Partition for Vista and boot manager

[Tom]

I have XP Pro currently on my system. I want to install my copy of
Vista Ultimate but I want it to be in a separate partition since I know
there are things that won't work right now (such as my Lexmark printer)
- that way I can return to XP when needed.

What I want to do is: 1. Repartition my current drive so that I shrink
down the XP partition (it is taking the whole drive) and probably move
it to the back of the disk (is this necessary?) 2. Then install Vista
on the unused part of the disk that is now free. 3. Then, if possible,
install some kind of boot manager so that when the PC starts up it
presents me with a menu letting me pick which OS I want to start - it
would be good if this boot manager would also let me 'hide' the unused
partition.

I'm familar with Partition Magic (v7) but I hate it. What tools can I
use to do this? Does Vista now support some kind of 'partition' program
and/or boot manager (that works well)? I see lots of posts on this
(which I've scanned) and I have an idea as to what I need to do but I
want to get some more advice (and maybe even steps) before I tackle it
since I don't want to destroy my current XP environment. If I need to
get an additional tool (such as another partition/boot manager) then I
can buy it as long as it isn't outrageous.

Any advice appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Tom
--

 

[Rich]

I have XP Pro currently on my system. I want to install my copy of
Vista Ultimate but I want it to be in a separate partition since I
know there are things that won't work right now (such as my Lexmark
printer) - that way I can return to XP when needed.

What I want to do is: 1. Repartition my current drive so that I shrink
down the XP partition (it is taking the whole drive) and probably move
it to the back of the disk (is this necessary?) 2. Then install Vista
on the unused part of the disk that is now free. 3. Then, if possible,
install some kind of boot manager so that when the PC starts up it
presents me with a menu letting me pick which OS I want to start - it
would be good if this boot manager would also let me 'hide' the unused
partition.

I'm familar with Partition Magic (v7) but I hate it. What tools can I
use to do this? Does Vista now support some kind of 'partition'
program and/or boot manager (that works well)? I see lots of posts on
this (which I've scanned) and I have an idea as to what I need to do
but I want to get some more advice (and maybe even steps) before I
tackle it since I don't want to destroy my current XP environment. If
I need to get an additional tool (such as another partition/boot
manager) then I can buy it as long as it isn't outrageous.

Any advice appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Tom

Use partition magic to create a new drive from part of the unused space on
your hard drive. Install Vista choose D: (as an example your letter maybe
different) then when Vista boots after install it will see itself on C:
which is your old D: drive and see your old C: as D:. You don't need any
boot manager Vista and XP live quite nicely together on the same hard drive
just not on the same partition. When you want to boot back to XP choose
previous version of windows from the boot screen. By default you have 30
seconds to choose.

Rich

 

[Anando [MVP]]

Hello Tom,

Resizing a partition non-destructively (without formatting) is not possible from within Windows XP.
You will beed to get a third party tool (my personal preference is BootIt NG) to resize the
partition. After resixing your current Windows XP partition and creating a new partition, you can
install Windows Vista on it. The Vista setup will automatically detect the presence of Windows XP
and will present you with a choice of OS whenever you start your computer.

You can get BootIt NG from:
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/

Please do post back if you have any more queries. As usual, you might want to backup all yoru
important files and documents before you go ahead with this procedure.

--
Anando
Microsoft MVP- Windows Shell/User
Microsoft Certified Professional
http://www.microsoft.com/mvp
http://www.mvps.org

Folder customizations
http://www.anando.org/folder

 

[Brian K]

There is a helpful video here.


http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=299

 

[Guest]

Hello Tom,

The below is not exactly what you are seeking, however, much is there for
learning from others, the hard method, others that previously dual and multi
booted.

DUAL BOOT DIFFICULTIES

BELOW POSTED BY "jimmuh" 01-28-2007

I'm afraid that I'm pretty much a bucket of cold water on this one. If you
want Vista and Windows XP to co-exist as multi-boot partners on the same
system you really need to use Vista Ultimate (RTM, NOT RC2 anything) with
BitLocker enabled and hiding Vista from WinXP BEFORE you ever reboot into
WinXP, or you need to use a third party boot manager to hide Vista from
WinXP. Otherwise, WinXP will immediately set about trashing System Restore
points and Shadow Copy data on the Vista partition during its first session.

Frankly, multi-booting Windows operating systems these days just seems like
a waste for almost all purposes. (YMMV) I'd definitely go with virtual
machines, either through one of the Microsoft offerings (VPC or Virtual
Server) or through VMWare. Run Vista as the host and WinXP under a Virtual
Machine. Or don't run WinXP at all, if you can help it. Or, best yet, just
put each OS on its own physical system.

All that being said, I can't imagine what is happening on your system. I've
had plenty of experience trying to multi-boot Vista with operating systems
before I decided that it wasn't worth the effort. (It can be done, but, to
me, it isn't worth the effort.) I NEVER saw Vista cause problems within
another co-existing operating system. I mean, if you do something untoward
with the boot manager you might make another OS unbootable, but I never saw
Vista mess up the contents of another operating system's partition. Windows
XP is, however, not nearly so well-behaved. It savages anything that looks
like a restore point that it "thinks" is corrupted.

I would be very interesting in knowing whether or not it was really Vista
that caused this issue with your WinXP installations. Can't see how it could
be the case, but I'm willing to learn.

I hope someone else may have more useful information for you.

NOTE: The above statements from "jimmuh" have been learned by many others,
from trial and error, while Beta Testing.

Now, your time, your machine, and your time for learning what many before
you learned the hard method !

 

[Tom]

Anando: Thanks, I've downloaded BootIt NG and am going to try it out.

Question, though, regarding Vista activation - If I install Vista in a
separate primary partition how does activation work if I end up moving
or resizing that partition? In other words, let's say I have a 100GB
HD, and I put XP in a 50GB partition and Vista in another 50GB
partition. I activate Vista. Then, later on, I have little need of the
XP partition and I decide to either get rid of it, or resize it down
dramatically. So I end up using BootIt NG to resize and move the XP
partition down from 50GB to 20GB. Then I resize (expand) the Vista
partition from 50GB to 80GB. Now, will doing that 'trigger' Microsoft's
stupid activation, both in Vista and in XP? Or does it not care about
partition but rather real hardware?

Thanks...

P.S. I'm also going to post this as a separate thread just in case you
don't see it.

Tom S