Hi Nico--
You can easily set up a dual boot and you already have the oldest Windows OS
on the HD which is important when dual or multibooting a newer OS.
You're installing a Beta operating system, so **read the release notes that
Microsoft provides for you on their "Get Vista site" because they have good
information there.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/default.mspx
Also I want you to be aware of the Vista Tips and Tricks site from MSFT:
http://www.windowsvistatnt.com/
***I want to tell you up front that when you get into setup you get an
option to "Custom Install" and when you click it you will get the list of
the partitions you have and you can select the partition you have made that
I guide you to make below to send Vista to just like parking your car in the
empty space in the shopping center parking lot. Knowing that you will get
the opportunity for this up front makes it easy for you and less
stressful--you just have to have that space ready whether it is a partition
you are going to create with Ranish or Partition Magic or another partition
manager or you are going to use an additional external hard drive.
I don't know whether you have a RAID array, SATA, or anything else that
could require some additional drivers in setup. and I'm not sure which build
of Vista, but I'm going to assume it's RC1 or one newer.
It's not clear to me how many partitions you might have on the HD, but it
looks like you might be referring to an OEM setup where you have XP on one
partition of X GB and possibly an OEM provided recovery partition with some
of those files, drivers on another since you say it is "never used and only
accessed by the reload CD or possibly those files are actually on the reload
CD from one of the 300 name OEM partners. I hope it works if you ever need
to do it with a "won't boot BSOD stop error" when you use it, because the
majority of them don't and MSFT knows it and the OEMS know it and they don't
seem to care.
In order to install Vista, you need to have a separate, clean partition from
the existing ones you have or you could use an additional external HD. You
don't want to of course do any mixing of them and I would advise you in this
situation with the Beta since I don't know what build you're using and
whether upgrading is supported *to your unnamed build not to try to upgrade
the XP to Vista--let's keep it intact.
If you don't have a formatted partition clean so that you can install Vista
to it as the target you will need one.
You could create this with a third party partition manager like the popular
Partition Magic from Symantec who bought Power Quest or others, or a *free
one that works very well and also has worked on Vista throughout all its
builds called Ranish available at
www.ranish.com and Ranish Partition
Manager
http://www.ranish.com/part/ .
Ranish Partition Manager is a powerful hard disk partitioning tool.
It gives users high level of control for running multiple operating systems,
such as Linux, Windows 98/XP, FreeDOS, and FreeBSD
There are a lot of guides now to dual booting Vista on the web in the reach
of any search engine, and Vista sites are proliferating as XP sites
have--the last to put much information on Vista on the web is of course,
Microsoft who will probably get around to that ( I suppose Jill Zoeller
MSFT) in mid 2007 and beyond.
Vista will install on primary and extended partitions as well as on a second
hard drive on your system. It certainly is 'not' restricted to a primary
drive.
If you are dual booting, XP remains on it's current drive on you PC
(probably C:\) and you want to be able to dual boot Vista on one of your
other drives or partitions. You will be able to return to your XP boot via
a shortcut easily, but know that doing so will wipe out your Vista restore
points so you will have to recreate them unless you hide the Vista drive
when you actually boot to the XP drive by using Bit Locker Encryption or
some other method discussed multiple times on this group. The shortcut to
access files and folders from the Vista desktop is C:\Documents and
Settings\XP User Profile\Desktop and then drag the shortcut from the top of
that explorer folder when it pops up.
After Build 5472--a build before 2 other builds that some people used, and
currently RC1 5600 and beyond including 5840 aka Vista 6.0.5840.16385 , many
people noticed that they could not run setup from XP and could run it fine
with a restart. If you don't run from XP, the bios will dictate the drive
letters and you can change them with a regedit. No big deal there. It will
not impact XP. When you boot to XP, the drive letters will seen as your
original drive letters. If you search dual boot, many of us have directions
in here we've posted for months.
Vista X86 is about 2.7 GB for RC1 (which is currently what is available for
download on the MSFT CPP or Public site, and it puts about 7GB in ancillary
files on your drive. It also will install important files to C:\ or your XP
drive so on that you will need about 350 MB of free space. Then depending on
how
many programs you install, you should have from 20GB to 40GB for Vista and
since you have so much space give it about 50-60GB. How much space you give
to Vista on that clean target partition depends on how many programs you
will want to install but keep in mind myt precept which is "Gloria
Vanderbilt, (Anderson Cooper CNN's mom) said you can't be too skinny or too
rich, and I translate that to no matter how much space you have installing
another OS, you could always use more, so plan accordingly--how many
programs do you plan to put on it and how much space do they take--you can
do a quick assessment.
You need to make a partition for it from the extra real estate you have, and
if you don't have a 3rd party partition maker/manager like Partition Magic,
then you can use
www.ranish.com and it will work well.
Check out these which will guide you through the steps also. I advise
burning the ISO if you are not using DAEMON tools or some Virtual method,
while in XP, and then running setup from the XP desktop, and then your drive
letters will stay the same. See my comment above on the glitch that Darrell
Gorter and the setup team have going starting with 5472 on some people's
system configurations with the false error that is delivered in an XP
launched setup that causes you to need to boot from the burned Vista DVD
after restarting. In other words if you get an error that for example says
Vista can't install because of your IDE controller, just restart. It's one
of many MSFT false pieces of information delivered with Vista best showcased
in what the Upgrade Advisor says won't work on Vista that often will in
terms of IDE controllers, VIA OHC Compliant IEEE 1394 Host (Bus)
Controllers, and drivers that MSFT claims won't work with Vista on the
Upgrade Advisor like Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound. These make one wonder
Jill Zoeller [MSFT]/Darrell Gorter [MSFT] who are these people who crafted
the upgrade advisor and what were they thinking when they put this wrong
information on it? Why restrict people--I thought the Redmond campus was
about "where do you want to go today"?
Here are some excellent dual boot guides for your perspective:
Dual Boot Guide XP and Vista
http://www.windowstalk.org/dual_boot_vista.htm
Dual Boot Screen
http://learnhow.dailyfil.com/index.php?s=dual+boot+vista&submit=
Dual Boot Guide XP and Vista
http://www.lifehacker.com/software/...-boot-windows-xp-and-windows-vista-179906.php
Dual Boot Vista and XP
http://blogs.msdn.com/dmahugh/archive/2006/06/15/632821.aspx
http://digg.com/software/HowTo_dual-boot_Windows_XP_and_Windows_Vista_-_Windows_Vista_Beta:_
http://digg.com/software/HowTo_dual-boot_Windows_XP_and_Windows_Vista_-_Windows_Vista_Beta:_
http://www.pro-networks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=60146
Screen Shots of Vista Ultimate Install
http://www.windowsvista.windowsreinstall.com/vistaultimate/installnewhdd/index.htm
_____________________________________________________________
Ancillary information:
The Vista RTM parties at Redmond (two versions):
Response to Vista Eula:
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_licensing_reply.asp
Additionally the Vista EULA abuses the user.
October 19, 2006
"Forbidding Vistas: Windows licensing disserves the user "
http://wendy.seltzer.org/blog/archi...tas_windows_licensing_disserves_the_user.html
by Wendy Selzer, EFF Staff Attorney
http://www.eff.org/
From Ed Bott at
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=84
Good luck,
CH
