Will XP Installer affect drive C:?

[S. A. Gnezdov]

I have Vista installed on a Raid drive and it is identified by Vista as a C:
drive.

I'd like to install XP on another drive identified by vista as D: drive.
I can use BIOS feature to pick which drive to boot.

I am affraid that if I install XP on drive D:, then it will inject some
bootrstraping code on drive C: and it will break Vista startup sequence.

So, will XP installation affect Vista drive?

 

[Andy]

I have Vista installed on a Raid drive and it is identified by Vista as a C:
drive.

I'd like to install XP on another drive identified by vista as D: drive.
I can use BIOS feature to pick which drive to boot.

I am affraid that if I install XP on drive D:, then it will inject some
bootrstraping code on drive C: and it will break Vista startup sequence.

So, will XP installation affect Vista drive?

I'm assuming the Vista D: drive is a separate physical disk drive with
a primary partition, and is not the Vista system drive (if so, it
would contain the Vista boot files)..
<http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=5fho5c&s=2>
Set the BIOS to boot from this drive.
<http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=szaq1x&s=2>
If the BIOS enumerates the disk drives correctly, Windows XP setup
will assign C: to this drive.
<http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=10cruwh&s=2>
If so, then it's safe to proceed with the installation.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

I'm assuming the Vista D: drive is a separate physical
disk drive with a primary partition, and is not the Vista
system drive (if so, it would contain the Vista boot files)..
<http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=5fho5c&s=2>
Set the BIOS to boot from this drive.
<http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=szaq1x&s=2>
If the BIOS enumerates the disk drives correctly,
Windows XP setup will assign C: to this drive.
<http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=10cruwh&s=2>
If so, then it's safe to proceed with the installation.

Starting with each HD connected via its own connector,
to install XP independently of Vista (which is on the
other hard disk drive), it is only necessary to disconnect
the 1st HD, and then the XP installer will install XP on
what it sees as the only hard disk drive in the system.
Even if the HDs are IDE/PATA HDs, no fiddling with
jumper setting will be necessary.

After XP is installed on the 2nd HD, the 1st HD can be
re-connected, and the 1st HD will again have the highest
boot priority, and it will direct the booting of Vista.
To boot XP from the 2nd HD, just go into the BIOS and
manually adjust the Hard Drive Boot Order so that the
2nd HD has priority, and restart the PC. When XP is
running, it will call its own partition "C:" and Vista's
partition something else (probably "D:"). This is OK as
long as the 2 OSes don't have shortcuts that name
another partition besides their own.

*TimDaniels*