007 at 22:07

Partition hard drive use one side as xp use the new partition for vista the selection menu will be created automatically

RichieUK · 3 Feb 2007 at 22:16

If you install them on seperate HDDs, would it be OK just to select the first boot-device in the BIOS to which OS you want to use at that time?

Oma-Lan-DP · 3 Feb 2007 at 22:34

thanks for the replys, i would prefer to use 2 hd's if possible, would it be possible to use some sort of boot manager 'thing' program which could load first & then give me a choice, as going into the bios every time would be a bit of a pain.

thanks again

Oma-Lan-DP · 3 Feb 2007 at 22:43

years ago i used to have a small program that sat in the taskbar & i could reboot from 95 to 98 & viceversa just by clicking on it, cant remember what it was called but it was great. when clicked it would shut down & reboot in the other OS.

sunn · 3 Feb 2007 at 22:46

hello

So XPs on one drive
remove that drive [XP] and install Vista on to the other
plug XP back in, boot into it [keep vista drive still plugged in] [maybe need to change boot pref in BIOS]
then show hidden files and unhide protected system file in file options
copy the folder 'boot' and 'bootmgr' off the vista drive on XPs
install VistaBootPRo from HERE

run, go to bootloader and reinstall vista bootloader [something like that] apply
go to Manage Boot Entries, if i remember correctly Vista is already in the list [or was the other way round?] :confused:

then just add XP using legacy OS selecting the drive its on or vice-versa

i think thats it, they was i guide on ProNetworks forum but i cant find it at the mo

Oma-Lan-DP · 3 Feb 2007 at 22:48

thanks sunn will try that