Vista + XP Dual boot Questions

sid · 17 Apr 2007 at 17:54

Hello ,

I have vista currently installed on HDD1 but I also want to have XP installed due to better gaming support mainly

I have a second HDD which has some some stuff on it now. So the plan is to shrink one of the partitions on the Second HDD and make a 10gb partition there and install xp there.

I've heard that xp has to be installed before vista to maintain boot manager functionality but I don't need to access XP daily (This is my Media pc and only mainly used to watch TV) SO If I press F8 on boot and just select the other HDD to boot from will it boot from XP?

Does that make sense? Am I likely to have any problems? I don't want to mess up my Vista MCE installation as i'd rather not have to setup that again.

sid

t31os · 17 Apr 2007 at 18:46

You might get a conflict and find one of the drives rewrites the boot order.

Best thing you could do if you really cant reinstall Vista is to just unplug and plug one drive at a time.

There's proberly a better method, but i've not had to do it myself, sorry.

sid · 17 Apr 2007 at 19:08

t31os said:
You might get a conflict and find one of the drives rewrites the boot order.

Best thing you could do if you really cant reinstall Vista is to just unplug and plug one drive at a time.

There's proberly a better method, but i've not had to do it myself, sorry.

Hmm thanks for that

Anyone else done this?

sid

sid · 18 Apr 2007 at 10:18

Bump?

Surely people have tried this one before right?

sid

t31os · 18 Apr 2007 at 10:56

In theory you could find out how both Vista and XP rewrite the boot config, install XP without the Vista drive plugged in, then just manually add the required info yourself, then plug the other drive in on its own, write the neccessary info again, then plug both in......

Google and some choice keywords are your best bet......

sid · 18 Apr 2007 at 12:12

t31os said:
In theory you could find out how both Vista and XP rewrite the boot config, install XP without the Vista drive plugged in, then just manually add the required info yourself, then plug the other drive in on its own, write the neccessary info again, then plug both in......

Google and some choice keywords are your best bet......

Yes but I can't risk destroying the vista partition as said in the opening post.

sid

Brian Stuart · 18 Apr 2007 at 13:57

Try this link Clicky Don't know if it works though
Brian