Dual boot Xp and Vista

[Guest]

I've a Dualcore intel based pc with Xp regulary updated. I'm planning to
update the O.S. to Vista Home premium and i've the doubt: is it better to
make a total install removing XP at all, or is a better thing to make a dual
boot system (Xp and Vista?)
And also, if i'll decide to remove XP sometimes in the future, is that an
easy process? How?
Thanks for any help...
Andrea

 

[Frankster]

There are many potential pittfalls in upgrading from XP to Vista. Many
drivers for Vista are not yet available and many replacement applications
for Vista are not yet available.

My advice to anyone wanting to upgrade an existing XP system to Vista, is
this... (applies to most new computers with a single existing SATA hard
disk)

Buy a second SATA hard disk (you can get 200GB disks now for about $80!).

Install a second SATA HD into your computer.

Select in the BIOS, during startup, which disk you want to boot from.

Depedning on the version of Vista you purchase (i.e. "Upgrade" or "Full
Retail"), do one of the following.

- Load Vista on your new disk.
- Load XP on your new disk - then upgrade to Vista.

Use your BIOS to choose to boot either your XP disk or your Vista disk.
You'll have the best of bolth worlds until you get Vista all configured with
the proper drivers and software (could take months, depending on your
drivers/apps).

-Frank

 

[EJ]

I've a Dualcore intel based pc with Xp regulary updated. I'm planning to
update the O.S. to Vista Home premium and i've the doubt: is it better to
make a total install removing XP at all, or is a better thing to make a
dual
boot system (Xp and Vista?)
And also, if i'll decide to remove XP sometimes in the future, is that an
easy process? How?
Thanks for any help...
Andrea

I am interesting in hearing how easy it will be to remove the WindowsXP
installation at a later date too.

 

[Victek]

I've a Dualcore intel based pc with Xp regulary updated. I'm planning to
update the O.S. to Vista Home premium and i've the doubt: is it better to
make a total install removing XP at all, or is a better thing to make a
dual
boot system (Xp and Vista?)
And also, if i'll decide to remove XP sometimes in the future, is that an
easy process? How?
Thanks for any help...
Andrea

I am currently dual-booting Vista Business (full not upgrade version) and
XP. This works fine except for the issue of XP deleting all of Vista's
system restore files whenever you boot XP. If you can live with that then
dual-booting is a pretty good solution. Assuming you have one hard drive
and all the space is dedicated to "C:" you will have to "shrink" the
partition to create space for another partition where you can install Vista.
Regarding removing XP later on, that's a good question. I've read it can be
done, but I haven't done it myself yet. Hope this helps.

 

[Rich]

I've a Dualcore intel based pc with Xp regulary updated. I'm planning
to update the O.S. to Vista Home premium and i've the doubt: is it
better to make a total install removing XP at all, or is a better
thing to make a dual boot system (Xp and Vista?)
And also, if i'll decide to remove XP sometimes in the future, is
that an easy process? How?
Thanks for any help...
Andrea

I would do the dual boot it is quite easy to setup and you can always have a
working OS even if one fails (well most of the time!).

Rich

 

[Frankster]

I am interesting in hearing how easy it will be to remove the WindowsXP
installation at a later date too.

If you use the separate disk technique, it's easy. Just format the XP disk
when you don't need it any more.

-Frank

 

[mikeyhsd]

the best easiest is to install vista on a different partition.
it sets up dual booting during the process.

the most stable system is to FRESH CLEAN install vista.



(e-mail address removed)



I've a Dualcore intel based pc with Xp regulary updated. I'm planning to
update the O.S. to Vista Home premium and i've the doubt: is it better to
make a total install removing XP at all, or is a better thing to make a dual
boot system (Xp and Vista?)
And also, if i'll decide to remove XP sometimes in the future, is that an
easy process? How?
Thanks for any help...
Andrea

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

It is not that easy. The Vista boot folder will be on the XP drive. Vista
will not boot without a repair.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Run Vista Setup from the XP desktop and perform either an upgrade or custom
install. Vista installs very differently from XP and there will not be any
vestige of XP left, including the registry. All installations of Vista,
upgrade or custom, are clean installs of the OS. Forget advice based on
past experience with upgrading Windows. It has all changed.

 

[Kev]

It is not that easy. The Vista boot folder will be on the XP drive.
Vista will not boot without a repair.

<snip>

Colin

I was going to start a new thread but you have mentioned the problem that I
am experiencing.

I have two drives, an ATA as the first drive, and a SATA as the third. XP
is on the ATA drive and I went to install Vista on the SATA with that drive
being the one first in the BIOS boot order. However, rather than giving me
a clean installation with all the boot code on the SATA, it's made me a dual
boot build which needs the ATA drive in the BIOS boot sequence. What's the
simplest way to make Vista boot solely from the SATA drive so that I can
format the XP drive ?

I need to activate the product soon but I don't want to do this until I know
that it's how I want it to be.

Thanks

 

[Frankster]

No issues here. I have even removed one drive and it booted fine. Keep in
mind that I did NOT choose the "dual boot" option (assuming one exists). I
just installed normally (used the "upgrade" option, actually).

