Dual Boot, again..

[Guest]

I've been reading on this newsgroup a bit and noticed a lot of dual boot
issues. Now I haven't seem much on my error I'm getting while installing XP
and HP can't seem to help me on this, so here it goes..

I have 2 STATA HDD, Vista is already installed on my C:, on the D: drive I
have the HP recovery drive, and my E: drive is formated (using disk manager)
and set as Active. I would like to install XP on my secondary HD, which from
what I read, I believe even if I have the Vista HD unpluged, I still won't be
able to boot into Vista?

I have to mention that I don't have a Vista disc, all I have is the HP
recovery disc. My plan right now is probably to format my C: drive, which
hopefully I'll have that option with my recovery disc, once the drive is
formated, install XP on my secondary hard drive, then run the recovery disc
to go through the install process of Vista?? This doesn't sound right but.. I
want to run XP on a seperate HD.

Any help would be apreciated.

Thanks

 

[thecreator]

Hi Mike,

If you can't reinstall Vista, then you will need a Boot Manager. There
are several:
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/diskdirector/

or

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html

plus more if you can find them. But BootItNG is very good.

 

[andy]

On Thu, 8 Nov 2007 16:56:00 -0800, Mike L <Mike

I've been reading on this newsgroup a bit and noticed a lot of dual boot
issues. Now I haven't seem much on my error I'm getting while installing XP
and HP can't seem to help me on this, so here it goes..

I have 2 STATA HDD, Vista is already installed on my C:, on the D: drive I
have the HP recovery drive, and my E: drive is formated (using disk manager)
and set as Active. I would like to install XP on my secondary HD, which from
what I read, I believe even if I have the Vista HD unpluged, I still won't be
able to boot into Vista?

I have to mention that I don't have a Vista disc, all I have is the HP
recovery disc. My plan right now is probably to format my C: drive, which
hopefully I'll have that option with my recovery disc, once the drive is
formated, install XP on my secondary hard drive, then run the recovery disc
to go through the install process of Vista?? This doesn't sound right but.. I
want to run XP on a seperate HD.

Not sure why you would want to format C:, but one way to dual boot is
to use the bios F# boot menu, assuming the HP bios supports it.
Disconnect the Vista hard disk, and install XP on the second disk.
Reconnect the Vista disk, and during bios POST, hit the function key
that pops up the boot menu, allowing you to choose either Vista or XP.

 

[John Barnes]

I agree with andy. No need to reformat C. If you make your second drive
the first in boot priority before you install XP you won't need to
disconnect it either. After you have installed it, switch back or continue
using the F boot function. An alternate would be to download and install
either EasyBCD or VistaBootPro and you can add a legacy entry to your Vista
boot menu to boot XP