A Windows Vista forum. Vista Banter

Welcome to Vista Banter.

You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions, articles and access our other FREE features. By joining our free community you will have access to ask questions and reply to others posts, upload your own photos and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our community today!

If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact contact support.

Go Back   Home » Vista Banter forum » Microsoft Windows Vista » Hardware and Windows Vista
Site Map Home Register Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

Hardware and Windows Vista Hardware issues in relation to Windows Vista. (microsoft.public.windows.vista.hardware_devices)

Dual Boot Instructions



 
 
LinkBack Thread Tools Display Modes
  #21 (permalink)  
Old June 5th 09, 02:14 AM posted to microsoft.public.windows.vista.hardware_devices
DavidG
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 16
Default Dual Boot Instructions

Hi R. C.

Thanks for your support to this point. For better or for worse I have
complete confidence in what you are telling me . I'm probably having a
gradual awakening rather than an "Aha" experience. But this is good. My
replies happen at what may seem to be weird hours because I'm in Australia.

I currently have 2 HDDs in my machine. 1 is a 500GB WD with Vista installed
on it, and the other is a 750GB Samsung which is simply a passive file
storage volume (all my data files). The 3rd volume is a Seagate Baracuda
500GB this is the one I propose installing and putting XP on. All three
drives have a single partition. The only reason I'm putting in the extra HDD
is because of the negatives I've heard about 2 OSs on 1 drive. Am I misled?

I'm not sure what other details are relevant to tell you in terms of my
system configuration? I can tell you that amid all the instructions I
purchased a copy of VistaBootPro, which I now understand restores the
settings of the Vista bootloader, is that right? Looking at your
instructions I may not need it.

One other question,

Step 2: Leave the first HDD connected, with the System Partition on it -
and WinXP somewhere on that HDD, too. (I would prefer it in a second
partition, rather than have its boot volume share the system partition, but
that point is optional and does not change what happens next.)


When you say "first HDD connected" you mean the one with the newly installed
XP on it, correct?

If it is going to be less risk, I don't mind trying a second partition on
the Vista volume. (Save myself a HDD). I've never done either operations.
With one drive I would have 500GB or less to play with, I could do divide up
300GB to Vista and 200GB to XP say. The only reason I want XP at all is so I
can use Office 2003 without having clashes with Office 2007.

Does it help that I now have VistaBootPro? or it doesn't matter.
Anyway, I will be doing this work over the weekend here and I will
definitely be giving feedback and posting to this thread. Everyone has
helped in their own way.
Thanks for you patience.

Thanks for now
David G

"R. C. White" wrote:

Hi, David.

I'm probably thick as a brick where this is
concerned.


It's called "mindset" - and we ALL have experienced it. :(

We all have known the "Aha!" moment when the "light bulb" turns on.
Immediately, what was so complex a moment ago is now as clear as a bell.
;)

It seems too simple that I
just disconnect the already installed Vista drive, then plug in the blank
HDD
and install XP as per normal. Is this part correct???


Yes, it's just that simple, to this point.

Once the XP
installation is complete it seems to be that once BOTH OSs are installed,
then the fun and games begins, is that true?


Not quite.

All you really need to do then is to update the startup files on your first
HDD. You need for Vista Setup.exe to write its files there while preserving
the WinXP startup files - and to create a menu to let you choose. (In all
your posts so far, David, you have not yet told us how many partitions are
on each HDD. Our job would be easier if we knew such basic facts about your
system. For now, I'm assuming a single partition on each HDD.)

Step 2: Leave the first HDD connected, with the System Partition on it -
and WinXP somewhere on that HDD, too. (I would prefer it in a second
partition, rather than have its boot volume share the system partition, but
that point is optional and does not change what happens next.)

Step 3: Connect your second HDD (with Vista and a second System Partition
on it).

Step 4: Boot from your Vista DVD and click Repair your computer. On the
next screen, click Startup Repair. As a part of the repair, Vista will
detect the existing WinXP and include the "earlier" version option in the
startup menu.

Repair should know to fix the first HDD, but it might do the second instead.
That's OK. You can just set your BIOS to boot from the second HDD instead
of the first. The computer will be just as happy that way. ;)

I am new to this but the only way I'll learn is to do it myself.


Yep! One thing for su You won't know until you try. A dozen more
newsgroup exchanges will leave you still wondering - and without a working
dual boot system. Do it - and then let us know what happened. You
shouldn't have any problems, but we're here if you do. ;)

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 RC 7100

"DavidG" wrote in message
...
Hi R. C.

I've read over your thread a number of times and it is beginning to sink
in.
I am new to this but the only way I'll learn is to do it myself. I'm just
worried about the system not booting at all. If I slip up somewhere. I
don't think I am thick but I'm probably thick as a brick where this is
concerned.

No one has said either yes or no to the proposed installation as described
by "DL" in the first posting (other than Josh). It seems too simple that
I
just disconnect the already installed Vista drive, then plug in the blank
HDD
and install XP as per normal. Is this part correct??? Once the XP
installation is complete it seems to be that once BOTH OSs are installed,
then the fun and games begins, is that true?

So If I am following your instructions BOTH HDDs will have a System
Volume/Partition. The Vista volume will have a system volume - because it
was already there. Because the Vista volume was disconnected when
installing
XP, the XP volume also will have a system volume. OK, if I wade through
the
instructions I've been given I will find an answer to this conundrum?

I guess I can always take the PC to my local computer shop, where they
will
charge me by the hour and I will have still learnt nothing.
Unfortunately,
to learn something I may have to ask dumb questions, well I'm not afraid
of
that. If I encounter put-downs as a result of asking, then it is bad
luck,
I'll keep asking.
Thanks



"R. C. White" wrote:

Hi, David.

does the "Earlier version of Windows" option occur automatically

Yes. Setup.exe in either Vista or Win7 will automatically create this as
the first of the boot options if it detects WinXP already installed on
the
computer.

On later reboots, if you select (or let it default to) Vista or Win7,
this
"earlier" line will be ignored, of course, and your Vista/Win7 selection
will be loaded and started, just as you would expect. NTLDR, etc., will
simply be ignored in that case. But if you select the "earlier" option,
then Vista's bootmgr will turn control over to the saved file of the
WinXP
boot sector, which knows nothing of Vista but will look for NTLDR - and
continue as though Vista/Win7 did not exist. As always in a WinXP-only
system, if there is only a single WinXP installation, the boot process
will
not waste time presenting the Boot.ini menu but will simply boot the only
choice.

While you may not have tried, it, some of us have dual-booted multiple
installations of Win2K/XP. We might have (or have had) WinXP Pro (x86)
plus
WinXP x64 - and maybe an installation of Win2K, all selected from the
Boot.ini menu at startup. If we added Vista to that system, Vista's
Setup
would preserve that Boot.ini file. On each reboot, when we select
"earlier", that previous multiple-choice Boot.ini menu will be presented.
But if there is only a single choice in Boot.ini, that OS will be booted
automatically after we select "earlier".

RC

"DavidG" wrote in message
...
What can I say, the reponses to my post have been fantastic and
generous.
As
is yours RC. The only thing, and I might be wrong about this, but I
still
feel a little uncertain about setting up the booting side of it. What
I
mean
is does the "Earlier version of Windows" option occur automatically or
do
I
need to do something? How do I physically set that choice up? If I'm
overdoing the request let me know, I feel confident about the
installation,
it is just that last bit.



"R. C. White" wrote:

Hi, David.

You've received plenty of good advice here. You don't really need
more,
but... ;^}

Ever since WinNT4 (which is where I jumped in to dual-booting), the
Microsoft dual-boot (actually multi-boot) system has consisted of two
parts:
The System Partition and the Boot Volume. For the official but
counterintuitive definitions of these two terms, see KB 314470 (
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314470/EN-US/ ). As others have said,
those
uninformed on such matters may think it strange that we boot from the
system
partition and keep the operating system files in the boot volume - but
those
terms are rooted in computer history and we're stuck with them. I see
this
as a figure "Y". It all stands on the upright portion, the System
Partition. The boot process starts there, then proceeds to one of the
two
(or more) branches of the "Y", depending on what we select. (In a
one-OS
system, the "Y" looks like an "I", but the System Partition and Boot
Volume
still exist - and the distinction is still important.)

