Dual boot: Vista and Vista on 2 Hard Drives?

There are many articles on how to dual boot Vista and XP, but I want to dual
boot Vista and Vista, with an existing installation, on 2 Hard Drives.

Currently I switch these in the BIOS, but I'd much rather chose at a later
stage, can this be done?

Why? Because I keep one of the drives for random software that I rarely use.

Simply install Vista on the second hard drive and you will have a dual boot
menu at start up. You can do it from the original Vista's desktop if both
Vistas are 32bit or both are 64bit. There are no tricks. You just do it.
Of course you need to have two product keys, but I'm sure you realize that.

"Nigel Molesworth" <reply@thegroup.email.invalid> wrote in message
news:6b5k54dfrjragq61v04jn954adqifftp77@4ax.com...
> There are many articles on how to dual boot Vista and XP, but I want to
> dual
> boot Vista and Vista, with an existing installation, on 2 Hard Drives.
>
> Currently I switch these in the BIOS, but I'd much rather chose at a later
> stage, can this be done?
>
> Why? Because I keep one of the drives for random software that I rarely
> use.
>

On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 08:41:26 -0600, "Colin Barnhorst"
<c.barnhorst@comcast.net> wrote:

>Simply install Vista on the second hard drive and you will have a dual boot
>menu at start up.

Nope, no menu.

>Of course you need to have two product keys, but I'm sure you realize that.

Nope, and don't be silly.

I have dual booted XP and Vista on two separate hard drives; I've even
installed the same scenario on two separate partitions and on 'every'
occasion I have had a dual boot menu.

Why is Colin being 'silly' as you put it? If you are running Windows XP and
Vista (or any other combination for that matter) you will require the
appropriate licences.

--

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows Desktop Experience

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

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"Nigel Molesworth" <reply@thegroup.email.invalid> wrote in message
news:hhsk54dk6mk7paddl9e4bim1bh2gr8pv80@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 08:41:26 -0600, "Colin Barnhorst"
> <c.barnhorst@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>>Simply install Vista on the second hard drive and you will have a dual
>>boot
>>menu at start up.
>
> Nope, no menu.
>
>>Of course you need to have two product keys, but I'm sure you realize
>>that.
>
> Nope, and don't be silly.

Because when you attempt a second activation of a product key you will get a
message that the pk is already in use.

"Nigel Molesworth" <reply@thegroup.email.invalid> wrote in message
news:hhsk54dk6mk7paddl9e4bim1bh2gr8pv80@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 08:41:26 -0600, "Colin Barnhorst"
> <c.barnhorst@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>>Simply install Vista on the second hard drive and you will have a dual
>>boot
>>menu at start up.
>
> Nope, no menu.
>
>>Of course you need to have two product keys, but I'm sure you realize
>>that.
>
> Nope, and don't be silly.

On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:00:16 -0600, "Colin Barnhorst"
<c.barnhorst@comcast.net> wrote:

>Because when you attempt a second activation of a product key you will get a
>message that the pk is already in use.

It's exactly the same hardware, the second activation went through with no
problems.

On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:17:39 +0100, "John Barnett MVP"
<freelance@invalid.invalid> wrote:

>I have dual booted XP and Vista on two separate hard drives; I've even
>installed the same scenario on two separate partitions and on 'every'
>occasion I have had a dual boot menu.

If I boot with both drives enabled, it just boots from the first.

>Why is Colin being 'silly' as you put it? If you are running Windows XP and
>Vista (or any other combination for that matter) you will require the
>appropriate licences.

I'm running Vista on two hard drives, one at a time, on the same computer.
The second install activated with no problems. One drive is effectively a
backup of the other, without the random junk.

On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 09:17:36 +0100, Nigel Molesworth
<reply@thegroup.email.invalid> wrote:

>There are many articles on how to dual boot Vista and XP, but I want to dual
>boot Vista and Vista, with an existing installation, on 2 Hard Drives.
>
>Currently I switch these in the BIOS, but I'd much rather chose at a later
>stage, can this be done?

Use the bootrec /rebuildbcd command.
<http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392>

>
>Why? Because I keep one of the drives for random software that I rarely use.

"Nigel Molesworth" wrote:
> I'm running Vista on two hard drives, one at a time, on the same computer.
> The second install activated with no problems. One drive is effectively a
> backup of the other, without the random junk.

For the installer to make a dual-boot menu, it has to see
the other pre-existing OS, so both hard drives have to be
connected when the 2nd OS is being installed on the 2nd HD.

*TimDaniels*

"Nigel Molesworth" argued.

Nigel, don't argue. Colin et. al. are arguing legalities
and MS's undocumented period of expiration of telephone
activation requirement. Legalities you're not interested in.
The period in which activation requires a call-in is 120 days
since the last installation, according to folklore. Otherwise,
the activation is done automatically.

*TimDaniels*