Dual Boot Win XP and Win XP

[Guest]

Hello,
After a recent acquisition I have an employee that needs access to two
corporate networks with two totally incompatible dial-up and VPN software.

I want to install a machine with two copies of Win XP. One for each
companies software. Everything I have read suggest that this should be
simple.
Install XP on one partition then install it again on the second then edit
the boot.ini to show the two installs.
How ever once the second installation has occured the first installation is
no longer bootable. Can someone point me in the right direction or just point
out my riduculous error.
Thanks,
Mark,

 

[Rich Barry]

Mark, if you installed the second version of XP to the same drive but
different partition it should have made the adjustment
in the boot.ini file itself and a Menu should appear giving you an option
of either XP. You could use the Recovery Console
and typing in Bootcfg /rebuild at the prompt that should make the
necessary addition to the boot.ini file. For more info
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314058/

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Install XP on one partition then install it again on the second
then edit the boot.ini to show the two installs.
How ever once the second installation has occured the first
installation is no longer bootable.

You may be booting from the 1st installation's partition if
that partition is "active", and that partition's boot.ini file doesn't
know anything about the 2nd installation. One reason for the
1st partition still being "active" is if the 2nd installation were
put in an Extended partition instead of to a Primary partition.
If you really want to get to the bottom of the situation, check with
Disk Management and post here which partition is "active" and
whether each of the two partitions are Primary or Extended.
Also, post the contents of each partition's boot.ini file.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Guest]

Thanks Rich. That worked a treat.
Thanks for all the replys.