The System Partition must be a primary partition and marked Active
(bootable), and it must be on the HDD designated in the BIOS as the
boot
device. The Boot Volume may be a primary partition, but it also may
be a
logical drive in an extended partition on any HDD in the computer. If
there
are multiple Windows installations, each will have its own Boot
Volume,
but
they will all share the single System Partition. (More complex
arrangements
are possible, such as creating a System Partition on each of multiple
HDDs
and changing BIOS settings to choose between them, as some have
suggested
in
this thread, but let's keep it simple for the current discussion.)

The System Partition can be very small (well under 1 GB) because all
that
is
required to be there are the boot sector (512 bytes) and the few
relatively
small startup files. The Win2K/XP startup files are only NTLDR,
NTDETECT.COM and Boot.ini. For Vista/Win7, they are only the file
"bootmgr"
(no extension) and the folder named \Boot, which holds the BCD (Boot
Configuration Data). No matter where you tell Setup to install
Windows,
these startup files MUST be in the System Partition.

All the rest of Windows (maybe 10 GB or more for Vista) will be
installed
in
a single folder tree, named \Windows, in the Root of whichever volume
you
choose, which thereby becomes the Boot Volume for that Windows
installation.
This CAN share the System Partition - and that is the typical
arrangement,
especially for newbies and for new computers with Windows
pre-installed.
But this means that you can't format that Boot Volume without also
wiping
out the System Partition. (Win7's default installation on a new blank
computer solves this by creating the System Partition as a separate
volume
with no drive letter, then creating the large boot volume and
assigning
it
Drive C:. But that arrangement is not available to us when adding
Win7
to
an existing WinXP system.)

WinXP's Setup.exe never heard of Vista or Win7, of course, because
those
did
not exist back in 2001, when WinXP was released. But Vista and Win7
Setup
knows how to handle an existing WinXP. That's the reason for the
Golden
Rule of Dual-Booting: Always install the newest Windows last. When
Win7
Setup finds an existing WinXP, it does not delete NTLDR, etc., but
adds
its
own bootmgr and \Boot folder alongside them, then rewrites the boot
sector
(after saving a copy of it). Later, on each reboot, the BCD menu
includes
an option for an "Earlier version of Windows". If you choose that,
the
BCD
gets out of the way and lets NTLDR present the familiar Boot.ini
menu -
if
there are multiple Win2K/XP options - or continues directly into WinXP
if
there is only one. Since you want to add WinXP to a system that
already
has
Vista installed, you'll need to do some repair work after installing
WinXP,
but that's easier than it used to be. And upgrading from Vista to
Win7
later should be easy, although Microsoft hasn't yet published the
details
of
this transition.

Well, that's enough for now. We could discuss drive letters and such,
or
creating multiple System Partitions on your multiple HDDs (for
insurance
in
case one HDD gets damaged), but we can save those for another day.

RC

"DavidG" wrote in message
...
Hi
I'm wanting to create a dual boot for my PC. I would like to use 2
separate
HDDs. One HDD has Vista Business (current) and the other proposed
HDD

  #22 (permalink)  
Old June 5th 09, 03:24 PM posted to microsoft.public.windows.vista.hardware_devices
R. C. White
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,871
Default Dual Boot Instructions

G'day, Mate! (Did I say that right? g )

The only reason I'm putting in the extra HDD
is because of the negatives I've heard about 2 OSs on 1 drive. Am I
misled?


The problem is in our often-imprecise use of the word "drive". Just like
many other words ("right" and "left" come to mind), this word means
different things at different times, depending on the context.

If "drive" means a single partition or logical drive, then the negatives
you've heard are very true.

But if "drive" means a physical hard disk drive, then I'm in big trouble
because I have SIX versions of Windows installed on my 1 TB Disk 1, my
second HDD! I'm currently running the Win7 x64 RC from the 9th logical
drive on that disk!

Rather than type it all over again, let me paste what I just typed in
another newsgroup. It's partly a repeat of what I just said - or said in an
earlier post - but it seems to need the repetition:

paste
About "drive" letters: This is one of my pet peeves because it is one of
the hardest mindsets to break! "Drive" has many meanings, just like "right"
and "left" and so many other English words. And in computer-speak, it
sometimes refers to the physical hardware, but more often to just a
partition - just a defined portion of the physical disk. Our often cavalier
use of the word "drive" causes one of the biggest fallacies ingrained into
the minds of new computer users - and the fallacy persists even in many
(most?) computer veterans. :(

"Drive" letters are never assigned to physical disks; those are assigned
NUMBERS, not letters. They start with zero, which is why Disk Management
calls the HDDs "Disk 0", "Disk 1", etc. Each "drive" letter actually is
assigned to a "volume", which can be either a primary partition or a logical
drive in an extended partition on an HDD - or to a partition on a flash
drive (not the flash drive itself) or to a partition on a CD/DVD drive (not
to the whole drive) or to a camera or a card reader. (I've never had a
network, but I understand that they also use "drive" letters.) But we began
to refer to Drive A: way back when we first started to use floppy disks in
the 1970's - and the term really did refer to the whole 67.5 KB diskette.
The name stuck when we added hard disk drives, reserving letters A: and B:
for the typical two floppy drives and assigning Drive C: to THE hard disk.
Then we learned how to divide the hard disk platter into "partitions" and
assign a different letter to each partition. But we continued to use the
term "drive" to refer to each of the partitions, rather than to the entire
disk. When we began to need more than 4 partitions on a single disk, we
created one "extended partition" on the disk; we did not assign a letter to
the extended partition, but we created one or more logical drives in the
extended partition and assigned a "drive" letter to each of those logical
drives. (We now often use the term "volume" to refer to either a primary
partition or a logical drive.) And then came optical drives, flash drives
and all those other "drives".

If you run Disk Management, you will see this clearly in the Graphical View.
Disk 0 might include 2 primary partitions and an extended partition with 3
logical drives. The "drive" letters might be F:, C:, X:, D:, R:... In
other words, the letters are independent of the sequence on the HDD. In
fact, there may not be a Drive C: at all - which blows the mindset I
mentioned, but is perfectly legal.

Vista changed the algorithm for assigning drive letters during Setup. In
WinXP, Setup first assigned Drive C: to the System Partition, which usually
was also the boot volume. (See the oft-cited KB 314470 for the
counterintuitive definitions of "system volume" and "boot volume" - legacy
terms that cause and perpetuate much confusion.) Then it assigned letters
to the other partitions, optical drives, etc. Vista Setup, though, when run
by booting from the Vista DVD, assigns Drive C: to its own boot volume,
which might be the 3rd partition on the second HDD! And then it assigns
other letters in sequence, starting over with the first primary partition on
Disk 0, so it is quite probable that in a computer that already has an OS
installed, the System Partition will become Drive D:. This will NOT confuse
the computer, or Vista or other Windows installations - or any well-written
utility or application. But it WILL confuse any user who is bound by the
WinXP mindset. They will think it is "weird". :^}

We should always assign each volume a unique name (label), which will be
written to the disk and will be the same, no matter which OS is running, and
no matter what "drive" letter is currently assigned.
/paste

Thanks for confirming that you have only a single partition on each of your
HDDs. In that configuration, which is very typical, it's hard to see the
distinction between the whole drive and the partition that covers the whole
drive. One analogy might be a house that has only a single big room. When
you enter the house, you enter the room - and when you leave the room,
you're out of the house. But if that house has six rooms with six outside
doors, you can enter Room 1 without even knowing that Room 3 exists. And if
you've never seen a house with more than one room, you might have trouble
picturing one in your mind.

You really need to run Disk Management and study what it tells you about
your 3 HDDs. Hook 'em all up, then boot into Vista (or WinXP or whichever
Windows is available) and run Disk Management. The easiest way is to just
press Start, type "diskmgmt.msc" and press Enter. Maximize the window and
the Status column so that you can see which is the System and Boot
volume(s). The Help file here is loaded with good information, but it has
some flaws. First, this Help covers the entire Microsoft Management Console
(MMC) and you want to focus on just the Disk Management parts. Second, it
is organized as a reference, not as a text or tutorial, so you can't just
start at the beginning and read straight through. And, third, it covers
some advanced features that you and I don't need to know yet (like GPT disks
and dynamic volumes), so we have to kind of "read around" those parts. But
an hour spent in this Help file will tell you more than I can about how your
hard disks are organized and can be used.

