Dual boot XP/Vista with different drives

Craig321 · 15 Jun 2007 at 02:44

Hi,

I just installed Vista onto a second 40GB hard drive to have a play around.

I unplugged my main hard drive while it was installing (just in case) so now I have one Vista drive and one XP drive. Perfect

.

I was wondering how I can add Vista to the boot-up list so I can use that to choose rather than changing the boot device in the BIOS every time I want to change OS.

I'm hoping it's as simple as adding a line to boot.ini specifying the location of the Vista install?

Thanks,
Craig.

marc2003 · 15 Jun 2007 at 02:53

try pressing f8 when the bios screen flashes up. you might be able to choose which drive to boot from without actually having to go into the bios. my mobo supports this.

Craig321 · 15 Jun 2007 at 02:55

marc2003 said:
try pressing f8 when the bios screen flashes up. you might be able to choose which drive to boot from without actually having to go into the bios. my mobo supports this.

Oooo, yes, IIRC mine does as well.

Brb, trying now...

Substance · 15 Jun 2007 at 02:57

usually if you leave your hard drive in when you install vista it will create a boot list so you just pick which install you want to use at the start, i'm not sure if you can add one afterwards but i would just re-install vista but install it to the 40gb drive keeping you main plugged in though,

The installer will tell you the drive sizes though so there should be no confusion

Craig321 · 15 Jun 2007 at 03:00

marc2003 said:
try pressing f8 when the bios screen flashes up. you might be able to choose which drive to boot from without actually having to go into the bios. my mobo supports this.

Works perfectly, thanks very much. I much prefer that over screwing around with the boot file(s) of my main system

SuBsTaNcE said:
usually if you leave your hard drive in when you install vista it will create a boot list so you just pick which install you want to use at the start, i'm not sure if you can add one afterwards but i would just re-install vista but install it to the 40gb drive keeping you main plugged in though,

The installer will tell you the drive sizes though so there should be no confusion

Thanks Substance, all sorted now though

Is there anything I should be watching out for that Vista might do to my main HDD while I'm running off my second HDD?

Thanks,
Craig.

marc2003 · 15 Jun 2007 at 03:12

it might try indexing the files for faster searching? might be worth checking system restore in vista too although i think by default it's only set for vista's own boot drive.

if you're really that bothered and you don't need to access files on the xp disk when in vista, just remove the drive letter using disk management. do the same in xp to remove the vista drive if you like. 2 totally separate operating systems, oblivious to the existence of the other.

Craig321 · 15 Jun 2007 at 03:17

marc2003 said:
it might try indexing the files for faster searching? might be worth checking system restore in vista too although i think by default it's only set for vista's own boot drive.

if you're really that bothered and you don't need to access files on the xp disk when in vista, just remove the drive letter using disk management. do the same in xp to remove the vista drive if you like. 2 totally separate operating systems, oblivious to the existence of the other.

Very good idea, thanks again marc

something daft already!! · 15 Jun 2007 at 08:36

marc2003 said:
it might try indexing the files for faster searching? might be worth checking system restore in vista too although i think by default it's only set for vista's own boot drive.

if you're really that bothered and you don't need to access files on the xp disk when in vista, just remove the drive letter using disk management. do the same in xp to remove the vista drive if you like. 2 totally separate operating systems, oblivious to the existence of the other.

No matter what you do, if you boot into XP you WILL lose your Vista restore points, unless you physically disconnect the drive.

Craig321 · 15 Jun 2007 at 15:43

howiepoohs said:
No matter what you do, if you boot into XP you WILL lose your Vista restore points, unless you physically disconnect the drive.

Why do you loose them?

How about if I disable my main HDD in the device manager from Vista & do the same from XP. Surely then it won't even think about touching the drive?

Thanks,
Craig.

marc2003 · 15 Jun 2007 at 15:49

just removing the drive letters is sufficient. windows won't touch a drive/partition that hasn't got a letter assigned to it (or mounted in another folder if you want to be pedantic).

Craig321 · 15 Jun 2007 at 16:33

Ok, cool. Thanks marc

I've disabled the 40GB in the XP device manager as well (the 40gb was majorly slowing down XP, sorted by disabling it).

Thanks,
Craig.

james.miller · 15 Jun 2007 at 16:38

i dont see what all the fuss is? i have xp and vista on seperate drives, both always connected. xp on c:, vista on e:. i have no problems :confused:

topgazza · 15 Jun 2007 at 17:12

So how do you choose which one to boot from ?

bledd · 15 Jun 2007 at 17:13

if you don't want to hit fX when booting to choose the boot drive, you could use http://www.vistabootpro.org/ to add information to hard drives, and have a boot menu so you can choose which os you want to load

james.miller · 15 Jun 2007 at 17:15

topgazza said:
So how do you choose which one to boot from ?

when you install vista, it installs a boot menu on the boot drive. same as xp does if you already have win 98 or whatever. the boot menu boots up and you have a choice of vista or 'previous version of windows'.

its as simple as that tbh.

bledd · 15 Jun 2007 at 17:17

james.miller said:
when you install vista, it installs a boot menu on the boot drive. same as xp does if you already have win 98 or whatever. the boot menu boots up and you have a choice of vista or 'previous version of windows'.

its as simple as that tbh.

but it doesn't do that (obviously; as you know) when the other drive isn't connected during the installation, vistabootpro can create this menu for you

james.miller · 15 Jun 2007 at 17:18

yeah i no. thats my point - i dont see what all the fuss is with disconnecting a drive during the install. all your really doing is causing more hassle lol

PhillyDee · 15 Jun 2007 at 17:21

If you are happy running it like you are, DO NOT let vista overwrite your XP boot. I did, then when i came to remove XP, it was pretty traumatic. Took me 6 hours and around 40-50 reboots with hard drives plugged in, unplugged, swopped around, xp restore disk, vista restore disk and was just a general pain in the bum.

bledd · 15 Jun 2007 at 17:28

but if one drive dies (say the one with the boot info on), will the other boot ok on its own?

Vicar · 15 Jun 2007 at 18:04

PhillyDee said:
If you are happy running it like you are, DO NOT let vista overwrite your XP boot. I did, then when i came to remove XP, it was pretty traumatic. Took me 6 hours and around 40-50 reboots with hard drives plugged in, unplugged, swopped around, xp restore disk, vista restore disk and was just a general pain in the bum.

I agree, Basically I had XP on C: and Vista RC2 on E: (1 Harddrive) took off Vista and used boot pro to manage to to load up XP without the boot options.

I then loaded Vista OEM onto E: again, had a major issue with an Adaptec card with blue screened Vista with HDD connected to the card, after a driver update. I thought I would scrub Vista and reinstall. The Vista menu totally screws this up, with Drive signatures not matching since trying to reinstall. It gets to Windows starting for first time and crashes. I cant get Vista installed at all now, and after much research with the Winload.exe feature failing the install, I find its down to the Vista boot menu. Nightmare