Dual boot Win 8.1 & XP

[KarolR2]

I had Win XP, then installed Win 7 and, to my surprise and content, it made dual boot and kept Win XP also. good.
Later i installed Win 8.1 anew, and it installed instaed of Win 7.
Now i want to move the partition where XP is (it's on an other HD and i want to disable it)
How do i keep the dual boot, where is the file so i can change the path and how.
By the way, do you know a program to create and resize partitions?
Thanks

 

[TheELF]

Logically windows created a BCD store at some point,that's the new way of storing partition and boot menu info,it's not an .ini file anymore.

You can use windows commands or get the free edition of EasyBCD,if you remove the disk that the system starts from you will have to deploy a BCD ,BCD Deployment in easybcd, write an MBR to the CORRECT disk and install BCD to it as well.Then you go to add new entry and add both XP,wherever it may now be, and win 8.

Moving XP is not as easy as just copying the files over,you will have to clone the partition,and if the new disk is on a different type of controller (from ide to sata for example or some motherboards do even have different controllers from different manufacturers for the same type of controller) you will have to make sure to uninstall the driver for the old controller before cloning anything.

Windows has a tool called diskpart that is very basic but has all you need to do anything with partitions,it also has disk management which is a graphical environment to do anything you want.

EasUS,minitool and many others give away free disk partitioning tools as well.

 

[KarolR2]

Do you know a kindle or eBook (PDF,...) that teaches that?
What to write in Amazon search?

 

[TheELF]

Do you know a kindle or eBook (PDF,...) that teaches that?
What to write in Amazon search?

BCD Stores - Windows 7 Tutorial

Physically a BCD store is a binary file in the registry hive format. A computer has a system BCD store that describes all installed Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating systems and installed Windows boot applications.

sourcedaddy.com

BCD System Store Settings for UEFI

BCD System Store Settings for UEFI

docs.microsoft.com

Overview of Boot Options in Windows - Windows drivers

Describes Windows boot loader architecture, firmware-independent boot configuration, and boot option editing tool.

docs.microsoft.com

There is probably some explanation in books like windows 10 for dummies but I have no idea really,I look up everything I need on google.

 

[RLGL]

Google is your friend!

 

[KarolR2]

And how do i write an MBR, and install a BCD to the new disk?
Can i use EasyBCD to make a copy?

 

[mxnerd]

Google is your friend!

And Youtube.

 

[TheELF]

And how do i write an MBR, and install a BCD to the new disk?
Can i use EasyBCD to make a copy?

You don't need to make a copy,use easybcd to write an MBR to the disk that will have all your OSes and use it to install BCD to the first partition of said disk after that add both OSes to the boot menu.
Look up a few guides on easybcd and read through them beforehand just to get a bit familiar with the whole process.

 

[KarolR2]

I have a disk 4T, Win XP didn't recognize all, but 2T
Now, with the dual boot with Win 8.1 i expected to utilize 4T, but when i try to make or extend a partition in the 2T unallocated space-refuse, only about 2T can be utilized.
Does EasyBCD make MBR, that XP can understand? can i add it to the disk without formatting?

 

[mxnerd]

You probably need to install free Minitool Partition Wizard to enlarge the disk in Win8 to do this. Or maybe not.

YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

Don't know if your XP and Win8 are on same drive. If yes, XP probably won't boot if you convert the drive type to GPT.

 

[KarolR2]

Thanks but Win 8.1 doesnt see the 4G RAM! my mistake, i wrote 4T, but it's 4G RAM

 

[TheELF]

I have a disk 4T, Win XP didn't recognize all, but 2T
Now, with the dual boot with Win 8.1 i expected to utilize 4T, but when i try to make or extend a partition in the 2T unallocated space-refuse, only about 2T can be utilized.
Does EasyBCD make MBR, that XP can understand? can i add it to the disk without formatting?

Thanks but Win 8.1 doesnt see the 4G RAM! my mistake, i wrote 4T, but it's 4G RAM

You are trying to make a partition on the RAM?
Help us help you here.

Windows XP can only see MBR you will need the main OS to be 8.1 because that can see GPT you will also need to partition and format the drive into GPT.
Windows XP also can only see 2Tb partitions if your drive is larger you will have to make a smaller than 2Tb partition for XP to sit on and it has to be on the beginning of the disk before the 2Tb limit,basically make a small partition in the beginning of the drive and put XP in there.

Windows 32bit can only see up to 3Gb of RAM no matter if it's XP or 8.1, if it's 32bit 3Gb is the limit.XP only comes in 32bit there is a weird 64bit version but nobody uses that.

 

[KarolR2]

I thank you very much Elf, your answers are exactly to the point.
I have an old motherboard with i5 proceesor that can handle x64. are the motherboards also designed for 32 or 64 bit, or does it depend only on the CPU?
The 8.1 doesn't see the whole 4T. it installed, on a separete disk, after XP, without formatting and everything is fine.
Do you say 8.1 made GPT instead of MBR on the second disk? can i use Esay BCD if i want to make changes?
Are there a MBR and GPT writers, or i don't need and there aren't such things?
XP was on disk 1, and disk 0, on which i installed 8.1, was usually disconnected, it was for backup.
Now it loads by default into 8.1. BIOS goes to MBR on disk 0, but, as i said, this disk, disk 0, was usually disconnected, so how did XP boot? in the absence of disk 0, does the BIOS go to MBR of the next disk? so disk 1 with XP has MBR and disk 0 has GPT?
And now that both disks are on, did 8.1 make GPT on it's disk, disk 0, and the BIOS goes to it? how can i know if GPT was made?
I think i tried to install 8.1 64 bit it didn't work, is it logical? i can't remember
If it's a 32bit motherboard i can't enlarge RAM
I see that i have 64 bit 8.1 & 64 system, so why can't i use 4T?