Win XP/Vista Dual Boot question

[Jeff Wernicke]

I partitioned a new hard drive and formatted it using my Windows XP Home Ed.
SP2 Install CD. I then installed Win XP. I then installed Windows Vista
Home Premium 64 bit on the other partition. ( I have two partitions on a
single drive, C: and D This has been working great for me for the last 5
months. Today I have a reason to perform a repair install on just the
Windows XP partition. I have performed a Win XP repair install successfully
in the past using the XP SP2 install CD but never when my system was set up
as dual boot. If I perform a repair install using my WinXP install disk to
repair the Windows XP installation, will this leave my Vista partition
untouched? Will it at all interfere with the system's ability to multi
boot? I'm not very concerned about not being able to boot up into Windows
XP but it's extremely critical that my system's ability to boot up into
Vista is not compromised. I will not attempt to repair XP until I get ample
information that tells me that it's safe to do so. Thank you.

 

[Malke]

I partitioned a new hard drive and formatted it using my Windows XP Home
Ed.
SP2 Install CD. I then installed Win XP. I then installed Windows Vista
Home Premium 64 bit on the other partition. ( I have two partitions on a
single drive, C: and D This has been working great for me for the last
5
months. Today I have a reason to perform a repair install on just the
Windows XP partition. I have performed a Win XP repair install
successfully in the past using the XP SP2 install CD but never when my
system was set up
as dual boot. If I perform a repair install using my WinXP install disk
to repair the Windows XP installation, will this leave my Vista partition
untouched? Will it at all interfere with the system's ability to multi
boot? I'm not very concerned about not being able to boot up into Windows
XP but it's extremely critical that my system's ability to boot up into
Vista is not compromised. I will not attempt to repair XP until I get
ample
information that tells me that it's safe to do so. Thank you.

It will not affect your Vista partition but you won't be able to boot into
Vista any more if you used the Vista boot manager. This is simply remedied
by putting in your Vista DVD and repairing its Startup after you do your XP
repair install.

After you get everything the way you like, consider imaging your
drives/partitions with an imaging program. I prefer Acronis True Image but
there are others. You store the saved images on an external hard drive.

Malke

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

It will leave the Vista partition untouched but you may lose the dual boot
option. If so, you will need to copy the Vista boot info to the root of the
XP volume. The easiest way to do that is with VistaBoot Pro 3.3 installed
on the XP side. You can use it to search for the Vista installation and put
the boot files back for you.

If you dual boot XP and Vista, XP damages some important Vista recovery
files everytime you boot XP. Read the link below for how to prevent that.
It involves a lot more than just restore points.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926185
and for VBP3.3 see:
http://www.vistabootpro.org/

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I partitioned a new hard drive and formatted it using my Windows XP Home
Ed. SP2 Install CD. I then installed Win XP. I then installed Windows
Vista Home Premium 64 bit on the other partition. ( I have two
partitions on a single drive, C: and D This has been working great
for me for the last 5 months. Today I have a reason to perform a repair
install on just the Windows XP partition. I have performed a Win XP
repair install successfully in the past using the XP SP2 install CD but
never when my system was set up as dual boot. If I perform a repair
install using my WinXP install disk to repair the Windows XP
installation, will this leave my Vista partition untouched?

It shoiuld, yes.

Will it at
all interfere with the system's ability to multi boot?

Yes, it will wipe out the capability. There is, however, a fix for this.

I'm not very
concerned about not being able to boot up into Windows XP but it's
extremely critical that my system's ability to boot up into Vista is not
compromised. I will not attempt to repair XP until I get ample
information that tells me that it's safe to do so. Thank you.

Windows Vista no longer starts after you install an earlier version of
the Windows operating system in a dual-boot configuration
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919529

MS-MVP John Barnett's Guide is considerably more user-friendly:
http://vistasupport.mvps.org/install_windows_xp_on_machine_running_vista.htm



--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:


http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot

 

[Timothy Daniels]

It will leave the Vista partition untouched but you may lose the dual boot
option. If so, you will need to copy the Vista boot info to the root of the
XP volume.

Are you sure about that? Isn't Vista directed by its BCD store to call
XP's own ntldr to do the XP loading in the case of a dual-boot?

The easiest way to do that is with VistaBoot Pro 3.3 installed on the XP side.

Are you sure about that? Doesn't VISTAbootPro always install
into Vista?

*TimDaniels*

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Here's a screenshot of VistaBootPro's graphic representation of the
contents of Vista's BCD store:
http://www.pronetworks.org/forum/album_pic.php?pic_id=1797 .
Notice entry 1 and its link to /ntldr, XP's boot loader.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Simply set up a dual boot scenario with XP and Vista in a VPC virtual
machine (with two virtual hard drives), then do an XP repair install and see
what you get. That's by far the easiest way to check these things out.