Dual Boot?

[BoomerD]

Hey folks...I'm currently running Vista 64 on my computer, and have several older programs that absolutely will not run on this OS. (no, I'm not going to upgrade to W7 for a while...and may skip that os..and IMO, Vista is OK once you get used to it.)

I have XP Pro that I can install in a separate partition, which will let me run the older programs that I want...but have never done this before, and I'm unsure of the procedure.

My main HDD is a Seagate 250Gb SATA disk, and I also have a 10 year old WD 80 Gb PATA drive that I could use...but have never run two HDD's either...so I don't know a damned thing about RAID. (if that's what it'd be)

Current hardware specs are:
i5-760 @ 3.9
ASUS P7P55D-E Pro
Seagate 250 GB 7200.10
Samsung PATA DVD burner
Samsung SATA DVD burner
4X2 Gb Corsair XMS RAM

I presume I'll need to reformat my HDD to do this, as well as establish partitions. (sadly, I've never done that before either...)

 

[lxskllr]

duplicate post

 

[lxskllr]

A virtual machine is a more elegant solution. Would that work? If not, I'm a fan of using BIOS to dual boot. IOW, you'd disconnect the Vista drive, hook up an extra drive, and install XP. Hook Vista back up, and you'd then use the boot menu(F8) to pick which O/S you wanted at startup.

The benefit, is you have 2 autonomous O/Ss that can be used independently of each other. If one of them goes tits up, you can use the other to rescue it. Additionally, people that dual boot seldom do it frequently. Set your primary O/S to the primary boot device, and you don't have to do anything special at start to get to your O/S. It only requires attention when you want to go to XP.

 

[corkyg]

I echo what isxkllr says. If you had Win 7 Pro, you could use Microsoft's VM setup for XP. Very elegant. Otherwise, I would use a mobile rack setup - each OS in its own drive, and they each can be switched on or off.

 

[BoomerD]

I echo what isxkllr says. If you had Win 7 Pro, you could use Microsoft's VM setup for XP. Very elegant. Otherwise, I would use a mobile rack setup - each OS in its own drive, and they each can be switched on or off.

I have no such "mobile rack," but my HAF 932 case has lots of room...
I suppose I could install XP to my WD 80 Gb PATA drive, then just leave it disconnected until I need the programs on it.
I presume I'll still need all the various motherboard utilities installed on that drive too...duh...:whiste:

 

[lxskllr]

I have no such "mobile rack," but my HAF 932 case has lots of room...
I suppose I could install XP to my WD 80 Gb PATA drive, then just leave it disconnected until I need the programs on it.
I presume I'll still need all the various motherboard utilities installed on that drive too...duh...:whiste:

You can leave the drive hooked up(recommended). After installing, the only thing you'd have to do differently, is use F8 to get to the 80gb drive when necessary. Otherwise, the bootloader won't get used, and you'll go into Vista without issue.

 

[BoomerD]

You can leave the drive hooked up(recommended). After installing, the only thing you'd have to do differently, is use F8 to get to the 80gb drive when necessary. Otherwise, the bootloader won't get used, and you'll go into Vista without issue.

OK...
So...I disconnect my current SATA drive, install XP and whatever programs I want/need onto the secondary drive, then reconnect the SATA drive. Then, use F8 to boot to whatever OS I want...correct?

 

[Arkaign]

OK...
So...I disconnect my current SATA drive, install XP and whatever programs I want/need onto the secondary drive, then reconnect the SATA drive. Then, use F8 to boot to whatever OS I want...correct?

No, if you do it that way, the Vista bootloader will never have the XP windows path set to it, because it will have no idea. I suppose you could manually do it.

The way I prefer is to do what you describe above, but instead of using the bootloader, just go into bios and switch the primary boot hdd manually. This seems to have the best results imho, and either drive can be totally removed without affecting the ability of the other drive to boot and function perfectly normally, so long as you don't install anything critical to either install to the other Os's drive (not sure why one would do this).

 

[BoomerD]

If I do this, the XP drive will have the OS, the motherboard utilities, video drivers, a few other programs such as print/scan utilities that aren't offered by Canon in Vista 64, and a couple of old games.

I'd definitely prefer to have the option of using F8 to choose what drive to load to instead of having to go into the BIOS every time.

If I do it the way I said above, won't the BIOS automatically recognize the drive and allow me to choose which OS/drive to boot into?

 

[lxskllr]

No, if you do it that way, the Vista bootloader will never have the XP windows path set to it, because it will have no idea. I suppose you could manually do it.

Each O/S will be unaware of the other, which is the desired outcome. F8 would only need to be used to get into XP(assuming Vista is set to the first boot device), otherwise it would go into Vista like it always has.

I still HIGHLY recommend using a VM. VirtualBox, and VmWare both have free applications. I prefer VirtualBox, though VmWare is a bit better ime. MS also has VirtualPC, and it's the easiest of the bunch, though not as flexible. A VM is dead easy to setup, and it won't harm anything on your computer if you try it out. A VM is nice cause you don't have to reboot to use XP, and yoou can actually have XP and Vista running at the same time.

 

[BoomerD]

I'm in the process of setting up VirtualPC now. Hopefully, this will work...if not, I'll try the second HDD.