The 3rd volume is a Seagate Baracuda
500GB this is the one I propose installing and putting XP on.


No. That HDD is not a "volume". Once you use Disk Management to create a
partition on it, that partition will be a "volume". That volume can be any
size up to 500 GB, the whole HDD. But WinXP doesn't need nearly that much
room.

If it were my system, I would first create a small partition (5 GB is way
more than big enough, but you have "more disk space than you'll ever need",
right?) that I could use for a System Partition, but leave it formatted and
empty; for now it's just a place holder. Then create a second partition; 30
GB is more than plenty; name it "WinXP Pro"; assign it any available letter
that you like, let's say "X" for XP; format it NTFS. Now, while still in
Vista, insert the WinXP CD-ROM and run its Setup.exe to install WinXP to
your new Drive X:.

Caveat: I've not installed WinXP over Win7. Which WinXP you have? Is SP3
included? Even SP3 does not know how to integrate with Vista or Win7. With
any version of WinXP, you probably will need to boot from the Vista DVD
later and let it repair the System Partition - because you are violating the
Golden Rule (newest system LAST) that I mentioned in my first post.

Now, reboot. It SHOULD start booting from your System Partition (still the
only partition on your first HDD, which has Vista installed) and present the
bootmgr menu with two choices (earlier and Vista). Choose Vista and verify
that Vista still starts properly. Then Restart. This time, choose the
"earlier" version of Windows. WinXP should load and proceed to the familiar
WinXP desktop. (Now you have the usual installation tasks, including all
the Windows Updates, drivers, etc., that have to be dealt with to have a
working WinXP SP3 system.)

Let us know, step by step, what you try and, verbatim, any error messages or
other problems you encounter.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 RC 7100


"DavidG" wrote in message
...
Hi R. C.

Thanks for your support to this point. For better or for worse I have
complete confidence in what you are telling me . I'm probably having a
gradual awakening rather than an "Aha" experience. But this is good. My
replies happen at what may seem to be weird hours because I'm in
Australia.

I currently have 2 HDDs in my machine. 1 is a 500GB WD with Vista
installed
on it, and the other is a 750GB Samsung which is simply a passive file
storage volume (all my data files). The 3rd volume is a Seagate Baracuda
500GB this is the one I propose installing and putting XP on. All three
drives have a single partition. The only reason I'm putting in the extra
HDD
is because of the negatives I've heard about 2 OSs on 1 drive. Am I
misled?

I'm not sure what other details are relevant to tell you in terms of my
system configuration? I can tell you that amid all the instructions I
purchased a copy of VistaBootPro, which I now understand restores the
settings of the Vista bootloader, is that right? Looking at your
instructions I may not need it.

One other question,

Step 2: Leave the first HDD connected, with the System Partition on it -
and WinXP somewhere on that HDD, too. (I would prefer it in a second
partition, rather than have its boot volume share the system partition,
but
that point is optional and does not change what happens next.)


When you say "first HDD connected" you mean the one with the newly
installed
XP on it, correct?

If it is going to be less risk, I don't mind trying a second partition on
the Vista volume. (Save myself a HDD). I've never done either
operations.
With one drive I would have 500GB or less to play with, I could do divide
up
300GB to Vista and 200GB to XP say. The only reason I want XP at all is
so I
can use Office 2003 without having clashes with Office 2007.

Does it help that I now have VistaBootPro? or it doesn't matter.
Anyway, I will be doing this work over the weekend here and I will
definitely be giving feedback and posting to this thread. Everyone has
helped in their own way.
Thanks for you patience.

Thanks for now
David G

"R. C. White" wrote:

Hi, David.

I'm probably thick as a brick where this is
concerned.


It's called "mindset" - and we ALL have experienced it. :(

We all have known the "Aha!" moment when the "light bulb" turns on.
Immediately, what was so complex a moment ago is now as clear as a bell.
;)

It seems too simple that I
just disconnect the already installed Vista drive, then plug in the
blank
HDD
and install XP as per normal. Is this part correct???


Yes, it's just that simple, to this point.

Once the XP
installation is complete it seems to be that once BOTH OSs are
installed,
then the fun and games begins, is that true?


Not quite.

All you really need to do then is to update the startup files on your
first
HDD. You need for Vista Setup.exe to write its files there while
preserving
the WinXP startup files - and to create a menu to let you choose. (In
all
your posts so far, David, you have not yet told us how many partitions
are
on each HDD. Our job would be easier if we knew such basic facts about
your
system. For now, I'm assuming a single partition on each HDD.)

Step 2: Leave the first HDD connected, with the System Partition on it -
and WinXP somewhere on that HDD, too. (I would prefer it in a second
partition, rather than have its boot volume share the system partition,
but
that point is optional and does not change what happens next.)

Step 3: Connect your second HDD (with Vista and a second System
Partition
on it).

Step 4: Boot from your Vista DVD and click Repair your computer. On the
next screen, click Startup Repair. As a part of the repair, Vista will
detect the existing WinXP and include the "earlier" version option in the
startup menu.

Repair should know to fix the first HDD, but it might do the second
instead.
That's OK. You can just set your BIOS to boot from the second HDD
instead
of the first. The computer will be just as happy that way. ;)

I am new to this but the only way I'll learn is to do it myself.


Yep! One thing for su You won't know until you try. A dozen more
newsgroup exchanges will leave you still wondering - and without a
working
dual boot system. Do it - and then let us know what happened. You
shouldn't have any problems, but we're here if you do. ;)

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 RC 7100

"DavidG" wrote in message
...
Hi R. C.

I've read over your thread a number of times and it is beginning to
sink
in.
I am new to this but the only way I'll learn is to do it myself. I'm
just
worried about the system not booting at all. If I slip up somewhere.
I
don't think I am thick but I'm probably thick as a brick where this is
concerned.

No one has said either yes or no to the proposed installation as
described
by "DL" in the first posting (other than Josh). It seems too simple
that
I
just disconnect the already installed Vista drive, then plug in the
blank
HDD
and install XP as per normal. Is this part correct??? Once the XP
installation is complete it seems to be that once BOTH OSs are
installed,
then the fun and games begins, is that true?

So If I am following your instructions BOTH HDDs will have a System
Volume/Partition. The Vista volume will have a system volume - because
it
was already there. Because the Vista volume was disconnected when
installing
XP, the XP volume also will have a system volume. OK, if I wade
through
the
instructions I've been given I will find an answer to this conundrum?

I guess I can always take the PC to my local computer shop, where they
will
charge me by the hour and I will have still learnt nothing.
Unfortunately,
to learn something I may have to ask dumb questions, well I'm not
afraid
of
that. If I encounter put-downs as a result of asking, then it is bad
luck,
I'll keep asking.
Thanks



"R. C. White" wrote:

Hi, David.

does the "Earlier version of Windows" option occur automatically

Yes. Setup.exe in either Vista or Win7 will automatically create this
as
the first of the boot options if it detects WinXP already installed on
the
computer.

On later reboots, if you select (or let it default to) Vista or Win7,
this
"earlier" line will be ignored, of course, and your Vista/Win7
selection
will be loaded and started, just as you would expect. NTLDR, etc.,
will
simply be ignored in that case. But if you select the "earlier"
option,
then Vista's bootmgr will turn control over to the saved file of the
WinXP
boot sector, which knows nothing of Vista but will look for NTLDR -
and
continue as though Vista/Win7 did not exist. As always in a
WinXP-only
system, if there is only a single WinXP installation, the boot process
will
not waste time presenting the Boot.ini menu but will simply boot the
only
choice.

While you may not have tried, it, some of us have dual-booted multiple
installations of Win2K/XP. We might have (or have had) WinXP Pro
(x86)
plus
WinXP x64 - and maybe an installation of Win2K, all selected from the
Boot.ini menu at startup. If we added Vista to that system, Vista's
Setup
would preserve that Boot.ini file. On each reboot, when we select
"earlier", that previous multiple-choice Boot.ini menu will be
presented.
But if there is only a single choice in Boot.ini, that OS will be
booted
automatically after we select "earlier".

