whats the best way to do this

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Guest

I recently upgraded my Windows XP Media center to Vista. I have installed a
2nd hard drive and want to install XP Home on the drive. SO, what is the best
way to do this? Should I wipe the drive and first install XP home, then add
Vista to the 2nd drive? Or is it possible to add XP home on the 2nd drive?
 
In the normal course of installing/creating a dual boot the older OS should
be installed first and then the Newer OS..this is more important with Vista
because it has a completely new bootloader that overwrites the XP one and
creates the dual boot.

You could also disconnect the drive that Vista is on now and install XP onto
that new drive.This will not create a dual boot you would need to enter the
BIOS and chose which HD to boot from depending upon which OS you wish to
use.
In my instance my BIOS allows me to push F12 when starting my system which
shows a boot option screen only where i can then choose which HD to boot
from. Each HD then has its on specific boot sector placed there by the OS on
that particular HD.
When in the future you decide to just use one OS there is no boot sector to
fiddle with ..just format that other OS off the drive and use the drive for
whatever.
I also have a version of Vista running on an external E-SATA HD with the
internal SATA HD running XP home...I plug in the external drive and boot up
using the F12 to chose the boot drive.

good luck which ever you choose
peter
 
Joe Gannon said:
I recently upgraded my Windows XP Media center to Vista. I have installed a
2nd hard drive and want to install XP Home on the drive. SO, what is the best
way to do this? Should I wipe the drive and first install XP home, then add
Vista to the 2nd drive? Or is it possible to add XP home on the 2nd drive?
Click to expand...

The best way of doing this is to use a third party boot manager
utility and configure it so as to keep the non-booted operating system
partition hidden from the booted operating system. Otherwise there is
a possibility that cross-contamination and/or data corruption will
occur. For example, Windows XP will destroy the System Restore data
for a Vista partition if it finds it. See MVP Bert Kinney's web page
at http://bertk.mvps.org/html/dualboot.html for detailed particulars.

Good luck



Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2008)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
Syberfix Remote Computer Repair

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."
 
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