XP / Vista independent boot requirement

[John]

Hi

I have xp pro on my primary SATA drive. I installed Vista on secondary SATA
while keeping primary (xp) SATA off in set-up to keep the two independent.
The reason I want the two separate is in-case one partition goes I don't
want the other to be effected as well.

I have two problems.

1. I can not boot into Vista until I switch off xp disk in set-up which is
tedious.

2. I can not access xp drives/partitions in Vista and hence can not copy
files across as xp drive is off to get into Vista.

What I really need is some sort of boot management that can keep both OSs
separate but also allows easy boot selection possibly via a boot time menu.
Any recommendations would be appreciated. This boot management needs to
first install in xp if it needs to access both Os partitions as in vista, xp
disk is not accessible.

Yep, tough one this one.

Thanks

Regards

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Try using this excellent utility:

VistaBootPRO
http://www.vistabootpro.org/

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User

----------------------------------------------------------------------

:

Hi

I have xp pro on my primary SATA drive. I installed Vista on secondary SATA
while keeping primary (xp) SATA off in set-up to keep the two independent.
The reason I want the two separate is in-case one partition goes I don't
want the other to be effected as well.

I have two problems.

1. I can not boot into Vista until I switch off xp disk in set-up which is
tedious.

2. I can not access xp drives/partitions in Vista and hence can not copy
files across as xp drive is off to get into Vista.

What I really need is some sort of boot management that can keep both OSs
separate but also allows easy boot selection possibly via a boot time menu.
Any recommendations would be appreciated. This boot management needs to
first install in xp if it needs to access both Os partitions as in vista, xp
disk is not accessible.

Yep, tough one this one.

Thanks

Regards

 

[John]

Doesn't work as in Vista it can not see xp pro. In xp pro it doe snot work
as it says BCD record not found.

Thanks

Regards

 

[John Barnes]

Don't know what you mean by kept off in setup. If you want 2 independent
system, you install one with the one drive plugged in that you are going to
install it on. Then unplug and plug in the other drive and install your
second system. Plug it back in. Keep each drive plugged into the same MOBO
socket.
If you have a BIOS that allows you to select the boot drive during POST you
can select the system you want to boot (mine uses F12). If you want to set
up a dual boot but have two independent systems, you set the Vista drive
first in boot priority in the BIOS, you boot to Vista, install EasyBCD or
VistaBootPro and add a legacy boot entry.
If you want a third party product, I recommend BootItNG.