Vista x64 on one drive and XP x86 on another drive. Dual boot possible?

[neoglow]

Hey everyone, Im going through a 'retro' spell at the mo and getting fed up of finding old games from the 16bit and 32bit era refusing to install or work on Vista 64. To make a collection of games old and new on my pc, I'm thinking of getting two large capacity hardrives as seperate drives - not raid - and installing my vista 64bit on one and xp 32bit on the other drive.

If I do this, is this the same as 'dual boot' even though I havent installed two OS's on the same drive? Could I choose which to boot at startup or am I going to have to create two partitions on one drive for this to work?

Cheers, M.

 

[Mav]

yeah u can do what u`re asking

i have x2 36 gig scsi drives one with only XP Pro 32 bit on it , an the other one has Vista64 on it .

the rest of my drives x2 74 gig raptors x1 150 gig raptor have my games spread across em , some drives for XP only games an the 150gig drive for vista DX10 games ...

u`ll need to remember to install XP first thu then install Vista ...

when u boot up ya system u`ll get a logo screen asking to choose between older windows OS or vista OS , if left alone it`ll default to loading vista ...

u can change u`re default loading OS by editing a ini file on vista .

 

[neoglow]

the rest of my drives x2 74 gig raptors x1 150 gig raptor have my games spread across em , some drives for XP only games an the 150gig drive for vista DX10 games ...

Cheers Mav, thats exactly what I have just been looking up on the net. Got 2x 74gig Raptors at the mo, gona get a 150gig raptor. Put xp 32 on one raptor, vista 64 on the other and all my games on the 150! Brilliant!

When installing games on a drive other than C: without a Windows OS on, do the games ever winge or get errors about missing files etc cos there is no OS on the same drive? I only ask cos many latest games, eg, Stalker and Crysis make folders/files eg, settings and save game files in the My Documents folder on the traditional C: drive.

Cheers, M.

 

[Mav]

no ...

cause when u install XP on the drive u have ear marked for XP it`ll be called C: drive as u`d expect yeah ...

then install vista on ya D: drive

if u boot into XP it`ll be C: drive as u`d expect , but if u boot in to Vista it changes the letters around an calls Vista drive C: an XP D: drive ...

thats how mine works with that set up ...

just remmeber thu ya REG file for installs is only for the OS u where using when u installed the game ...

u can get away with some games being run from the .exe file if u was running vista an it was installed under XP ...


what i`ve done is name my games drives , GAMES XP an GAMES Vista64 so i know whats installed where an under what OS ..

 

[neoglow]

if u boot into XP it`ll be C: drive as u`d expect , but if u boot in to Vista it changes the letters around an calls Vista drive C: an XP D: drive ...

Thats interesting, I didnt know the drive letters are changed always back to C: when a Windows is started up. Good idea with the seperate folders for the games!

Cheers for your help Mav, gona start this little project tomorrow!

Mucho Gracius! M.

 

[mmj_uk]

Doesn't your motherboard BIOS have a boot menu? most modern boards do now.

 

[Mav]

when u boot up ya system u`ll get a logo screen asking to choose between older windows OS or vista OS , if left alone it`ll default to loading vista ...

boot menu from ya bios is when u want to select drives to boot from or devices ie: cd rom drives ...

when u start u`re computer up an it gets past the post screen an finnishes off with the list of devices an IRQ`s listed , it`ll show a option screen anyways to choose the above quoted option ... no need realy to mess about hitting del / F10 or what ever .. u`ll get the choice anyways with a dual boot OS .

 

[FatRakoon]

When I setup a dual boot for a mate a while back, he wanted it so that Windows ( Be it XP or Vista ) was C: and all his data was D: and his Media E: etc... He also wanted it so that the other Windows drive was then made to be out of the way, so in both XP and Vista I had it so that the NON-used Windows Partition was set to T:

This is a very easy thing to do, as long as the installer sees the windows drive as C:

In our case, as we were using multiple Drives it was made even easier by simply having them physically disconnected and we use the Motherboards own F12 option to select the boot from Which Drive Menu selection when we want to use XP otherwise, if left alone its vista.

This has given us another bonus of not having to worry about multiple boots and we did for a short while have Vista32 and Vista64 as well as XP all setup and in theory, there is no limit to how many O/Ses we could have? - Well...