Can I have Vista on Drive C and XP on another physical drive?

[Guest]

I have a situatiion where I need to install XP and am interested in knowing
if I can install it on another drive and boot from it when I need to use it?
Does that even make sense??? I know XP allowed for dual boot systems, does
Vista?

Thanks!

 

[Jon]

I have a situatiion where I need to install XP and am interested in knowing
if I can install it on another drive and boot from it when I need to use
it?
Does that even make sense??? I know XP allowed for dual boot systems,
does
Vista?

Thanks!

Yep, perfectly possible.If you google for 'vista xp "dual boot"' you'll find
plenty of helpful webpages.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?as_q...ny&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&as_rights=&safe=off

 

[Malke]

I have a situatiion where I need to install XP and am interested in knowing
if I can install it on another drive and boot from it when I need to use it?
Does that even make sense??? I know XP allowed for dual boot systems, does
Vista?

Thanks!

Yes, although it is always easier to install the older operating system
first.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=dual+boot+Vista+XP&btnG=Google+Search

You should be aware that unless you use a third-party boot manager, XP
will wipe out the Vista System Restore Points.

Missing Restore Points/Shadow Copies in Windows Vista -
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/missingrpv.html


Malke

 

[Guest]

Of course you can.
Either you install it with your Vista HD present, or
you disconnect all HD's except the one on which you
want to install XP.

In the first case, you will have to use the Vista install CD
to repair the boot sector. You will thereafter be able
to choose the system you want to boot from by
choosing it during the boot process.

In the second case, I am not sure you can
have that choice. but VistaBoot Pro (a free utility on the Net)
may allow you to do so. Use the utility's diagnostic first
and see for yourself.

Or if your BIOS allows it, you can easily choose the boot disk
you want to use by pressing F8 as soon as the computer
starts.






"Evelyn" <[email protected]> a écrit dans le message de I have a situatiion where I need to install XP and am interested in knowing
if I can install it on another drive and boot from it when I need to use it?
Does that even make sense??? I know XP allowed for dual boot systems, does
Vista?

Thanks!

 

[Guest]

I installed Microsoft Virtual PC (a free download) - installed it on a Vista
Ultimate machine and then installed XP in the virtual machine. Works very
well for what I am doing. Gotchas: Virtual PC does not install on Vista Home
versions, XP in the virtual machine has no access to printers or USB ports.
But it is very easy to move files between XP and Vista (drag-and-drop).

 

[tomsen]

Sure you can, I am doing the same thing and it works perfectly fine. Just
make sure to install WinXP first and then install Vista on a seperate
partition (doesn't matter if it's logical or primary). Vista comes with a
boot loader which doesn't overwrite the MBR (master boot record) of the HDD
in question. WinXP DOES! overwrite the MBR during setup. That's why you
should have XP installed first and then follow up with Vista.

 

[Don]

Sure you can, I am doing the same thing and it works perfectly fine. Just
make sure to install WinXP first and then install Vista on a seperate
partition (doesn't matter if it's logical or primary). Vista comes with a
boot loader which doesn't overwrite the MBR (master boot record) of the HDD
in question. WinXP DOES! overwrite the MBR during setup. That's why you
should have XP installed first and then follow up with Vista.

A couple of small but important corrections: yes, Vista and XP can both
be installed in logical partitions (that's the way I've done it) but
there must be at least one primary partition somewhere on some hard
drive where both OS's can put their boot files. (The boot files use
very little disk space, so that primary partition can be very small.)

Second, a normal Vista install (or upgrade) does indeed overwrite the
existing master boot record (MBR) with its own MBR. The importance of
this is that the Vista MBR can boot an XP installation, while the XP
MBR cannot boot a Vista installation.

Thus, if you install XP after installing Vista you must then reinstall
the Vista MBR, which is very quick and easy if you know how.

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

tomsen wrote:

Second, a normal Vista install (or upgrade) does indeed overwrite the
existing master boot record (MBR) with its own MBR. The importance of
this is that the Vista MBR can boot an XP installation, while the XP
MBR cannot boot a Vista installation.

Do you really mean MBR, or do you mean PBR (Partition Boot Record)?

MBR is system territory; it belongs to no OS, and no OS should replace
it with any "special" code. However, many OSs will replace it with
standard code, as do some tools, and that may kill any system-level
boot managers that may reside there.

MBR code is entered by BIOS, and it is supposed to look up the active
partition in the partition table contained within MBR, and enter that.

It is at this point that the OS begins, so OSs can be expected to
write new and different code to the PBR. MS's multi-booting
strategies are all intra-OS rather than system level, and thus start
from PBR and roll forward into the OS file set.

Each new MS OS generation "shells" the previous one(s)...

Win9x IO.SYS processed WinBoot.ini or MSDOS.SYS to populate an F8 boot
menu from which "previous version of MS-DOS" might be run instead of
the Win9x, or the DOS mode OS could be run instead of Win9x GUI OS.

NT/2000/XP NTLDR processes Boot.ini to populate a boot menu from which
various NT family OSs,. their Recovery Console, or IO.SYS-based OSs
can be launched. One set of syntax is used to select and boot
NT-family OSs, and a more generic syntaxc allows arbitrary images of
PBR code to be booted instead, as if these were in effect at the time.
This is intended to boot Win9x, DOS, or Recovery Console, but can be
used for other purposes <cough>

Vista's boot process uses its own boot manager settings data to select
between Vista OSs, older NTs as mediated by their Boot.ini, and that
in turn can mediate older Win9x via PBR image files and IO.SYS etc.

So: Vista( NT/2000/XP( Win9x( DOS ) ) ) <g>

NONE of this should involve MBR, tho - that's off-limits for OS
details other than "active" and "partition type" values within the
partition table, which direct standard system MBR code logic.

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