-Frank

 

[Frankster]

It is not that easy. The Vista boot folder will be on the XP drive.
I should also tell you that both of my SATA drives had fully functioning XP
Pro bootable installations. Both C drive (I swap them band and forth using
the BIOS whenever I need to test something. So when I installed Vista on
drive C (fully bootable XP Pro on drive C) there were no issues whatsoever.

-Frank

 

[Kev]

I should also tell you that both of my SATA drives had fully functioning
XP Pro bootable installations. Both C drive (I swap them band and forth
using the BIOS whenever I need to test something. So when I installed
Vista on drive C (fully bootable XP Pro on drive C) there were no issues
whatsoever.

-Frank

I've done some more research and found that others have had the same problem
but didn't find an answer.

I've used FIXBOOT / FIXMBR for the original XP installation in the past.
Maybe this will work for Vista as well so that I can scrub the XP disc clean
?

As it happens though, I'm hearing new mechanical noises from my PC and as
the SATA drive (Maxtor 160GB) has rarely been used until now I'm wondering
it it's on it's way out !

Thanks

 

[Dennis Pack]

Kev:
I don't have the answer to why, somewhere in the logic Vista looks
at the ATA buss before looking at the SATA buss. On a system with ATA and
SATA drives the boot loader looks at the ATA drive first. Disabling the ATA
drive will allow the SATA drive to boot. Have a great day.

 

[Daniel E Jameson]

The dual boot option is good for playing with Vista while you keep XP for
your serious work. Every time XP boots it kills your Vista restore points.

--
Daniel Jameson
·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·
If the man tells you to hate another,
It's not so you can benefit at the expense of the other...
It's so he can benefit at the expense of you!

 

[Guest]

Hi
I totally agree with Franksters method. I change my bios to whichever drive
I want to start from. Have no problems at all. Have used vista beta this way
and am now using the full version of Vista Ultimate. However I think it would
be nice if I could boot either operating system without having to go into the
bios first. By the way I also use Virtual PC to run Windows 98 inside Vista
Ultimate and inside xp. This way I can still use Lotus suite and Enarta 2001
wich other wise do not completely work in Vista or XP

 

[Daniel E Jameson]

Dual boot is good for giving Vista a test drive while you still do your real
work in XP. This is becuase everytime XP boots, it wipes out Vista's
restore points. As soon as you start relying on Vista, you should not boot
XP (unless you feel safe w/o restore points).

--
Daniel Jameson
·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·
If the man tells you to hate another,
It's not so you can benefit at the expense of the other...
It's so he can benefit at the expense of you!

 

[Frankster]

This has been a very good thread about the Native BIOS Dual Boot options.
Since I was the one that recommended dual booting using two physical SATA
drives, and how easy it was, I want to comment on some more testing I have
done to validate some of the comments here.

Daniel, you are exactly right! I have just finished testing your scenario
and it is absolutely true about the restore points. Not that I doubted it,
but it's always nice to see for yourself. No more needs to be said I
suppose, but I would like to clarify for others exactly what happens.

In my case, this works out okay. I have two disks (SATA200-Vista and
SATA250-XP). Both had bootable XP Pro (virtually duplicates for instant
recovery options) loads on them. I decided to load Vista on the smaller 200
that was sort of my backup for the XP on the 250. Remember, Vista is the
EXPERIMENTAL system here, not XP.

So... it's true, when you boot to XP it will remove your existing Vista
restore points. When you boot to Vista, Vista doesn't bother your XP points
at all. So... your "gold" system stays in tact, no problem. (The Vista
on-line help which describes this restore point removal during dual boot is
not clear about which restore points are removed - XP's or Vista's or both -
another reason I wanted to do my own test)

When you are satisfied with your Vista load, you can simply format the XP
disk and the restore point problem in Vista will not happen again.

If you're going to be playing around a lot with Vista with drivers and
things that you feel might require using a restore point, just make sure you
finish to a stable state (making restore points before and after manually,
if necessary) before booting back to XP.

As long as Vista remains a "test" system, even a complete reload doesn't
bother me. Once it is more than a test system (i.e. you decide to take it
"live"), format your XP disk and the restore point issue is gone.

-Frank

 

[Hugh Wyn Griffith]

However I think it would be nice if I could boot either operating system >

without having to go into the bios first.

Have you tried VISTABOOTPro? It's what I use and I have XP and VISTA on
different physical drives.

 

[Simon Patten]

Daniel, you are exactly right! I have just finished testing your scenario

and it is absolutely true about the restore points. Not that I doubted it,
but it's always nice to see for yourself. No more needs to be said I
suppose, but I would like to clarify for others exactly what happens.

Can I clarify; you do mean having the two OS's on separate partitions,
not on the same one? I can easily see that having Vista and XP on the
same partition would cause all sorts of problems but I'm really
surprised that XP would wipe Vista's restore points on another drive?

I hope someone from MS is reading this and will do something about it,
anyone with any experience of upgrading OS's will want to dual boot to
try the new one out without committing to it blindly so this is quite
a serious problem.

Simon.