[DIY] Dual Boot XP SP2 /VISTA

[apogrif]

Hi all,
I ll give my experience of the dual Boot
DUAL BOOT offerts the possibility to BOOT ON XP OR VISTA everytime you launch your PC.
you'll be able to Start on XP Sp2 or Start on VISTA

This methodhave a great advantage it let you have always the same letter Drive C: (for the os partiton) whenever you start on XP or Vista


DO IT AT YOUR OWN RISK please be carefull here you may lost your data before doing anything MAKE A BACKUP of all your data

First of all we are going to see what you need to get it work properly.

You need :

- 1) XP SP2 CD
- 2) VISTA DVD
- 3) One Hard Drive with special partitionning or two maybe it more simple with this.

in fact at least you only need two partitions, one for Xp and the other one for Vista

but I think that the best way is to have Two Hard Drives :
- First one for Xp with two partitions :
in order to be more easy create two partitions and give them a name (i.e.g: XP system, XP data)
- Seconds one for VISTA
will see later in this topic when you have to name IT

this method let you have the system and the data separate for each OS on separate hardware (once again it s not absolutely necessary but it's my way).


I ) Install XP SP2 Normaly

this topic will not explain to you how to install it but let me give you a trick :

When you have installed Win XP go to your disk manager tool
name your sytem partion with something like XP SYS or whatever you want but keep in mind that you have to be really careful when you have to choose the partition on you will have to install vista later (you risk to choose the bad one and loose your data)

II ) Install new hard DRIVE and configure IT
then turn off your PC install your new Hard drive( SATA /PATA doesn't matter) reboot and run again disk manager tool.

to let Win XP be able to work with it you have to initialize it ( right click on IT and choose "initialize")

Now you are able to create new partition on the new hard drive that you have just installed in NTFS ( in order to recognize the XP/VISTA partition please name all the partition of all your disk ex:XP DATA, VISTA SYS.....) . in fact at this step we are creating the partition on wich we are going to install Vista choose the size and go.


REALLY IMPORTANT:

You have to set your new vista sys partition as active ( right click on the partition then clic on set it as active). It's really important!!!! if you miss this you'll not be able to have functionnal dual boot only vista will accessible.


I know there a lot of tricks around the web but this one will work even if you have Disk ARRAY ( be carefull here RAID configuration need some support that a lot Boot Manager doesn't offerts)

Please be careful if you have a raid created in SATA don't use GAG (boot manager) it doesn't support Disk ARRAY


III ) Install Vista

then reboot our PC boot on your Vista DVD and install your vista system normaly.
Please be careful here choose the Vista sys partition ( that you have set as active just before)
if you select the bad partition evrything will erased be careful here

IV ) ENJOY

after the installation complete you will have the possibility to choose between old windows version( in our case XP SP2) and VISTA
DUAL Boot is done


Apogrif[/quote]

[wuhlei]

thanks for the guide unfortunately the vista cd that came with my laptop is a hdd backup and it wont repair the boot sector with out erasing the hdd.

[wuhlei]

ok I found a vista repair iso

here is another guide if you installed vista first then xp

http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_vist ... _guide.htm

[apogrif]

Thank you wuhlei
a very clear article in fact