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XP Pro, Vista Ultimate dual boot question.

E

Eric62

Senior member
Which would be better:
XP installed on one HDD, and Vista installed on a different HDD.
or
XP and Vista installed on the same HDD, but on different partitions.
?
Thanks.
 
The best option would be to install it on two different hdds but remember Vista's boot loader will be stored in the primary drive and it will replace XP's boot.ini with it's own bootloader so better install XP with SP2 first and only then install Vista. In case if you want to modify bootloader settings use VistaBootPro from http://www.vistabootpro.org/ instead of standard windows command line parameters.
 
Thanks for the great link.
That was my original plan, then I started to become concerned if I'd be able to see the Vista drive if I booted to the XP drive, and vice versa?
Here's the original plan:
C drive (HDD 0) XP
D drive (HDD 0) data
E drive (HDD 1) Vista
F drive (HDD 1) data
I want access to all 4 partitions regardless of what OS I boot to. Is that possible?
 
Originally posted by: Eric62
Thanks for the great link.
That was my original plan, then I started to become concerned if I'd be able to see the Vista drive if I booted to the XP drive, and vice versa?
Click to expand...

It's not a problem if you install it on different partitions but the thing is Vista creates a lot of backup files on different partitions like shadow copy and system restore files and it also requires at least 20 gb free space to run smoothly. I have four HDD's on Raid 0 with XP and Vista64 and two External 500 GB drives for automatic backup and Software installation so I never worry about shadow copy or system restore in vista.

And yes, you'll be able to access all drives/partitions regardless of what type of setup you have.
 
I prefer to install them on two completely independent HDDs (install XP on one drive, unplug that drive, install Vista on the other). Then use the motherboard's boot-device selection menu to boot from the desired drive (on my Asus, this would be the F8 key during POST).

Done this way, either drive can be pulled and the other will still function. And with appropriate file-system permissions, either OS can read both drives.
 
I've learned allot in a little time thanks to both of you.
Last question (hopefully). What will I need to do to insure proper file-system sharing between hard drives?
 
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