Is it too late to dual boot?

NachT

NachT

NachT

Associate
Joined
20 May 2006
Posts
1,068
Hi,

I want to dual boot into my XP, I also have vista installed. I've installed vista onto my comp, and it put my XP installation into a Windows.old file, along with all my old programs and what not.

Is it too late for me to dual boot into that OS now? I dont realy want to re-install XP.

I've tryed a couple of BCD manager programs for vista, but none of them let me manually edit the BCD. The file paths it was allocating for my XP installtion were wrong.


Any ideas? :confused:
 
I guess you can but you need to split your disk into 2 partitions then install XP/Vista on the other partition.

***
EDIT
***

Don't think you can have 2 installations of an OS on the same HDD.
 
Yeah I have the one drive, oh well, damn it lol.

I'm going to fully formatting soon any way, thanks for the info guys ;)

If I partition the one drive, then I could do what i'm wanting I guess.

Do you have to install XP or Vista first, or doesn't it matter?
 
NachT said:
Yeah I have the one drive, oh well, damn it lol.

I'm going to fully formatting soon any way, thanks for the info guys ;)

If I partition the one drive, then I could do what i'm wanting I guess.

Do you have to install XP or Vista first, or doesn't it matter?
Click to expand...


Yeah you need to split your HDD into 2 parts then it doesnt matter which OS you install. When installing the second OS choose the D drive to install the other OS.
 
Have any of you used the " Drive Shrink " tool in vista?

I've noticed it's a new thing, in disk management. Could I shrink my system drive and make a new partition, without currupting everything lol.

untitledww8.jpg
 
You could yes; It shouldn't corrupt the OS. Then use management to create a new blank drive d:\ then install XP on there :)
 
you can certainly still make a partition using the disk shrink. However, normally you'd install vista after XP not the other way around. There are probably ways around it, might be worth a google
 
Not having tried this with vista, but I guess it would follow the usual golden rule of multiboot.

Install the oldest OS first, I can deffo see it going south and corrupting to stopping you booting into vista.

You have to remember that vista will be aware of XP, but XP isn't aware of Vista.
 
Well the drive shrink worked great!

So my vista installation is fine, i've created a 30GB partition for XP. Now I guess i'll just play with Easy BCD for a while untill I figure somthing out.

I take it i have top copy my Windows.old folder over to my new partition, and lay the folders out how they usually are on a working Os?

:)
 
NachT said:
Well the drive shrink worked great!

So my vista installation is fine, i've created a 30GB partition for XP. Now I guess i'll just play with Easy BCD for a while untill I figure somthing out.

I take it i have top copy my Windows.old folder over to my new partition, and lay the folders out how they usually are on a working Os?

:)
Click to expand...


That wont really work - You will have to install XP onto the new partition.
 
Oh..... :(

Isn't there a complicated way I can somehow do it from in vista? It's just that, that XP installation I have is all set up with my drivers and everything heh >.<
 
NachT said:
Oh..... :(

Isn't there a complicated way I can somehow do it from in vista? It's just that, that XP installation I have is all set up with my drivers and everything heh >.<
Click to expand...


Depends if you have 2 program files directories?
 
I have one programs directory for XP and 2 for vista ( one 32bit directoy )

Everything in the Windows.old folder, is like an OS in there, as it should be. I just dont know how to work it and boot from it.
 
At a guess copy the windows.old over to your new partion rename it Windows, and also put the program files where it should be. I take it you also have the docs and settings folder?

Then set the XP partition up as the boot in the bios and run fix boot in the XP recovery console.

Really no idea if that bit will work, think it would.

If it does then you'll need to get VistaBootPro and follow these instructions http://www.pro-networks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=84455 to setup the dual boot menu.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom