Dual Boot XP/XP?

itachi183

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 13, 2008
Messages
159
Hey, I'm wanting to dual-boot Windows XP Pro, and Windows XP Home.
(yes I'm weird like that)

But I'm wondering if this will work out okay? I already have XP Pro installed, I have another harddrive and I want to install Windows XP Home on it, but I'm worried it might overwrite the boot.ini file or something since their both "XP"

Also, will I have to reinstall the mobo/gfx drivers etc., on the new os I install?

Oh and also, the new drive I put in is an IDE drive, do I have to do anything special to it to get it to dual boot?
 
Just run the install as normal, ensuring that you choose the appropriate drive partition to put it on.

Your dual-boot menu will be created for you during the install.
 
Also, will I have to reinstall the mobo/gfx drivers etc., on the new os I install?

When dual booting, each operating system is it's own isolated operating system. You will ALWAYS have to reinstall drivers.

Programs are a bit different. Some of them are "self sustaining" and will work just by launching the executable. Other programs require registry information to be present, as well as certain files to be installed and registered with the operating system.

Programs may work without reinstalling, but drivers will ALWAYS have to be reinstalled.


Oh and also, the new drive I put in is an IDE drive, do I have to do anything special to it to get it to dual boot?

It depends on the motherboard, but you shouldn't have to do anything special to get it to work.
 
What would possibly be the reason for dual-booting the (roughly) same OS? Let me guess. You want one for everyday usage and one for gaming? There are much better ways to accomplish this. Maybe you want a backup in case something goes wrong, like a virus? Again, there are better ways to accomplish this.
 
Actually I just heard about linux, (ubuntu) I'm wondering if this will work the same way, Just install it the other hard disk and done? Would save me 90bucks lol
 
You could install Ubuntu on the spare, unformatted drive, and its own bootloader will handle the menu of choices for XP or Linux to boot from. However, if you really want to simplify (and save yourself a TON of hassle while learning Linux), get VirtualBox which is free, and run Ubuntu in a VM. There's no rebooting to switch OSes, no messing with bootloaders, and if you screw up Ubuntu, you simply copy back one file (assuming you backed up your VM) and you are good to go again.

There's very little reason to multi-boot anymore, especially two of the nearly identical OSes.
 
I dual booted two versions of XP on separate drives and it worked out quite well. C was my main OS and D was strictly a stripped down XP for gaming. Didn't clutter my main drive with massive games and stuttering virtuously ceased.
 
Chances are, those difference were just part of a placebo effect. Besides, there are better ways of accomplishing this instead of dual-booting the same OS, which not only complicates things, but will lead to purchasing a second license. You could have done this with profiles or user accounts. Or, if you simply ran an optimized computer, you wouldn't have had any worries about needing a separate profile for gaming.
 
Chances are, those difference were just part of a placebo effect. Besides, there are better ways of accomplishing this instead of dual-booting the same OS, which not only complicates things, but will lead to purchasing a second license. You could have done this with profiles or user accounts. Or, if you simply ran an optimized computer, you wouldn't have had any worries about needing a separate profile for gaming.

Bolded for emphasis.

The only time I dual booted was when learning a bit of Linux and that was like 4 years ago. Now a days, I just have my laptop running Ubuntu and Win7 in a VM using Virtual Box.
 
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