Dual booting between VistaX64 Ultimate and XP Pro x86. Two HDDs, Three partitions.

[TurtleCrusher]

So here's my setup:

WD 640GB Black AALS Single partition = C:\ with Vista X64 Ultimate installed.

WD 1TB Blue EALS Dual partition = E:\ 400GB and empty, F:\ 550GB, 196GB free.

I want to add XPpro x86 to the E:\ to dual boot. I have many old games/apps I still want to use. My problem is, what precautions should I use before installing XP?

Vista has many applications installed on the F:\ letter drive. Will adding XPx86 to the E:\ partition mess anything up?

Thanks in advance.

 

[ViRGE]

I'd disconnect the C drive to keep from making a mess of your bootloader, otherwise the process is very simple. XP will install to E without messing up F. After XP is installed and the C drive is back in, you can use EasyBCD to add an entry for XP to the Vista bootloader and you'd be set.

 

[tren001]

I'd disconnect the C drive to keep from making a mess of your bootloader, otherwise the process is very simple. XP will install to E without messing up F. After XP is installed and the C drive is back in, you can use EasyBCD to add an entry for XP to the Vista bootloader and you'd be set.

I'm a little confused about how the bootloader works. I have Win7 and XP dual boot, and I found that if I install Win7 followed by XP (on separate partitions), it would boot straight to XP without giving me a choice. Eventually I just reformatted and put XP first, then Win7, at which point it automatically sets up a bootloading screen for me at start up.

Now I want to reformat the XP partition only, and I'm worried that I will lose the bootloading screen again. Will disconnecting the C drive and then using EasyBCD work for my scenario?

Also, do I have to physically disconnect the C drive? My Win7 install is on its own 64 gb SSD. Can I go through the BIOS and sort of semi-hardware disconnect it there?

Alternatively, I do have a complete 64 gb disc image of the Win7 drive backed up. Would it be okay to reinstall XP, and then from XP, then reimage my C drive with the old back up, which would get rid of any changes made to the C drive during the XP reinstall.

 

[ViRGE]

I'm a little confused about how the bootloader works. I have Win7 and XP dual boot, and I found that if I install Win7 followed by XP (on separate partitions), it would boot straight to XP without giving me a choice. Eventually I just reformatted and put XP first, then Win7, at which point it automatically sets up a bootloading screen for me at start up.

Now I want to reformat the XP partition only, and I'm worried that I will lose the bootloading screen again. Will disconnecting the C drive and then using EasyBCD work for my scenario?

Also, do I have to physically disconnect the C drive? My Win7 install is on its own 64 gb SSD. Can I go through the BIOS and sort of semi-hardware disconnect it there?

Alternatively, I do have a complete 64 gb disc image of the Win7 drive backed up. Would it be okay to reinstall XP, and then from XP, then reimage my C drive with the old back up, which would get rid of any changes made to the C drive during the XP reinstall.

MBR: Master Boot Record. Each hard drive has one (and only 1), and it's easiest just to think of it as a record at the start of a hard drive that points to the right bootloader. When you tell your computer's BIOS to boot from a drive, this is what it seeks out.

Bootloader: The program that actually loads an OS. Usually it's on the same partition as an OS, or in the case of Vista/7 is sometimes on its own 100MB partition.

So when you install a new version of Windows (or even most versions of Linux), they will overwrite the MBR to point to their own bootloader. In the case of Windows, Vista/7 know what XP are, so when they see that they're replacing an XP MBR, they will add an entry for XP in to their own bootloader. The net result is that this lets you install Vista/7 more-or-less transparently.

However while Vista/7 know what XP is, XP doesn't know what Vista/7 are. So when you install XP after Vista/7, it will happily overwrite the MBR to point to XP's bootloader, at you lose the ability to boot Vista/7 until you fix the MBR. Since you're going to be (re)installing XP after Vista/7, you have to watch out for this scenario.

Since you have 2 drives, the easiest solution is to unplug your first drive while you're installing XP. This will keep XP from overwriting the MBR on that drive (XP will write to the 2nd drive's MBR, but we don't care). Once the XP install is done you can plug in the first drive and go back in to Vista/7, and from there you can use EasyBCD to update Vista/7's bootloader to tell it there's a copy of XP to boot. Or in short, yes, this method will work for your scenario.

As for whether you need to physically unplug the 1st drive, it's hit-and-miss. I would strongly suggest unplugging it, as disabling it in the BIOS often isn't good enough.

Ultimately this isn't nearly as complex as it sounds like; when most people have trouble it's when they let XP overwrite their MBR. Just unplug your drive, install XP like normal, then plug the drive in and use EasyBCD to add an entry for XP, and you'll be set.🙂

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Interesting. I havent done it yet as I cant have any significant downtime other than a couple of hours to install the OS.

I changed my 1TB drive to only be one partition and I'm thinking about putting XP on that. The drive is about 500GB full of data as is, with many programs installed from vista.

Will I be able to split the HDD into a partition again and install on just that partiton. Vista said my drive was a "Dynamic" drive during partiton, meaning I cant boot to it if I install an OS on it.

 

[SimMike2]

I would disconnect your Vista drive and install XP on your second drive. To switch between OS, I would use the bootup BIOS and toggle between different OS. This keeps OS completely independent from the other. When your computer boot, hit the DEL key, or whatever key your computer has to access the setup BIOS, and see if you have hard drive priority for booting.

 

[WildHorse]

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[tren001]

As for whether you need to physically unplug the 1st drive, it's hit-and-miss. I would strongly suggest unplugging it, as disabling it in the BIOS often isn't good enough.

Ultimately this isn't nearly as complex as it sounds like; when most people have trouble it's when they let XP overwrite their MBR. Just unplug your drive, install XP like normal, then plug the drive in and use EasyBCD to add an entry for XP, and you'll be set.🙂

Thanks for your detailed reply ViRGE, I think I understand the bootloading process a lot better now. So it seems a physical disconnect is the best way. I was really hoping to avoid that because while it takes about 4 seconds to open up my nifty tool-less Lian-Li case, the tower itself is in a cubby that is a pain in the ass to extricate from.

What do you think of using my hard drive image file? I created it for my Win7 partition exactly because that's my main OS, and I wanted a quick way of reformatting, so I made a 1 to 1 image of the entire harddrive and backed it up onto one of my data harddrives. Presumably I reinstall XP, which messes up the MBR on the Win7 partition, but then I reimage that SSD, wouldn't that restore it to its original state?

 

[ViRGE]

Thanks for your detailed reply ViRGE, I think I understand the bootloading process a lot better now. So it seems a physical disconnect is the best way. I was really hoping to avoid that because while it takes about 4 seconds to open up my nifty tool-less Lian-Li case, the tower itself is in a cubby that is a pain in the ass to extricate from.

What do you think of using my hard drive image file? I created it for my Win7 partition exactly because that's my main OS, and I wanted a quick way of reformatting, so I made a 1 to 1 image of the entire harddrive and backed it up onto one of my data harddrives. Presumably I reinstall XP, which messes up the MBR on the Win7 partition, but then I reimage that SSD, wouldn't that restore it to its original state?

Yes, the image option should work. You'd just need to add a bootloader entry for XP after you restore the image.