Dual booting XP & Vista...please advise

[Toby]

I recently ordered a new PC and it comes with Vista Home Premium installed, now
I read that Vista is currently not particularly good with games and so I decided
as this pc is a family pc and so must cater for all, to ask the company to dual
boot Vista with XP home edition.

This prompts a question; if I add another hard drive when the pc arrives (to
transfer data from my old pc mostly) will this cause any issues? Ie. would both
OS's be able to access the second drive fully?

Furthermore, can I install imaging/restore software, in my case Acronis True
Image 10 (once per OS?) and restore information saved to either OS too?
Obviously for now the only restore required would be from my existing XP drive
on my old PC...

If, as I expect, I'm missing the point entirely here, please can someone kindly
explain, I've never used a dual boot system before you see.

EDIT* The additional H/D already has an image of my old XP Pro on, though I
don't expect to be able to just restore that image fully as the new PC has a
dual boot of Vista/XP Home...

Please please help to clear up my frustration/stupidity.

#
T.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Check this newsgroup for items with "Vista" in the Subject
line - there were several within the last 24 hours!

 

[Toby]

Damn I missed them, no idea how to get them back either =(

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Damn I missed them, no idea how to get them back either =(


Use Outlook Express as your newsreader. The news server is
"news.microsoft.com" and the newsgroup is
"microsoft.public.windowsxp.general".

 

[Toby]

Okay, I did as you suggested, checked the newsgroup though not with OE
(dislike it) and found nothing that answers my specific questions.

However thank you for your courtesy in pointing these threads out.

=)

However, I didn't ask was it possible, nor did I ask how to dual boot
as the manufacturer is doing that. Instead, I asked some more specific
questions not answered here, nor in those threads, so please can
anyone help me out?

I appreciate that my questions may be stupid, but Googling (my usual
answer) turned up nothing. Since I believe my questions are relevant
as XP is included I wonder if anyone would be kind enough to offer
advice.

Many thanks in advance.

#
T.

 

[Toby]

This is indeed the same author, but posted from a second pc, apologies if it
lead to confusion.

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Toby

You need someone who is familiar with Acronis software to really
answer your question. A brief look at the Acronis software suggests
to me something more than True Image is needed. Acronis Disk
Director Suite should be the programme but it was last updated 19
September 2006 so whether it works with Vista needs to be looked
into.
http://www.acronis.de/enterprise/support/kb/?topic=Products&aid=23&cid=110

I used BootIt NG to create my dual booting system -Windows XP and
Vista.
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/examples.html

Others have created dual booting systems without third party
software but, whichever way they are created they are not easy to
set up. Normally you need to have the older operating system up and
running before installing Vista, unless you are using something like
BootIt NG. Each operating system needs to be hidden from the other
and be in their own partition. You can have shared data partitions.

--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Timothy Daniels]

I recently ordered a new PC and it comes with
Vista Home Premium installed.
[...] I decided [...] to ask the company to dual
boot Vista with XP home edition.

[...] if I add another hard drive when the pc arrives
(to transfer data from my old pc mostly) will this
cause any issues?
No.

Ie. would both OS's be able to access the second drive fully?
Yes.

...can I install imaging/restore software, in my case Acronis
True Image 10 (once per OS?) and restore information saved
to either OS too?

RTFM. I suspect that for incremental imaging, you have
restore to the file structure from which the original came.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Timothy Daniels]

I recently ordered a new PC and it comes with
Vista Home Premium installed.
[...] I decided [...] to ask the company to dual
boot Vista with XP home edition.

[...] if I add another hard drive when the pc arrives
(to transfer data from my old pc mostly) will this
cause any issues?
No.

Ie. would both OS's be able to access the second drive fully?
Yes.

...can I install imaging/restore software, in my case Acronis
True Image 10 (once per OS?) and restore information saved
to either OS too?

RTFM. I suspect that for incremental imaging, you have
restore to the file structure from which the original came.

*TimDaniels*