0siris85

A buddy of mine would like to use both XP and Vista on his machine and he came to me for help as to how he should go about setting that up. I've looked through the countless articles on the internet about the subject and I'm still confused about how to create a partition without losing any of the information on the hard drive.

His hard drive is fairly small... 80GB in total with about 40 gigs free. If I were to create the partition and install the other OS on it, how would the two partitions behave? Say I'm working on C: which has vista installed. Can I save to D: which has XP installed? The format is the same for both OS (NTFS) as far as I know, so it should work.

If he were to get another hard drive, could it work that way? Install XP on one hard drive, and Vista on the other?

Thanks in advance

Deleted090308

Hi

Is this a computer with Vista preinstalled?
If so, I think it's a bad idea to try creating a "true" dual boot with XP.

Installing XP after Vista will make Vista unbootable - this can be fixed, but you'll need a Vista installation disc (NOT a recovery disc).

A better solution would be to get a second HDD and install XP there - then use BIOS to choose OS (or maybe edit XP's boot.ini).

And, yes, you can save files to both OS's partitions (also FAT32).

dukemtl

Use Partition Magic or similar program to create new partition without loosing any data on on your existing hard drive.

As mentioned by Eneles, you are better off with two hard drives. Much easier to manage and much safer for your data.

This is how i set up my dual-booting system:

- XP on C: (disk 0, 80 Gb)
- Vista on D: and Data on E: ( disk 1, 160 Gb with 2 partitions: D = 60 Gb / primary and E = 100 Gb / logical)

All my data in E (music, pictures, spreadsheets etc...). All my work-related applications in C and all my games in D :-))

0siris85

The machine has a clean Vista install. I have the original Vista CD. I think he is pretty much decided that he is going to get another hard drive. If I install XP on the other hard drive, is there any way I could get a screen like this to show up to give me options regarding which OS I want to boot from?



He's not exactly the most computer savvy person, and I would like to steer him away from doing anything in the bios. i.e change the boot sequence. A boot screen like the one above would be awesome, would there be any way to get that with 2 separate hard drives?

Thanks for the quick replies guys, I really appreciate it

Deleted090308

This guide is pretty good: http://apcmag.com/5485/dualbooting_vista_and_xp

(for partitioning you can use Vista's Disk Management - you don't have to use DiskPart)

0siris85

I'm installing on 2 separate hard drives though

Deleted090308

It doesn't matter - same procedure (except for the partitioning).

Also - you can install XP with the Vista drive disconnected >> then boot Vista and use EasyBCD.
In this scenario you don't have to repair Vista after XP is installed - just make sure the Vista drive is first in boot priority.

0siris85

ok, got ya. I'll post updates as soon as I get to work on the machine.

Deleted090308

OK. Good luck.

dukemtl

Thanks Eneles for a good tip (ref #7). It's always handy to know tricks like that.

Deleted090308

I forgot to mention - if you install this way...

...then XP's drive letter will change when the Vista drive is connected again.
This means that XP's boot.ini will point at the wrong drive.
Fix this by changing rdisk(0) to rdisk(1) in boot.ini.

0siris85

With Easter and all, I wasn't able to get my hands on the machine until just now.

I took it apart to see what hard drive I need to get for it, and it turns out that the machine is running an EIDE Western Digital Protege WD800 80GB

Would it be possible to run this hard drive with another, newer one? The Protege runs at 5400 RPM, would I be able to run a 7200RPM slave? I'll try to talk him into buying a pair of new hard drives, since it's probably not a good idea to buy old technology.

His motherboard is a P4M80-40

As you can see it supports SATA, (although I'm not exactly sure what bandwidth) so it might be a good idea to go with that. He doesn't download a whole lot, so I think a pair of 80GB sata HDs would be more than sufficient.

I'd really appreciate any advice guys, I'm still undecided as to what I'm going to do.

Deleted090308

Yes, you can run a 5400RPM HDD with a 7200RPM as slave -
but, IMO, it would be better to get an 80GB SATA drive.

SATA is faster, and you won't have to bother about jumpers etc.

0siris85

I forgot to mention that the SATA ports on the motherboards have JSATA written beneath them. What does that mean?

Deleted090308

AFAIK, the J means nothing. All the other ports have a J at the beginning of the "code".

0siris85

I just did some rummaging through my spare computer parts and found a spare 80GB 5400RPM Maxtor. While I totally agree that SATA is faster, I can't think of anything he does on the computer that would require the extra speed.

I plugged in the maxtor and am about to format it. Let the fun begin :P

0siris85

Alrighty, all done :) Thanks for all your help and advice guys, I really appreciate it.

I do have one question though, now when I log into Windows XP everything is empty. Do I have to re-install everything here just like with vista? i.e Kaspersky, Skype, etc..?

Deleted090308

Yes, you have to install all programs.
Also - you should, of course, install the appropriate hardware drivers.

Is the dual boot working?

0siris85

Yes, the dual boot is working just fine

It's past 4AM here right now so I think I'm going to hit the hay and install all the programs on XP tomorrow.

Thanks again

Deleted090308

You're welcome.