Idiot-Proof way to dual boot xp/vista

[johnsonbrewer]

Howdy,

Just picked up Vista HP32 to add to a computer that already has XP SP2 installed and would like expert eyes to look over my general plan for this weekend.

Background: XP installed on a 120g PATA HD with very little else, just a few utilities. I picked up a 500g SATA HD 7200.11 to run the OS from with the bulk of the drive for general storage. I have one other PATA HD, 400g used for video editing and pics only with no plans to change this HD's funciton. Just bought Vista HP to install for a dual-boot to learn Vista and to be able to use XP as needed.

Plan A: 1) Install the SATA HD and create partitions for XP, VHP, and data.
2) Ghost the entire 120g HD with XP onto the "XP" partition of the SATA drive.
3) Install VHP onto the "Vista" partition.
4a) Let Vista use its boot manager to to configure the system so it will present
the OS boot option screen upon initial boot.
4b) Use a third party program (VistaBootPro, etc. or EasyBCD) to display the OS
boot options.
5) Remove the original XP boot PATA drive to keep as a backup.

Plan B: 1) Unplug the XP drive.
2) Install SATA drive and load Vista.
3) Install EasyBCD and configure
4) Reinstall the XP PATA drive (3 and 4 may be out of order)


What is the easiest path for me to be able to dual boot while keeping XP intact? I understand that Vista will edit the XP boot file so I can keep an image of XP in a drawer.
Preferences on third party boot managers? I have no linux experience if that matters.

I don't have a back-up copy of XP now, that is why I want to keep an image in case I foul something up when I load Vista.

Any tips appreciated. Just a geek, you out there??

 

[johnsonbrewer]

Looks like winsupersite.com has tons of good info. 🙂

 

[mechBgon]

My preferred method is a simplification of your "Plan B."

1) unplug the data cable from the WinXP drive, hook up the other drive, and install Vista while the WinXP drive is completely out of the picture

2) reconnect the WinXP drive to its data cable

3) use my motherboard's boot-device selection feature to boot from the less-needed drive & OS when desired, otherwise it boots the other drive & OS.

This leaves both OSes capable of surviving with or without eachother. The hangup is that not all motherboards have a boot-device selection feature. For my Asus motherboard, the boot-device selection list is summoned by pressing F8 at the POST screen. For some others, it might be F2 or F12 or another key; see your mobo owner's manual.

 

[johnsonbrewer]

Thanks, mechBgon!

I too have an ASUS and I get the boot selection screen with F8 also. That certainly seems like the simplest approach. I will reply once I get everything up and running.

Thanks again