 

[SimMike2]

I prefer having my two Operating Systems on completely different hard drives. I also prefer to disconnect one or the other during the install process, so neither drive gets messed up by the other install. With my particular motherboard, I hit F12 during the boot process to change boot priorities. Since I use XP so little, I keep my Windows 7 drive the default in the BIOS, which means if I don't hit the f12 key, it automatically loads Windows 7, which is what I use 99% of the time.

Personally, at least from my experience, I don't like the way Windows 7 sometimes puts critical boot information on other drives and not your boot drive. That is unless you disconnect all the other drives during the installation process, which is one of the reasons I do it. I've also had boot managers, whether part of Windows or not, go bad and screw up my ability to boot to one or the other OS.

As for Virtual PCs, maybe I am missing something, but from my experience, not all my hardware is available in the VM environment, which if your troublesome software needs, means the VM won't work for you. Maybe it is the free Oracle VM Virtualbox software I was using, but I didn't have access to all my hard drives and a bunch of other hardware in my system. So if your troublesome software is something like video editing software, the VM might not do the trick.

 

[BoomerD]

Mike, this is taking a bit of "getting used to," but so far, the Microsoft VirtualPC seems to be working.
I'm not sure if I'll keep it this way or install the 2nd hard drive with XP as the OS on that...we'll see.
I think I actually prefer the idea of having the second drive instead.

 

[BoomerD]

I'm already seeing limitations to the VirtualPc. It doesn't recognize my video card, but rather, emulates a "S3 Trio 32/64 PCI with 8 MB Video RAM." That's going to seriously impact being able to play any games on this...so, I guess I'll be setting up the secondary drive.

 

[BoomerD]

Well crap...that didn't work...I kept getting the "infamous 7B" BSOD screen. The XP installer went through the point of gathering drivers for the basic install, but never did get to the point of install. Instead, it kept trying to load windows.
I'll have to drag out an old computer and see if I can get it to format at least...if so, I'll try again. I think I replaced the drive with the current SATA drive in early 2007...so it's been in a box for 4+ years...it could just be dead...<shrug>

 

[Nothinman]

I'm already seeing limitations to the VirtualPc. It doesn't recognize my video card, but rather, emulates a "S3 Trio 32/64 PCI with 8 MB Video RAM." That's going to seriously impact being able to play any games on this...so, I guess I'll be setting up the secondary drive.

That's how virtualization works, it essentially emulates a full PC from the BIOS to the hardware. 2 OSes can't have concurrent, direct access to your hardware so it emulates it's own disk controller, video card, NIC, etc. Some products like VirtualBox and VMware Workstation have limited 3D acceleration for the guest OS it's still not close to native speed and limited in functionality.

 

[BoomerD]

That's how virtualization works, it essentially emulates a full PC from the BIOS to the hardware. 2 OSes can't have concurrent, direct access to your hardware so it emulates it's own disk controller, video card, NIC, etc. Some products like VirtualBox and VMware Workstation have limited 3D acceleration for the guest OS it's still not close to native speed and limited in functionality.

That makes sense...I guess.
I'm going to see if the old HDD is fried or just not compatible. It MIGHT be due to my SATA being set for AHCI mode instead of IDE.

 

[Rifter]

I would just use a bootloader, such as GRUB.

 

[BoomerD]

Maybe...but first I have to see if this other drive is functional or toast...

 

[bart1975]

The latest virtual box works well. Make sure to install the guest additions and check the 3d acceleration in the options. I have played a few games through virtual box.

 

[BoomerD]

I have the old PATA drive stuck in an old Dell P4 rig right now reformatting to NTFS. Once that's done, I'll try it again in my computer. (after I change SATA mode from AHCI to IDE.)

 

[BoomerD]

The PATA drive seems to be good. Installing XP on it now.
I'll reconnect my SATA drive once Windows is done with the installation.

HOPEFULLY, things will work as planned...but I'm NOT gonna hold my breath.

 

[BoomerD]

So...I drug out an old XP box, installed the PATA drive and formatted to NTFS. Then, unhooked the SATA drive in my main rig, installed the PATA drive and installed XP and a bazillion updates...and the programs I wanted.

Reconnected the SATA drive, went into the BIOS and set the boot priority...and it SEEMS to be working the way I want. Time will tell.

Thanks for your help.

 

[BoomerD]

Other than a few "driver-related" issues, (drivers that I forgot to install) the process has been successful. I now have both HDD's and operating systems up and running.

Edit: Looks like I spoke too soon. After installing the "new" drivers and a Windows XP update, a restart was needed...which lead to a BSOD and an 0x0000007e error...
If I disconnect the drive with XP loaded, I boot into the SATA disk with Vista with no problems...next step will be to disconnect the SATA disk to see if I can boot into the XP disk...
I might not get to that for a couple of days...:frustrated:

 

[lxskllr]

Sounds like one of the drivers you installed may have caused XP to flake out. Try booting into safe mode. If that works, uninstall all the drivers you installed before the reboot and try to get into XP. If that works, install the drivers you want, one at a time, rebooting between each driver load. Doing that should tell you which driver it is, and you can try to figure out what you'll do from there.