RC

"DavidG" wrote in message
...
What can I say, the reponses to my post have been fantastic and
generous.
As
is yours RC. The only thing, and I might be wrong about this, but I
still
feel a little uncertain about setting up the booting side of it.
What
I
mean
is does the "Earlier version of Windows" option occur automatically
or
do
I
need to do something? How do I physically set that choice up? If
I'm
overdoing the request let me know, I feel confident about the
installation,
it is just that last bit.



"R. C. White" wrote:

Hi, David.

You've received plenty of good advice here. You don't really need
more,
but... ;^}

Ever since WinNT4 (which is where I jumped in to dual-booting), the
Microsoft dual-boot (actually multi-boot) system has consisted of
two
parts:
The System Partition and the Boot Volume. For the official but
counterintuitive definitions of these two terms, see KB 314470 (
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314470/EN-US/ ). As others have
said,
those
uninformed on such matters may think it strange that we boot from
the
system
partition and keep the operating system files in the boot volume -
but
those
terms are rooted in computer history and we're stuck with them. I
see
this
as a figure "Y". It all stands on the upright portion, the System
Partition. The boot process starts there, then proceeds to one of
the
two
(or more) branches of the "Y", depending on what we select. (In a
one-OS
system, the "Y" looks like an "I", but the System Partition and
Boot
Volume
still exist - and the distinction is still important.)

The System Partition must be a primary partition and marked Active
(bootable), and it must be on the HDD designated in the BIOS as the
boot
device. The Boot Volume may be a primary partition, but it also
may
be a
logical drive in an extended partition on any HDD in the computer.
If
there
are multiple Windows installations, each will have its own Boot
Volume,
but
they will all share the single System Partition. (More complex
arrangements
are possible, such as creating a System Partition on each of
multiple
HDDs
and changing BIOS settings to choose between them, as some have
suggested
in
this thread, but let's keep it simple for the current discussion.)

The System Partition can be very small (well under 1 GB) because
all
that
is
required to be there are the boot sector (512 bytes) and the few
relatively
small startup files. The Win2K/XP startup files are only NTLDR,
NTDETECT.COM and Boot.ini. For Vista/Win7, they are only the file
"bootmgr"
(no extension) and the folder named \Boot, which holds the BCD
(Boot
Configuration Data). No matter where you tell Setup to install
Windows,
these startup files MUST be in the System Partition.

All the rest of Windows (maybe 10 GB or more for Vista) will be
installed
in
a single folder tree, named \Windows, in the Root of whichever
volume
you
choose, which thereby becomes the Boot Volume for that Windows
installation.
This CAN share the System Partition - and that is the typical
arrangement,
especially for newbies and for new computers with Windows
pre-installed.
But this means that you can't format that Boot Volume without also
wiping
out the System Partition. (Win7's default installation on a new
blank
computer solves this by creating the System Partition as a separate
volume
with no drive letter, then creating the large boot volume and
assigning
it
Drive C:. But that arrangement is not available to us when adding
Win7
to
an existing WinXP system.)

WinXP's Setup.exe never heard of Vista or Win7, of course, because
those
did
not exist back in 2001, when WinXP was released. But Vista and
Win7
Setup
knows how to handle an existing WinXP. That's the reason for the
Golden
Rule of Dual-Booting: Always install the newest Windows last.
When
Win7
Setup finds an existing WinXP, it does not delete NTLDR, etc., but
adds
its
own bootmgr and \Boot folder alongside them, then rewrites the boot
sector
(after saving a copy of it). Later, on each reboot, the BCD menu
includes
an option for an "Earlier version of Windows". If you choose that,
the
BCD
gets out of the way and lets NTLDR present the familiar Boot.ini
menu -
if
there are multiple Win2K/XP options - or continues directly into
WinXP
if
there is only one. Since you want to add WinXP to a system that
already
has
Vista installed, you'll need to do some repair work after
installing
WinXP,
but that's easier than it used to be. And upgrading from Vista to
Win7
later should be easy, although Microsoft hasn't yet published the
details
of
this transition.

Well, that's enough for now. We could discuss drive letters and
such,
or
creating multiple System Partitions on your multiple HDDs (for
insurance
in
case one HDD gets damaged), but we can save those for another day.

RC

"DavidG" wrote in message
...
Hi
I'm wanting to create a dual boot for my PC. I would like to use
2
separate
HDDs. One HDD has Vista Business (current) and the other
proposed
HDD


  #23 (permalink)  
Old June 6th 09, 08:03 AM posted to microsoft.public.windows.vista.hardware_devices
DavidG
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 16
Default Dual Boot Instructions

G'day RC,

You sound just like an Aussie.

To matters partitioning,

In disk management my computer shows

Disk 0 (C as 465GB NTFS (with Vista)
It is healthy with (System, Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump,

Primary Partition)

Disk 1 Storage (D as 698GB NTFS (just data storage)
Healthy (Primary Partition).

I haven't physically installed the 3rd XP disk yet. (I want to

make sure I understand exactly what I'm doing before I go messing

something up).

Having said that I'm sure I have enough information and support, I

just need to read over it all and absorb it.

I note that Disk Management has a first column called "Volume", but

I suspect this is at odds with what you have described, or is it?

What I've also gathered is there is a limit of 4 partitions to a

disk. But I can create an Extended Partition that can house

additional partitions. It appears that my Disk 0 has the System

Partition and Boot Volume as well as other things.

I have downloaded VistaBootPro 3.3 is that all I need to download?

Is EasyBCD any better or they both do the same job? You haven't

made any reference to these utilities. Aside from that I think I'm just
about ready to go, ("good to go"). Thanks again for your help mate (in the
U.S. I think you say "buddy"). Much appreciated.



"R. C. White" wrote:

G'day, Mate! (Did I say that right? g )

The only reason I'm putting in the extra HDD
is because of the negatives I've heard about 2 OSs on 1 drive. Am I
misled?


The problem is in our often-imprecise use of the word "drive". Just like
many other words ("right" and "left" come to mind), this word means
different things at different times, depending on the context.

If "drive" means a single partition or logical drive, then the negatives
you've heard are very true.

But if "drive" means a physical hard disk drive, then I'm in big trouble
because I have SIX versions of Windows installed on my 1 TB Disk 1, my
second HDD! I'm currently running the Win7 x64 RC from the 9th logical
drive on that disk!

Rather than type it all over again, let me paste what I just typed in
another newsgroup. It's partly a repeat of what I just said - or said in an
earlier post - but it seems to need the repetition:

paste
About "drive" letters: This is one of my pet peeves because it is one of
the hardest mindsets to break! "Drive" has many meanings, just like "right"
and "left" and so many other English words. And in computer-speak, it
sometimes refers to the physical hardware, but more often to just a
partition - just a defined portion of the physical disk. Our often cavalier
use of the word "drive" causes one of the biggest fallacies ingrained into
the minds of new computer users - and the fallacy persists even in many
(most?) computer veterans. :(

"Drive" letters are never assigned to physical disks; those are assigned
NUMBERS, not letters. They start with zero, which is why Disk Management
calls the HDDs "Disk 0", "Disk 1", etc. Each "drive" letter actually is
assigned to a "volume", which can be either a primary partition or a logical
drive in an extended partition on an HDD - or to a partition on a flash
drive (not the flash drive itself) or to a partition on a CD/DVD drive (not
to the whole drive) or to a camera or a card reader. (I've never had a
network, but I understand that they also use "drive" letters.) But we began
to refer to Drive A: way back when we first started to use floppy disks in
the 1970's - and the term really did refer to the whole 67.5 KB diskette.
The name stuck when we added hard disk drives, reserving letters A: and B:
for the typical two floppy drives and assigning Drive C: to THE hard disk.
Then we learned how to divide the hard disk platter into "partitions" and
assign a different letter to each partition. But we continued to use the
term "drive" to refer to each of the partitions, rather than to the entire
disk. When we began to need more than 4 partitions on a single disk, we
created one "extended partition" on the disk; we did not assign a letter to
the extended partition, but we created one or more logical drives in the
extended partition and assigned a "drive" letter to each of those logical
drives. (We now often use the term "volume" to refer to either a primary
partition or a logical drive.) And then came optical drives, flash drives
and all those other "drives".

If you run Disk Management, you will see this clearly in the Graphical View.
Disk 0 might include 2 primary partitions and an extended partition with 3
logical drives. The "drive" letters might be F:, C:, X:, D:, R:... In
other words, the letters are independent of the sequence on the HDD. In
fact, there may not be a Drive C: at all - which blows the mindset I
mentioned, but is perfectly legal.

