Dual Booting XP and Vista after Vista is already installed

S

Spartan611

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 7, 2006
Messages
166
Ok guys I am in a dilemma, I need help. How do I dual boot Vista and XP AFTER I already installed Vista on my C: Drive. I have 3 hard drives, one of which I just bought for dual booting XP. The C: Drive (WD Raptor 74gb) is my primary boot drive with Windows Vista installed on that drive. My D: Drive (WD Caviar 320gb) is my data drive. I just bought a WD Caviar 160gb to install XP on. Is it possible to install XP on this drive if I already upgraded my C: Drive to Vista? When I first installed the Upgrade Vista Ultimate I accdientally wiped my C: Drive before I installed Vista and had to install XP then Vista cus I made the mistake. That is not my problem. My problem is is it possible to install XP on the drive I just bought? BTW all the drives are SATA. Thank guys if you need any more info feel free to ask and I will try to help you guys help me to the best of my ability. I really appreciate the help.
 
I could be wrong, so if I am somebody correct me here.

I do not think you can install XP on a system after Vista and have the bootlaoder work correctly.
I would recommend starting over. Install XP first, get it up and running, and then, using the same XP install disk, install it again on your second drive. You can do this legally as far as I know, so that should be no problem. After that's done, install your Vista Ultimate upgrade over your second XP install. I think that should work, unless Vista somehow kills your XP key during the upgrade process, in which case, just forget everything I just said:)

Again, I'm not 100% sure that I'm right, but I do not know of any way to install XP after Vista and have the bootlaoder work correctly.
 
The only way I cuold see it working, is if you install XP, and then did a repair install of Vista to get the Vista bootloader back. I've been using VirtualPC 2007 to run XP, rather than mess with the dual boot stuff.
 
So how do I go about doing that using VirtualPC 2007? Do I install virtual PC on the new drive or on my C: Drive? Do I even need the new drive? How do I install XP with this?
 
Does your mb have a key press on boot up to allow you to choose which device to boot to? On mine it is F11. If you have that option then disconnect your other HDD's and install Vista to the one connected HDD. After Vista is installed reconnect the HDD's. Now you just press that key on boot up and choose the OS with Vista to boot to. I have set the XP HDD as defualt boot so I only have to press F11 when I want to boot to Vista. Does your mb have such an option? I think a few do these days. This is the best setup because it never matters which OS I install first and the other OS doesn't mess with the mbr of the first installed OS.
 
Spartan611 said:
So how do I go about doing that using VirtualPC 2007? Do I install virtual PC on the new drive or on my C: Drive? Do I even need the new drive? How do I install XP with this?
Click to expand...
You might want to check out what VirtualPC is. It's just a program that runs on whatever OS you have installed. It has wizards to let you install another Windows OS in it...virtually.
 
Please explain to me what Vista Boot Pro is. Sorry for all the questions I just dont want to screw up my computer. Is it a program where it allows me to still install XP on the other HD and choose which boot I want to use? I just need some help with the order in which to do things and the right way to do it. Thank you again.
 
Spartan611 said:
Please explain to me what Vista Boot Pro is. Sorry for all the questions I just dont want to screw up my computer. Is it a program where it allows me to still install XP on the other HD and choose which boot I want to use? I just need some help with the order in which to do things and the right way to do it. Thank you again.
Click to expand...
read about it by clicking the link and understanding it,that's what's gonna help you in understanding it better and there's a forum you can ask for help too
 
nukleuz said:
read about it by clicking the link and understanding it,that's what's gonna help you in understanding it better and there's a forum you can ask for help too
Click to expand...

I did and I don't really understand it. Can you answer my questions above please? I dont really want to post on multiple forums the same question when my question can be answered here by knowledgeable people (not saying the other forum is not knowledgeable) if not more because you guys may have more experience in the bigger aspect. In case you guys could not tell that was a compliment to you. :)
 
Man, I tried every trick under the sun last night to acomplish the very same thing. Even copied the NTLDT, ntdetect and the boot.ini files over to C:, then ran xp recovery console only to get shut down. Recovery console would see the install but would not run the bootcfg command without erroring out. I even ran chkdsk and it found a few errors but still no luck.

I basically had a ghost of XP and a ghost of Vista and just installed xp 1st. I have not installed the vista ghost yet but I have run it's repair tools in the past and it should find xp ok.

Not sure you can install afterwards???? But I will be watching this thread for an answer.
 
Like I said earlier, I have never seen a system dual boot correctly (with the exception of the arrangement outlined by Gatticus above) when a legacy OS was installed behind a newer one.
 
I never had any problems installing multiple os's in any order before. Just needed the boot files and the line added to boot.ini.
 
I don't know if this will help you but I just found this at MS

How to modify BCD when installing a previous version of Windows onto a computer running Windows Vista
To install an older Windows operating system on a computer running Windows Vista, use the following procedure.

To install a previous version of Windows onto a computer running Windows Vista

1. Install the previous version of Windows.

2. Log on to the older operating system and restore the latest boot manager by running the following. Fixntfs.exe will be in the \boot directory of the active partition.

fixntfs /lh

3. Create a BCD entry for the older operating system by specifying the following. Bcdedit.exe is located in the \Windows\System32 directory of the Windows Vista partition. Description is the description of the new entry for the older operating system.

Bcdedit /create {legacy} /d “Description”

Bcdedit /set {legacy} device boot

Bcdedit /set {legacy} path \ntldr

Bcdedit /displayorder {legacy} /addlast

4. Restart the computer in order for the changes to take effect.
 
Ok well I need some more help. I tried doing this and it did not work.
I shut off my system, put in my new hard drive, restarted, booted from xp and installed it on the new drive, then I restarted and booted vista, repaired Vista, and now I can load Vista again as opposed to only XP without repairing. However I can't choose Vista or XP, only Vista. How do I fix this? Thanks guys I really appreciate it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top