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Tópico: Dual Boot with Vista & XP

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I was wondering, I have an Acer laptop with Vista already installed. Like most people at this point I do not have means to have a second laptop just for VDJ. I been thinking about using dual boot option to have VDJ on my XP image and still have Vista to do my every day work. Question is does any one know if I can install XP with Vista already installed on laptop. My hard drive is 80 gigs, in which it is partition in half(well almost, 6 gigs for system crap, my c drive is like 36 or so and the remainder is my D drive). I plan to partition my D drive to say 20/10 mix, or a 15/15 mix, use on for XP and the other for strictly data. can this work? I do not have the Vista software disk, it did not come with my laptop, will I need it to do what I want to do? I really do not want to do all of this from scratch since I do not have the Vista disk. Does any one know my best option? if there is one?

DJ Longev
 
Mensajes Mon 05 Nov 07 @ 7:16 pm
you could use something like partition magic to create a partition in the freespace on your drive

then install xp on that

if you want to create two completly new partions you will need a vista install dvd
 
If you have unused space on your HD that isn't partitioned... you can just use the vista DVD to create a new partition and install Vista setting up a dual-boot system.

But Vista requires a lot of hard drive space. I would look to upgrade the HD on your laptop to something with more capacity if its possible. I think you can get 250GB HDs in the 150-200 range now. Maybe cheaper.
 
You just got to make a partition of approximately 20Go on your HD...then install XP on it.After you'll need VistaBootPro to make the dualboot.If you want more explication,just send me a PM ;)
PS : Sry for my english but i'm french :)
 
thanks for your help guys.......I need to get my hands on a Vista DVD, I do not know why Acer do not give you one....man.
and since I do not have that Vista DVD I may have to go and find me a copy of partition magic and take sky's advice......
 
phone acer and request the install media for your licence

or download the media and use the serial from your laptop base
as this is what authorises you to use it any way
 
Sky u are the best.....did not even think about it like that......I will try both......thanks man.
 
I'm still having problems with this dual boot thing.....I attempted to do as stated before with the vistabootpro and all of that but when I try to install Windows XP and it goes through the installation, after I hit f8 and it reads all of the drivers installed and all of that, I get a blue screen of death. I have tried 2-3 times and I still get it.....I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong......has anyone had this happen to them before? thanks in advance.
 
Normally you can't install a lower Operation System as second.
New for me, but I think that it only works if you have xp installed and then install as dualboot the Vista OS.
 
False...i did it ! I'm runnin' this dual boot...
 
Thats how it worked for me I had to install Vista first then go back and install XP.
 
you can install xp after vista, you just might need to run vistabootpro or a similar boot manager to get it working correctly.

as far as the blue screen problems, i would go to your bios, check your sata settings. you may need to change it from ahci mode to compatibility/ata mode to install. once you got xp running, you can install the ahci drivers and then change it back to ahci in the bios.
 
thanks D-Twizzle, but for some reason my BIOS does not even give me the option for that. the only other option I have is to get the media in which Sky referred me to do. I sent an email to Acer and I'm awaiting an email back. I do not want to go buy me a cd for Vista since I already have a valid license for it. does any one know of anywhere I can download Vista Home Premium(yes I know about the privacy thing....but I think this is a different case)?

as always thank all of you in advance in this matter.

MJ
 
Dual boot and Blue screen when installing win Xp are 2 different issues.
For blue screen you may look at your bios you told.
Here is a step by step tutorial for installing xp after vista.
http://apcmag.com/5485/dualbooting_vista_and_xp
 
If you want a reliable dual-boot setup... I would install everything from scratch in this order.


Backup HD files & Format

Install XP FIRST (always install the older OS first)

Install Vista (which will create the boot menu)


If you are getting bluescreens on XP... you are best off doing an XP install first to iron out all those issues without having dual boot present. Yes I know it's not related... but you are better off taking this one step at a time.

I did the same exact steps as above and dual booting works great for me.

 
yeah that sounds right to do from scratch, but like I mention earlier I do not have Vista DVD.........it really does not matter now.
thank you Apopsis for that link, it really help me out and I know have a dual boot system with both Vista & XP with Vista being installed first.
I used a combination of the instructions on the link and I also read the users comments. I had to create a Windows XP bootable cd because my laptop had SATA drivers in which are not on the original WinXP cd, theses drivers are on WinXp SP2 update. Once I created this disk, I was able to install WinXP(with no BSD), and I then followed the following instructions:

The following method has been working for me to add an XP boot to an existing Vista. It has the advantages of not needing to repair the Vista boot AND of having the XP system drive installed as C:

1. Create the available space as described in the article

2. Using Disk Manager from Vista, create a new partition in that unallocated space -- don't use the XP install to do that.

3. Still in Disk Manager, set that new partition as Active. WARNING: That means that the machine will now be trying to boot from the empty partition. That's OK because the next thing you're going to do is install XP from a bootable CD. If you restart and then change your mind, you'll have to have some bootable utility to change the active partition again.

4. Boot from the XP installation CD and start the install. When you get to the step where you select the XP partition, you'll notice that your new target partition is C! That's because the active partition is always assigned that letter at this point. So your new partition will show as C and the existing Vista will show up as some other letter. So XP WILL be installed as C. Vista will remain C, too. Finish the install.

5. Once XP is running, copy NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM, and BOOT.ini from the XP partition to the Vista partition. This is required because the Vista partition will soon be the boot partition again .

6. Still from XP, use Disk Manager to change the Active partition back to the original Vista partition. The Vista partition's letter will show up as something other than C, doesn't matter, it will be C when booting Vista. Since the XP install never touched the Vista partition, NO repair is needed -- reboot and Vista will startup again.

7. Use EasyBCP as described to add the XP boot.

I can vouch from experience that this works very well. In fact you can have any number of Windows OSes all running as C using this method. You can also adjust drive letters using the HKLM/System/MountedDevices registry key. I've used this method to have 5 or 10 OSes installed in different partitions all at one time, and to restore various images to any partition and then fix the drive letters.



Thanks to everyone who contributed in my adventure in dual booting......be safe

DJ Longev
 


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