crreating dual boot with vista and xp

[T5]

When installing vista beta does it automatically create a dual boot option
(if I am using xp when I install)? The reason that I ask is that I want to
evaluate vista on my home pc but my wife uses it a lot for church matters
and quite often uses the printer (hp photosmart 1000), this printer does not
work with vista, so I need the xp option for her to be able to use the
printer. If it doesn't create a dual partition, Is this option open to me?

 

[Mark D. VandenBerg]

You need to create a new partition yourself. Try Norton PartitionMagic 8
($70.00).


When installing vista beta does it automatically create a dual boot option
(if I am using xp when I install)? The reason that I ask is that I want to
evaluate vista on my home pc but my wife uses it a lot for church matters
and quite often uses the printer (hp photosmart 1000), this printer does not
work with vista, so I need the xp option for her to be able to use the
printer. If it doesn't create a dual partition, Is this option open to me?

 

[Richard Urban]

Vista setup does not create anything. It gets installed where YOU tell it to
install to.

Prepare before you install. Use a third party program, such as Partition
Magic 8.01 (or later) to shrink your current partition. You will need 20 gig
of free space to create another primary partition used for the Vista
install. Then create the new partition.

Getting another hard drive would be even better. Use it exclusively for your
Vista experiment.

During setup, be certain to direct the installer to the correct
drive/partition.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Todd]

I bought a new hard drive, and used the drive manufacturers CD to copy an
image of the old drive to the new drive. After installing the new drive as
the primary master, installing the old drive as the secondary master, and
making sure that I could boot from the new drive, and that my Windows 2000
operating system worked, and was installed properly, I disconnected the new
drive from the system and installed Vista on the old drive.

Now although the drives can see each other ,each is entirely separate.
Vista has not overwritten the Master Boot Record on the Windows 2000
operating system.

I use the BIOS to select which drive to boot from.

Todd

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Do not use the computer your wife uses for church matters. Use a different
computer. If things go wrong you will not be able to rollback to XP. You
can partition the drive to dual boot but do not do it on a primary home
computer that a member of your family relies on for anything.

 

[Jim Fraas]

Why should people have to SPEND MONEY on a program like Partition Magic?

Control Panel>Adminstrative Tools>Computer Management>Disk management

Does it for a nice price like FREE!
\

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Because it does things the way they want them done.

 

[Guest]

Use GParted. It's free and does and excellent job. It can be downloaded at
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php. You do have to burn it to a CD.

 

[Jim Fraas]

Still costs money I would rather spend on something else,like the RTM
version.

 

[Chad Harris]

Still costs money I would rather spend on something else,like the RTM
version.

 

[Chad Harris]

You are not required to get partition magic to dual boot Vista with XP and
it works well. Just follow the clear directions from Richard Urban or that
Colin has posted many times on this group or I have posted a few times:

After you burn the Iso, while you are in XP, the setup for Vista will pop
up on your screen. You get the chance to direct to the partition you want.

You can make partitions with Diskmanager; but it is not fault tolerant and
so if you want to extend them or make new ones without losing things you can
1) Backup 2) Use 3rd party.

I don't think you'll be successful in getting MSFT to build it in. It'd be
great and you can try.

CH

 

[Chad Harris]

Jim--

We know what Disk Management does really well. We also know something you
ommitted. It ain't fault tolerant. What that means is sure, it will create
a partition for you--but the OP wanted to dual boot XP and didn't want to
lose his XP. Disk Management is not fault tolerant and it's not going to
retain data if it partitions that hard drive.

CH

 

[Jim Fraas]

I was able to do that.
I dual boot with XP.

 

[John Barnes]

Disk management in Vista has shrink and expand partitions, XP didn't that I
was able to find.

 

[Chad Harris]

Jim--

Posts like you just made are worthless because the pronouns don't convey
anything. I have no idea what "I was able to do that means." I know you
weren't able to use Diskmgmt.msc from run in XP and get fault tolerance.

You were able to do precisely what on what with what???? In XP
diskmanagement is not fault tolerant. So I have no idea what you're talking
about. Disk Management *in Vista* may be different in that regard. I
haven't done anything with DM in Vista but used it to view. When I format
for a new build, I do it from XP and Disk Management works fine to format my
Vista partition, and I run setup from within XP because I like the way it
retains my drive letters and find it convenient--I've also formatted from
cmd to compare them.

CH