Vista changed the algorithm for assigning drive letters during Setup. In
WinXP, Setup first assigned Drive C: to the System Partition, which usually
was also the boot volume. (See the oft-cited KB 314470 for the
counterintuitive definitions of "system volume" and "boot volume" - legacy
terms that cause and perpetuate much confusion.) Then it assigned letters
to the other partitions, optical drives, etc. Vista Setup, though, when run
by booting from the Vista DVD, assigns Drive C: to its own boot volume,
which might be the 3rd partition on the second HDD! And then it assigns
other letters in sequence, starting over with the first primary partition on
Disk 0, so it is quite probable that in a computer that already has an OS
installed, the System Partition will become Drive D:. This will NOT confuse
the computer, or Vista or other Windows installations - or any well-written
utility or application. But it WILL confuse any user who is bound by the
WinXP mindset. They will think it is "weird". :^}

We should always assign each volume a unique name (label), which will be
written to the disk and will be the same, no matter which OS is running, and
no matter what "drive" letter is currently assigned.
/paste

Thanks for confirming that you have only a single partition on each of your
HDDs. In that configuration, which is very typical, it's hard to see the
distinction between the whole drive and the partition that covers the whole
drive. One analogy might be a house that has only a single big room. When
you enter the house, you enter the room - and when you leave the room,
you're out of the house. But if that house has six rooms with six outside
doors, you can enter Room 1 without even knowing that Room 3 exists. And if
you've never seen a house with more than one room, you might have trouble
picturing one in your mind.

You really need to run Disk Management and study what it tells you about
your 3 HDDs. Hook 'em all up, then boot into Vista (or WinXP or whichever
Windows is available) and run Disk Management. The easiest way is to just
press Start, type "diskmgmt.msc" and press Enter. Maximize the window and
the Status column so that you can see which is the System and Boot
volume(s). The Help file here is loaded with good information, but it has
some flaws. First, this Help covers the entire Microsoft Management Console
(MMC) and you want to focus on just the Disk Management parts. Second, it
is organized as a reference, not as a text or tutorial, so you can't just
start at the beginning and read straight through. And, third, it covers
some advanced features that you and I don't need to know yet (like GPT disks
and dynamic volumes), so we have to kind of "read around" those parts. But
an hour spent in this Help file will tell you more than I can about how your
hard disks are organized and can be used.

The 3rd volume is a Seagate Baracuda
500GB this is the one I propose installing and putting XP on.


No. That HDD is not a "volume". Once you use Disk Management to create a
partition on it, that partition will be a "volume". That volume can be any
size up to 500 GB, the whole HDD. But WinXP doesn't need nearly that much
room.

If it were my system, I would first create a small partition (5 GB is way
more than big enough, but you have "more disk space than you'll ever need",
right?) that I could use for a System Partition, but leave it formatted and
empty; for now it's just a place holder. Then create a second partition; 30
GB is more than plenty; name it "WinXP Pro"; assign it any available letter
that you like, let's say "X" for XP; format it NTFS. Now, while still in
Vista, insert the WinXP CD-ROM and run its Setup.exe to install WinXP to
your new Drive X:.

Caveat: I've not installed WinXP over Win7. Which WinXP you have? Is SP3
included? Even SP3 does not know how to integrate with Vista or Win7. With
any version of WinXP, you probably will need to boot from the Vista DVD
later and let it repair the System Partition - because you are violating the
Golden Rule (newest system LAST) that I mentioned in my first post.

Now, reboot. It SHOULD start booting from your System Partition (still the
only partition on your first HDD, which has Vista installed) and present the
bootmgr menu with two choices (earlier and Vista). Choose Vista and verify
that Vista still starts properly. Then Restart. This time, choose the
"earlier" version of Windows. WinXP should load and proceed to the familiar
WinXP desktop. (Now you have the usual installation tasks, including all
the Windows Updates, drivers, etc., that have to be dealt with to have a
working WinXP SP3 system.)

Let us know, step by step, what you try and, verbatim, any error messages or
other problems you encounter.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 RC 7100


"DavidG" wrote in message
...
Hi R. C.

Thanks for your support to this point. For better or for worse I have
complete confidence in what you are telling me . I'm probably having a
gradual awakening rather than an "Aha" experience. But this is good. My
replies happen at what may seem to be weird hours because I'm in
Australia.

I currently have 2 HDDs in my machine. 1 is a 500GB WD with Vista
installed
on it, and the other is a 750GB Samsung which is simply a passive file
storage volume (all my data files). The 3rd volume is a Seagate Baracuda
500GB this is the one I propose installing and putting XP on. All three
drives have a single partition. The only reason I'm putting in the extra
HDD
is because of the negatives I've heard about 2 OSs on 1 drive. Am I
misled?

I'm not sure what other details are relevant to tell you in terms of my
system configuration? I can tell you that amid all the instructions I
purchased a copy of VistaBootPro, which I now understand restores the
settings of the Vista bootloader, is that right? Looking at your
instructions I may not need it.

One other question,

Step 2: Leave the first HDD connected, with the System Partition on it -
and WinXP somewhere on that HDD, too. (I would prefer it in a second
partition, rather than have its boot volume share the system partition,
but
that point is optional and does not change what happens next.)


When you say "first HDD connected" you mean the one with the newly
installed
XP on it, correct?

If it is going to be less risk, I don't mind trying a second partition on
the Vista volume. (Save myself a HDD). I've never done either
operations.
With one drive I would have 500GB or less to play with, I could do divide
up
300GB to Vista and 200GB to XP say. The only reason I want XP at all is
so I
can use Office 2003 without having clashes with Office 2007.

Does it help that I now have VistaBootPro? or it doesn't matter.
Anyway, I will be doing this work over the weekend here and I will
definitely be giving feedback and posting to this thread. Everyone has
helped in their own way.
Thanks for you patience.

Thanks for now
David G

"R. C. White" wrote:

Hi, David.

I'm probably thick as a brick where this is
concerned.

It's called "mindset" - and we ALL have experienced it. :(

We all have known the "Aha!" moment when the "light bulb" turns on.
Immediately, what was so complex a moment ago is now as clear as a bell.
;)

It seems too simple that I
just disconnect the already installed Vista drive, then plug in the
blank
HDD
and install XP as per normal. Is this part correct???

Yes, it's just that simple, to this point.

Once the XP
installation is complete it seems to be that once BOTH OSs are
installed,
then the fun and games begins, is that true?

Not quite.

All you really need to do then is to update the startup files on your
first
HDD. You need for Vista Setup.exe to write its files there while
preserving
the WinXP startup files - and to create a menu to let you choose. (In
all
your posts so far, David, you have not yet told us how many partitions
are
on each HDD. Our job would be easier if we knew such basic facts about
your
system. For now, I'm assuming a single partition on each HDD.)

Step 2: Leave the first HDD connected, with the System Partition on it -
and WinXP somewhere on that HDD, too. (I would prefer it in a second
partition, rather than have its boot volume share the system partition,
but
that point is optional and does not change what happens next.)

Step 3: Connect your second HDD (with Vista and a second System
Partition
on it).

Step 4: Boot from your Vista DVD and click Repair your computer. On the
next screen, click Startup Repair. As a part of the repair, Vista will
detect the existing WinXP and include the "earlier" version option in the
startup menu.

Repair should know to fix the first HDD, but it might do the second
instead.
That's OK. You can just set your BIOS to boot from the second HDD
instead
of the first. The computer will be just as happy that way. ;)

I am new to this but the only way I'll learn is to do it myself.

Yep! One thing for su You won't know until you try. A dozen more
newsgroup exchanges will leave you still wondering - and without a
working
dual boot system. Do it - and then let us know what happened. You
shouldn't have any problems, but we're here if you do. ;)

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 RC 7100

"DavidG" wrote in message
...
Hi R. C.

I've read over your thread a number of times and it is beginning to
sink
in.
I am new to this but the only way I'll learn is to do it myself. I'm
just
worried about the system not booting at all. If I slip up somewhere.
I
don't think I am thick but I'm probably thick as a brick where this is
concerned.

