XP and Vista dual boot

[Richard]

Hello
I am building a new system, I have Vista ultimate and XP Pro. I want them on separate hard
drives. I have been told to install XP on one HD, then while installing Vista it will ask me where
to put it, and just direct it to the second HD.

Any thoughts or suggestion are appreciated.

Richard

 

[Peter]

I have XP Pro installed on drive 0 and installed Vista Ultimate on drive 1
while signed into XP which has the advantage of defeating Vista's propensity
for re-lettering every drive.
So, yes, do as you said.
You might want to install a bootloader in XP to make life easier with the
dual boot. EasyBCD: http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1 or VistaBootPro:
http://www.vistabootpro.org/ These allow you to alter the boot order or
rename the systems.

 

[John Barnes]

Depends on what your future plans are. If your XP drive is the system drive
(first in boot order) then you will end up with your boot files for Vista
and XP on the XP drive. If, down the road you want to remove XP or Vista
you will have boot problems.
I would personally install XP, then disconnect the XP drive or change the
Vista drive to first in boot order before installing Vista. If you change
boot order you will have the most versatile system. You will be able to
boot with either drive first in boot order and with the Vista drive as your
system drive you will have dual boot capability.
This assumes you have full versions of both systems. If you have an upgrade
version of Vista you don't any longer have the license to use XP after
installing Vista.