Dual Boot

[David Morgan \(MAMS\)]

I have an Intel D945Pvs, a couple of gig of ram, running only one peripheral...
an Nvidia G-Force 6500 video card. I installed XP Home before Christmas
and wish to save the tediously tweaked install behind a partition and add a
copy of VISTA to the C: drive. I want to be perfectly certain that my XP clone
is a completely reliable fallback should I decide VISTA comes out (I seriously
doubt that it will because I should have no conflicts). There are only two pieces
of software installed at this time... Acronis True Image ver 9, and Norton Partition
Magic 8.

Can you direct me to a simple set of instructions on installing VISTA Home Basic
and setting up the system for a dual boot with XP Home?

DM

 

[David Morgan \(MAMS\)]

I have an Intel D945Pvs, a couple of gig of ram, running only one peripheral...
an Nvidia G-Force 6500 video card. I installed XP Home before Christmas
and wish to save the tediously tweaked install behind a partition and add a
copy of VISTA to the C: drive. I want to be perfectly certain that my XP clone
is a completely reliable fallback should I decide VISTA comes out (I seriously
doubt that it will because I should have no conflicts). There are only two pieces
of software installed at this time... Acronis True Image ver 9, and Norton Partition
Magic 8.

Can you direct me to a simple set of instructions on installing VISTA Home Basic
and setting up the system for a dual boot with XP Home?

DM

By the way... I've read this page...

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/help/8572be9b-8580-49f7-9719-b3a4c42749fe1033.mspx

And I get the impression that I would have to install XP all over again behind
another partition and lose my tweaking. Yet I see a number of complicated
references to simply cloning the current C: to another partition and then
doing a clean install of the upgrade to VISTA.

 

[pete]

There are a number of ways to do this and be "almost" safe
1...buy another HD hook it up as slave to the master and using Acronis clone
your present drive to the new.......just to be safe.
2...use partition magice to create another partition space permitting on the
C drive and from within XP install Vista onto that partition.Vista will
create its own MBR on the 1st partition and you will get the option of which
OS to start with upon booting.Special care must be taken when uninstalling
XP,you cannot just format the drive as Vista wrote its boot files
there.There is a program called VistaBootPro that lets you modify the MBR
after deleting XP...did not work for me but you might have better luck.
3....Use the new HD...partition it into 2 partitions.Use Acronis and Image
the XP installation onto one partition. Unhook the XP drive and install
Vista to the other partition on the new drive.
whichever one you setup as 1st boot device in BIOS will boot.No worrying
later about removing XP and destroying the Vista boot.On my system on start
up I can push f12 and a boot screen comes up that lets me decide which drive
is 1st boot...otherwise you need to start with BIOS each time and designate
in the BIOS at each boot.
you choice
peter

 

[Don]

...There are only two pieces
of software installed at this time... Acronis True Image ver 9,
and Norton Partition Magic 8...

To add one important point to David's info: you can use any tool
including Partition Magic to create a Vista partition, but be sure
to let the Vista installer (re)format the partition. There are
some changes to NTFS in Vista that are not obvious.

 

[John Barnes]

I second that. Best to not use Partition Magic on Vista at all. Use a
second drive for the easiest approach and install Vista with only that drive
hooked up. After you can check back and get instructions to set up a proper
dual boot and you will have an easy approach to eliminating either system
you decide you no longer want on your system. Also remember that each time
you boot into XP you wipe the Vista Restore Points and backup copies of
documents etc.

 

[David Morgan \(MAMS\)]

There are a number of ways to do this and be "almost" safe
1...buy another HD hook it up as slave to the master and using Acronis clone
your present drive to the new.......just to be safe.

I perhaps have jumped ahead of the game here in preparation for this.

There are two drives in the machine, already formatted and partitioned.

One 40 Gig IDE, partitioned:

C: Fat-32 - primary - My computer - contains XP Home (tweaked to my liking)
E: Fat-32 - logical - XP B/U - contains Clone of C:

One 300 Gig SATA, partitioned:

F: NTFS - primary - Misc. Storage - unused /empty
G: NTFS - logical - Vidio Files - unused /empty
H: NTFS - logical - AudioFiles - unused /empty
I: Fat-32 - logical - Win98SE - unused /empty

(I had planned to run 98 SE on the multi-boot as well)

(D DVDRW....

2...use partition magice to create another partition space permitting on the
C drive and from within XP install Vista onto that partition.

From within XP? Clue, please....?

Vista will
create its own MBR on the 1st partition and you will get the option of which
OS to start with upon booting.
OK........

