XP AND WIN2000 DUAL BOOT..POSSIBLE?

[smokewarlock]

I want to put both xp and w2k on a drive..but dont know if its possible and would i have to install xp first? and would i have to make two seperate partitions.. new to dual boot setting up but understand how to install os....would appreciate the help..and how would i partion ntfs? i used the entire drive but would like to know my options on setting the dual boot up if its possible.

 

[Burnt]

I'm not sure exactly...but I think it's best to install them onto 2 seperate partitions. I think it might be win2k then winxp, but unlike win98se, it might not matter.

 

[Doh!]

I installed win2k first then xp pro on a separate partition.

 

[snakeyeis]

Firslt, NTFs is a total no-go. Don't even think abt it. FAT 32 is the standard and stick to it unless you "reaaaalllllyy" need NTFS. I don't see why would you need NTFS. Anyways, moving on, first install XP on c: (fat32). Then, do setup of Windows 2k. You would find a checkbox "Let me choose drive partition" which you must enable. See, it is not necessary that you install 2k and XP on different partitions, but it would be better because otherwise it would be sharing the same program files folder. The problem in this is that within program files, you have accesories, common files, some dlls which would be different for different versions of Windows and some programs then might stop working on XP (like for eg, when I installed 2k on 98 in c:, I was unable to use msconfig, mspaint etc). For stability issues, choose different partitions, even if that may mean you would have to install applications twice. You needn't install games twice. Most games would work (if you want help on how to make games work in both the windows without installing them twice, I'll let you know)

Regarding dual boot options, XP or for that matter 2K give excellent options automatically when you try installing different versions of Windows which could be accessed from the control panel.

For knowledge sake, to partition in NTFS, when you do setup and it then boots into DOS, after you choose your partition, setup would ask whether you want to convert it to a NTFS partition.

 

[ricerx]

double post check below

 

[ricerx]

You can dual boot both. You should install 2k first and then XP. If you install the other way around, you'll mess up your boot files and will not be able to get into XP unless you use the XP recovery console to fix your boot config(boot.ini) file. Always install the latest OS last. They can be installed on the same partition or different ones. Right now I'm running a quad boot. 98, 2k adv server, xp pro, and mandrake linux.

Multi-boot instructions from Microsoft

as for NTFS, there are more features and control with this file system. To compare the differences go here.

Choosing between NTFS, FAT, and FAT32