No one has said either yes or no to the proposed installation as
described

  #24 (permalink)  
Old June 9th 09, 02:24 PM posted to microsoft.public.windows.vista.hardware_devices
R. C. White
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,871
Default Dual Boot Instructions

Hi, David.

You haven't studied Disk Management nearly enough! :^{

I note that Disk Management has a first column called "Volume", but
I suspect this is at odds with what you have described, or is it?


You are looking only at the Volume List, which is at the top of the window,
by default. Maybe you haven't Maximized the Disk Management window and
cannot see the Graphical View at the bottom of the window. The Graphical
View doesn't bother to put column headings, but the left-most column shows
the PHYSICAL DISK number, not the partition (volume) letter.

It appears that my Disk 0 has the System
Partition and Boot Volume as well as other things.


You should, at any one time, see ONE System Partition and ONE Boot Volume -
and they may or may not be the SAME volume. Are they, in your system? But,
at another time, when you dual-boot into a different OS (WinXP?), the System
Partition should remain the same volume, but a different volume will have
the Boot status - and the volume that was labeled Boot before will now be
"just another volume". Well, it will no longer the Boot volume, but if it
was the System Partition (in Vista?), it still should have that status.
Remember the "Y": It stands on a single leg (the one System Partition) and
can branch to any one of multiple Boot Volumes - but only one at a time will
be the current boot volume.

I have downloaded VistaBootPro 3.3 is that all I need to download?
Is EasyBCD any better or they both do the same job? You haven't
made any reference to these utilities. Aside from that I think I'm just
about ready to go, ("good to go"). Thanks again for your help mate (in
the
U.S. I think you say "buddy"). Much appreciated.


I've used the third-party BCD managers just enough to know that I prefer to
use BCDEdit. Yes, it's clumsy and inscrutable and "techy", but I got
familiar with it during the Vista beta.

But you shouldn't need any 3rd-party programs. Just make up your mind and
go for it. You started this thread more than a week ago and you've received
nearly 2 dozen replies from nearly a dozen helpers. And you haven't
actually tried anything yet. You could read about "how to ride a bicycle"
for years but, until you actually get on the bike, you still won't
understand what the book is trying to tell you. And, until you actually try
to partition and format that new drive, you won't really understand Disk
Management. You'll understand it better after you've "crashed your bike" a
couple of times, recovered from the crash, and tried again.

Please don't send me an email about this. Netiquette frowns on email
responses to newsgroup posts. In email, only two parties can benefit; here
in the newsgroup, others can participate and learn or help, too. If my
answer is wrong or incomplete, someone here can correct or complete it. If
I give you bad advice in email, you're just stuck with it.

Good luck, Mate!

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 RC 7100

"DavidG" wrote in message
...
G'day RC,

You sound just like an Aussie.

To matters partitioning,

In disk management my computer shows

Disk 0 (C as 465GB NTFS (with Vista)
It is healthy with (System, Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump,

Primary Partition)

Disk 1 Storage (D as 698GB NTFS (just data storage)
Healthy (Primary Partition).

I haven't physically installed the 3rd XP disk yet. (I want to

make sure I understand exactly what I'm doing before I go messing

something up).

Having said that I'm sure I have enough information and support, I

just need to read over it all and absorb it.

I note that Disk Management has a first column called "Volume", but

I suspect this is at odds with what you have described, or is it?

What I've also gathered is there is a limit of 4 partitions to a

disk. But I can create an Extended Partition that can house

additional partitions. It appears that my Disk 0 has the System

Partition and Boot Volume as well as other things.

I have downloaded VistaBootPro 3.3 is that all I need to download?

Is EasyBCD any better or they both do the same job? You haven't

made any reference to these utilities. Aside from that I think I'm just
about ready to go, ("good to go"). Thanks again for your help mate (in
the
U.S. I think you say "buddy"). Much appreciated.



"R. C. White" wrote:

G'day, Mate! (Did I say that right? g )

The only reason I'm putting in the extra HDD
is because of the negatives I've heard about 2 OSs on 1 drive. Am I
misled?


The problem is in our often-imprecise use of the word "drive". Just like
many other words ("right" and "left" come to mind), this word means
different things at different times, depending on the context.

If "drive" means a single partition or logical drive, then the negatives
you've heard are very true.

But if "drive" means a physical hard disk drive, then I'm in big trouble
because I have SIX versions of Windows installed on my 1 TB Disk 1, my
second HDD! I'm currently running the Win7 x64 RC from the 9th logical
drive on that disk!

Rather than type it all over again, let me paste what I just typed in
another newsgroup. It's partly a repeat of what I just said - or said in
an
earlier post - but it seems to need the repetition:

paste
About "drive" letters: This is one of my pet peeves because it is one of
the hardest mindsets to break! "Drive" has many meanings, just like
"right"
and "left" and so many other English words. And in computer-speak, it
sometimes refers to the physical hardware, but more often to just a
partition - just a defined portion of the physical disk. Our often
cavalier
use of the word "drive" causes one of the biggest fallacies ingrained
into
the minds of new computer users - and the fallacy persists even in many
(most?) computer veterans. :(

"Drive" letters are never assigned to physical disks; those are assigned
NUMBERS, not letters. They start with zero, which is why Disk Management
calls the HDDs "Disk 0", "Disk 1", etc. Each "drive" letter actually is
assigned to a "volume", which can be either a primary partition or a
logical
drive in an extended partition on an HDD - or to a partition on a flash
drive (not the flash drive itself) or to a partition on a CD/DVD drive
(not
to the whole drive) or to a camera or a card reader. (I've never had a
network, but I understand that they also use "drive" letters.) But we
began
to refer to Drive A: way back when we first started to use floppy disks
in
the 1970's - and the term really did refer to the whole 67.5 KB diskette.
The name stuck when we added hard disk drives, reserving letters A: and
B:
for the typical two floppy drives and assigning Drive C: to THE hard
disk.
Then we learned how to divide the hard disk platter into "partitions" and
assign a different letter to each partition. But we continued to use the
term "drive" to refer to each of the partitions, rather than to the
entire
disk. When we began to need more than 4 partitions on a single disk, we
created one "extended partition" on the disk; we did not assign a letter
to
the extended partition, but we created one or more logical drives in the
extended partition and assigned a "drive" letter to each of those logical
drives. (We now often use the term "volume" to refer to either a primary
partition or a logical drive.) And then came optical drives, flash
drives
and all those other "drives".

If you run Disk Management, you will see this clearly in the Graphical
View.
Disk 0 might include 2 primary partitions and an extended partition with
3
logical drives. The "drive" letters might be F:, C:, X:, D:, R:... In
other words, the letters are independent of the sequence on the HDD. In
fact, there may not be a Drive C: at all - which blows the mindset I
mentioned, but is perfectly legal.

Vista changed the algorithm for assigning drive letters during Setup. In
WinXP, Setup first assigned Drive C: to the System Partition, which
usually
was also the boot volume. (See the oft-cited KB 314470 for the
counterintuitive definitions of "system volume" and "boot volume" -
legacy
terms that cause and perpetuate much confusion.) Then it assigned
letters
to the other partitions, optical drives, etc. Vista Setup, though, when
run
by booting from the Vista DVD, assigns Drive C: to its own boot volume,
which might be the 3rd partition on the second HDD! And then it assigns
other letters in sequence, starting over with the first primary partition
on
Disk 0, so it is quite probable that in a computer that already has an OS
installed, the System Partition will become Drive D:. This will NOT
confuse
the computer, or Vista or other Windows installations - or any
well-written
utility or application. But it WILL confuse any user who is bound by the
WinXP mindset. They will think it is "weird". :^}

We should always assign each volume a unique name (label), which will be
written to the disk and will be the same, no matter which OS is running,
and
no matter what "drive" letter is currently assigned.
/paste

Thanks for confirming that you have only a single partition on each of
your
HDDs. In that configuration, which is very typical, it's hard to see the
distinction between the whole drive and the partition that covers the
whole
drive. One analogy might be a house that has only a single big room.
When
you enter the house, you enter the room - and when you leave the room,
you're out of the house. But if that house has six rooms with six
outside
doors, you can enter Room 1 without even knowing that Room 3 exists. And
if
you've never seen a house with more than one room, you might have trouble
picturing one in your mind.