Special care must be taken when uninstalling
XP,you cannot just format the drive as Vista wrote its boot files
there.There is a program called VistaBootPro that lets you modify the MBR
after deleting XP...did not work for me but you might have better luck.

I will (hopefully) have no reason to remove either system. If so, I can
simply reformat and re-install the system of choice.

3....Use the new HD...partition it into 2 partitions.Use Acronis and Image
the XP installation onto one partition. Unhook the XP drive and install
Vista to the other partition on the new drive.

whichever one you setup as 1st boot device in BIOS will boot.

I see these choices:

3.5 floppy
other removable devices
CDRom
Hard drive

I do not see two hard drive options.

No worrying
later about removing XP and destroying the Vista boot.

I'm not worried about removing either system.... unless, of course, VISTA
turns out to be distasteful enough to remove and return for refund.

 

[David Morgan \(MAMS\)]

To add one important point to David's info: you can use any tool
including Partition Magic to create a Vista partition, but be sure
to let the Vista installer (re)format the partition. There are
some changes to NTFS in Vista that are not obvious.

Will do...

 

[David Morgan \(MAMS\)]

I second that. Best to not use Partition Magic on Vista at all.

Too late for that... set up as mentioned earlier....

One 40 Gig IDE, partitioned:

C: Fat-32 - primary - My computer - contains XP Home (tweaked to my liking)
E: Fat-32 - logical - XP B/U - contains Clone of C:

One 300 Gig SATA, partitioned:

F: NTFS - primary - Misc. Storage - unused /empty
G: NTFS - logical - Vidio Files - unused /empty
H: NTFS - logical - AudioFiles - unused /empty
I: Fat-32 - logical - Win98SE - unused /empty

Use a
second drive for the easiest approach and install Vista with only that drive
hooked up.

This sounds logical... F: would apparently be the best choice.

After you can check back and get instructions to set up a proper
dual boot and you will have an easy approach to eliminating either system
you decide you no longer want on your system.

I see no reason to pull either system... but "checking back later" isn't
exactly comforting.

Also remember that each time
you boot into XP you wipe the Vista Restore Points and backup copies of
documents etc.

Sounds to me like a perfect plan. I'm quite certain that I will not use restore
and have no logical reason what-so-ever for needing "copies" of documents
that I have safely stored AND backed up already.

WHY would booting XP from a completely seperate drive do damage to VISTA?

 

[John Barnes]

You are the one that talked about having a fall back, that is why I
suggested having two completely independent booting systems. If you now
don't feel you want that, then just install Vista to F and your Vista will
see XP and set up dual boot. Drawback. Your Vista boot files are going to
be installed on your C drive and if you ever want to get rid of XP you will
have a lot of juggling to do.

This sounds logical... F: would apparently be the best choice.
I see no reason to pull either system... but "checking back later" isn't
exactly comforting.

If you set up both systems completely independently, you will not have a
dual boot setup. You will then have to set your Vista drive as the system
drive (first in boot priority) and booting into Vista, you can download
VistaBootPro from http://www.vistabootpro.org/ install it, set up a legacy
drive pointing to what you are calling your C drive (Vista will see itself
as C). You may or may not have to copy the ntldr ntdetect.com and boot.ini
files to the root of your Vista drive and correct the entry for the proper
drive number in the boot.ini records.

Sounds to me like a perfect plan. I'm quite certain that I will not use
restore
and have no logical reason what-so-ever for needing "copies" of documents
that I have safely stored AND backed up already.

WHY would booting XP from a completely seperate drive do damage to VISTA?

Restore points can be more convenient than your backup, and the multiple
copies feature of Vista also lets you restore a file if you make a mistake
and just want that 1 document restored from a very recent version. As to
why there is a problem is has to do with the way Volsnap.sys deals with the
system volume information and unless you hide the Vista partition or encrypt
it you will lose those abilities regardless the drive or partition they are
on.

 

[pete]

From within XP? Clue, please....?
sorry that wrong...when you boot from the Vista disk it will see XP as well
as your HD ,by picking a different HD/partition the dual boot will be
created.

I see these choices:

3.5 floppy
other removable devices
CDRom
Hard drive

You have to have a sub menu that adds the SATA drive to that list of
choices???
I use a SATA and PATA(EIDE) drive and there is a setting in my BIOS to turn
SATA RAID on even though I do not use it ...and this brought the SATA drive
into the choice.There is a specific BIOS page that lets me pick the specific
drive to boot from.I dont know your mobo
peter