You really need to run Disk Management and study what it tells you about
your 3 HDDs. Hook 'em all up, then boot into Vista (or WinXP or
whichever
Windows is available) and run Disk Management. The easiest way is to
just
press Start, type "diskmgmt.msc" and press Enter. Maximize the window
and
the Status column so that you can see which is the System and Boot
volume(s). The Help file here is loaded with good information, but it
has
some flaws. First, this Help covers the entire Microsoft Management
Console
(MMC) and you want to focus on just the Disk Management parts. Second,
it
is organized as a reference, not as a text or tutorial, so you can't just
start at the beginning and read straight through. And, third, it covers
some advanced features that you and I don't need to know yet (like GPT
disks
and dynamic volumes), so we have to kind of "read around" those parts.
But
an hour spent in this Help file will tell you more than I can about how
your
hard disks are organized and can be used.

The 3rd volume is a Seagate Baracuda
500GB this is the one I propose installing and putting XP on.


No. That HDD is not a "volume". Once you use Disk Management to create
a
partition on it, that partition will be a "volume". That volume can be
any
size up to 500 GB, the whole HDD. But WinXP doesn't need nearly that
much
room.

If it were my system, I would first create a small partition (5 GB is way
more than big enough, but you have "more disk space than you'll ever
need",
right?) that I could use for a System Partition, but leave it formatted
and
empty; for now it's just a place holder. Then create a second partition;
30
GB is more than plenty; name it "WinXP Pro"; assign it any available
letter
that you like, let's say "X" for XP; format it NTFS. Now, while still in
Vista, insert the WinXP CD-ROM and run its Setup.exe to install WinXP to
your new Drive X:.

Caveat: I've not installed WinXP over Win7. Which WinXP you have? Is
SP3
included? Even SP3 does not know how to integrate with Vista or Win7.
With
any version of WinXP, you probably will need to boot from the Vista DVD
later and let it repair the System Partition - because you are violating
the
Golden Rule (newest system LAST) that I mentioned in my first post.

Now, reboot. It SHOULD start booting from your System Partition (still
the
only partition on your first HDD, which has Vista installed) and present
the
bootmgr menu with two choices (earlier and Vista). Choose Vista and
verify
that Vista still starts properly. Then Restart. This time, choose the
"earlier" version of Windows. WinXP should load and proceed to the
familiar
WinXP desktop. (Now you have the usual installation tasks, including all
the Windows Updates, drivers, etc., that have to be dealt with to have a
working WinXP SP3 system.)

Let us know, step by step, what you try and, verbatim, any error messages
or
other problems you encounter.

RC


"DavidG" wrote in message
...
Hi R. C.

Thanks for your support to this point. For better or for worse I have
complete confidence in what you are telling me . I'm probably
having a
gradual awakening rather than an "Aha" experience. But this is good.
My
replies happen at what may seem to be weird hours because I'm in
Australia.

I currently have 2 HDDs in my machine. 1 is a 500GB WD with Vista
installed
on it, and the other is a 750GB Samsung which is simply a passive file
storage volume (all my data files). The 3rd volume is a Seagate
Baracuda
500GB this is the one I propose installing and putting XP on. All
three
drives have a single partition. The only reason I'm putting in the
extra
HDD
is because of the negatives I've heard about 2 OSs on 1 drive. Am I
misled?

I'm not sure what other details are relevant to tell you in terms of my
system configuration? I can tell you that amid all the instructions I
purchased a copy of VistaBootPro, which I now understand restores the
settings of the Vista bootloader, is that right? Looking at your
instructions I may not need it.

One other question,

Step 2: Leave the first HDD connected, with the System Partition on
it -
and WinXP somewhere on that HDD, too. (I would prefer it in a second
partition, rather than have its boot volume share the system
partition,
but
that point is optional and does not change what happens next.)

When you say "first HDD connected" you mean the one with the newly
installed
XP on it, correct?

If it is going to be less risk, I don't mind trying a second partition
on
the Vista volume. (Save myself a HDD). I've never done either
operations.
With one drive I would have 500GB or less to play with, I could do
divide
up
300GB to Vista and 200GB to XP say. The only reason I want XP at all
is
so I
can use Office 2003 without having clashes with Office 2007.

Does it help that I now have VistaBootPro? or it doesn't matter.
Anyway, I will be doing this work over the weekend here and I will
definitely be giving feedback and posting to this thread. Everyone has
helped in their own way.
Thanks for you patience.

Thanks for now
David G

"R. C. White" wrote:

Hi, David.

I'm probably thick as a brick where this is
concerned.

It's called "mindset" - and we ALL have experienced it. :(

We all have known the "Aha!" moment when the "light bulb" turns on.
Immediately, what was so complex a moment ago is now as clear as a
bell.
;)

It seems too simple that I
just disconnect the already installed Vista drive, then plug in the
blank
HDD
and install XP as per normal. Is this part correct???

Yes, it's just that simple, to this point.

Once the XP
installation is complete it seems to be that once BOTH OSs are
installed,
then the fun and games begins, is that true?

Not quite.

All you really need to do then is to update the startup files on your
first
HDD. You need for Vista Setup.exe to write its files there while
preserving
the WinXP startup files - and to create a menu to let you choose. (In
all
your posts so far, David, you have not yet told us how many partitions
are
on each HDD. Our job would be easier if we knew such basic facts
about
your
system. For now, I'm assuming a single partition on each HDD.)

Step 2: Leave the first HDD connected, with the System Partition on
it -
and WinXP somewhere on that HDD, too. (I would prefer it in a second
partition, rather than have its boot volume share the system
partition,
but
that point is optional and does not change what happens next.)

Step 3: Connect your second HDD (with Vista and a second System
Partition
on it).

Step 4: Boot from your Vista DVD and click Repair your computer. On
the
next screen, click Startup Repair. As a part of the repair, Vista
will
detect the existing WinXP and include the "earlier" version option in
the
startup menu.

Repair should know to fix the first HDD, but it might do the second
instead.
That's OK. You can just set your BIOS to boot from the second HDD
instead
of the first. The computer will be just as happy that way. ;)

I am new to this but the only way I'll learn is to do it myself.

Yep! One thing for su You won't know until you try. A dozen more
newsgroup exchanges will leave you still wondering - and without a
working
dual boot system. Do it - and then let us know what happened. You
shouldn't have any problems, but we're here if you do. ;)

RC

"DavidG" wrote in message
...
Hi R. C.

I've read over your thread a number of times and it is beginning to
sink
in.
I am new to this but the only way I'll learn is to do it myself.
I'm
just
worried about the system not booting at all. If I slip up
somewhere.
I
don't think I am thick but I'm probably thick as a brick where this
is
concerned.

No one has said either yes or no to the proposed installation as
described


  #25 (permalink)  
Old June 10th 09, 08:00 AM posted to microsoft.public.windows.vista.hardware_devices
DavidG
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 16
Default Dual Boot Instructions

G'day R.C.

Thanks for your advice. Sorry about the email.

You haven't studied Disk Management nearly enough! :^{


You are right, but I will have by the time I finish this exercise.

I could sit here and write a whole lot of "valid" reasons why I haven't
completed this job yet, but I guess we all have busy lives. So I won't.

I wish to thank you for being so patient and knowledgable, also the other
contributers to this post. The last post on this thread will be me saying
"I've completed the Job". And maybe I'll have more to comment on then.

I'm endeavouring to back up all my data, but I've had issues with the backup
software, so I'm in conversations with the software vendor. Anyway, that's
just a temp distraction. I will get there.

Thanks for your support,

Regards from down under,

David



You are looking only at the Volume List, which is at the top of the window,
by default. Maybe you haven't Maximized the Disk Management window and
cannot see the Graphical View at the bottom of the window. The Graphical
View doesn't bother to put column headings, but the left-most column shows
the PHYSICAL DISK number, not the partition (volume) letter.

It appears that my Disk 0 has the System
Partition and Boot Volume as well as other things.


You should, at any one time, see ONE System Partition and ONE Boot Volume -
and they may or may not be the SAME volume. Are they, in your system? But,
at another time, when you dual-boot into a different OS (WinXP?), the System
Partition should remain the same volume, but a different volume will have
the Boot status - and the volume that was labeled Boot before will now be
"just another volume". Well, it will no longer the Boot volume, but if it
was the System Partition (in Vista?), it still should have that status.
Remember the "Y": It stands on a single leg (the one System Partition) and
can branch to any one of multiple Boot Volumes - but only one at a time will
be the current boot volume.

I have downloaded VistaBootPro 3.3 is that all I need to download?
Is EasyBCD any better or they both do the same job? You haven't
made any reference to these utilities. Aside from that I think I'm just
about ready to go, ("good to go"). Thanks again for your help mate (in
the
U.S. I think you say "buddy"). Much appreciated.


I've used the third-party BCD managers just enough to know that I prefer to
use BCDEdit. Yes, it's clumsy and inscrutable and "techy", but I got
familiar with it during the Vista beta.

But you shouldn't need any 3rd-party programs. Just make up your mind and
go for it. You started this thread more than a week ago and you've received
nearly 2 dozen replies from nearly a dozen helpers. And you haven't
actually tried anything yet. You could read about "how to ride a bicycle"
for years but, until you actually get on the bike, you still won't
understand what the book is trying to tell you. And, until you actually try
to partition and format that new drive, you won't really understand Disk
Management. You'll understand it better after you've "crashed your bike" a
couple of times, recovered from the crash, and tried again.

Please don't send me an email about this. Netiquette frowns on email
responses to newsgroup posts. In email, only two parties can benefit; here
in the newsgroup, others can participate and learn or help, too. If my
answer is wrong or incomplete, someone here can correct or complete it. If
I give you bad advice in email, you're just stuck with it.

Good luck, Mate!

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 RC 7100

"DavidG" wrote in message
...
G'day RC,

You sound just like an Aussie.

To matters partitioning,

In disk management my computer shows

Disk 0 (C as 465GB NTFS (with Vista)
It is healthy with (System, Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump,

Primary Partition)

Disk 1 Storage (D as 698GB NTFS (just data storage)
Healthy (Primary Partition).

I haven't physically installed the 3rd XP disk yet. (I want to

make sure I understand exactly what I'm doing before I go messing

something up).

Having said that I'm sure I have enough information and support, I

just need to read over it all and absorb it.

I note that Disk Management has a first column called "Volume", but

I suspect this is at odds with what you have described, or is it?

What I've also gathered is there is a limit of 4 partitions to a

disk. But I can create an Extended Partition that can house

additional partitions. It appears that my Disk 0 has the System

Partition and Boot Volume as well as other things.

I have downloaded VistaBootPro 3.3 is that all I need to download?

Is EasyBCD any better or they both do the same job? You haven't

made any reference to these utilities. Aside from that I think I'm just
about ready to go, ("good to go"). Thanks again for your help mate (in
the
U.S. I think you say "buddy"). Much appreciated.



"R. C. White" wrote:

G'day, Mate! (Did I say that right? g )

The only reason I'm putting in the extra HDD
is because of the negatives I've heard about 2 OSs on 1 drive. Am I
misled?

The problem is in our often-imprecise use of the word "drive". Just like
many other words ("right" and "left" come to mind), this word means
different things at different times, depending on the context.

If "drive" means a single partition or logical drive, then the negatives
you've heard are very true.

But if "drive" means a physical hard disk drive, then I'm in big trouble
because I have SIX versions of Windows installed on my 1 TB Disk 1, my
second HDD! I'm currently running the Win7 x64 RC from the 9th logical
drive on that disk!

Rather than type it all over again, let me paste what I just typed in
another newsgroup. It's partly a repeat of what I just said - or said in
an
earlier post - but it seems to need the repetition:

paste
About "drive" letters: This is one of my pet peeves because it is one of
the hardest mindsets to break! "Drive" has many meanings, just like
"right"
and "left" and so many other English words. And in computer-speak, it
sometimes refers to the physical hardware, but more often to just a
partition - just a defined portion of the physical disk. Our often
cavalier
use of the word "drive" causes one of the biggest fallacies ingrained
into
the minds of new computer users - and the fallacy persists even in many
(most?) computer veterans. :(

"Drive" letters are never assigned to physical disks; those are assigned
NUMBERS, not letters. They start with zero, which is why Disk Management
calls the HDDs "Disk 0", "Disk 1", etc. Each "drive" letter actually is
assigned to a "volume", which can be either a primary partition or a
logical
drive in an extended partition on an HDD - or to a partition on a flash
drive (not the flash drive itself) or to a partition on a CD/DVD drive
(not
to the whole drive) or to a camera or a card reader. (I've never had a
network, but I understand that they also use "drive" letters.) But we
began
to refer to Drive A: way back when we first started to use floppy disks
in
the 1970's - and the term really did refer to the whole 67.5 KB diskette.
The name stuck when we added hard disk drives, reserving letters A: and
B:
for the typical two floppy drives and assigning Drive C: to THE hard
disk.
Then we learned how to divide the hard disk platter into "partitions" and
assign a different letter to each partition. But we continued to use the
term "drive" to refer to each of the partitions, rather than to the
entire
disk. When we began to need more than 4 partitions on a single disk, we
created one "extended partition" on the disk; we did not assign a letter
to
the extended partition, but we created one or more logical drives in the
extended partition and assigned a "drive" letter to each of those logical
drives. (We now often use the term "volume" to refer to either a primary
partition or a logical drive.) And then came optical drives, flash
drives
and all those other "drives".

If you run Disk Management, you will see this clearly in the Graphical
View.
Disk 0 might include 2 primary partitions and an extended partition with
3
logical drives. The "drive" letters might be F:, C:, X:, D:, R:... In
other words, the letters are independent of the sequence on the HDD. In
fact, there may not be a Drive C: at all - which blows the mindset I
mentioned, but is perfectly legal.

Vista changed the algorithm for assigning drive letters during Setup. In
WinXP, Setup first assigned Drive C: to the System Partition, which
usually
was also the boot volume. (See the oft-cited KB 314470 for the
counterintuitive definitions of "system volume" and "boot volume" -
legacy
terms that cause and perpetuate much confusion.) Then it assigned
letters
to the other partitions, optical drives, etc. Vista Setup, though, when
run
by booting from the Vista DVD, assigns Drive C: to its own boot volume,
which might be the 3rd partition on the second HDD! And then it assigns
other letters in sequence, starting over with the first primary partition
on
Disk 0, so it is quite probable that in a computer that already has an OS
installed, the System Partition will become Drive D:. This will NOT
confuse
the computer, or Vista or other Windows installations - or any
well-written
utility or application. But it WILL confuse any user who is bound by the
WinXP mindset. They will think it is "weird". :^}

We should always assign each volume a unique name (label), which will be
written to the disk and will be the same, no matter which OS is running,
and
no matter what "drive" letter is currently assigned.
/paste

Thanks for confirming that you have only a single partition on each of
your
HDDs. In that configuration, which is very typical, it's hard to see the
distinction between the whole drive and the partition that covers the
whole
drive. One analogy might be a house that has only a single big room.
When
you enter the house, you enter the room - and when you leave the room,
you're out of the house. But if that house has six rooms with six
outside
doors, you can enter Room 1 without even knowing that Room 3 exists. And
if
you've never seen a house with more than one room, you might have trouble
picturing one in your mind.

You really need to run Disk Management and study what it tells you about
your 3 HDDs. Hook 'em all up, then boot into Vista (or WinXP or
whichever
Windows is available) and run Disk Management. The easiest way is to
just
press Start, type "diskmgmt.msc" and press Enter. Maximize the window
and
the Status column so that you can see which is the System and Boot
volume(s). The Help file here is loaded with good information, but it
has
some flaws. First, this Help covers the entire Microsoft Management
Console
(MMC) and you want to focus on just the Disk Management parts. Second,
it
is organized as a reference, not as a text or tutorial, so you can't just
start at the beginning and read straight through. And, third, it covers
some advanced features that you and I don't need to know yet (like GPT
disks
and dynamic volumes), so we have to kind of "read around" those parts.
But
an hour spent in this Help file will tell you more than I can about how
your
hard disks are organized and can be used.

The 3rd volume is a Seagate Baracuda
500GB this is the one I propose installing and putting XP on.

No. That HDD is not a "volume". Once you use Disk Management to create
a
partition on it, that partition will be a "volume". That volume can be
any
size up to 500 GB, the whole HDD. But WinXP doesn't need nearly that
much
room.

If it were my system, I would first create a small partition (5 GB is way
more than big enough, but you have "more disk space than you'll ever
need",
right?) that I could use for a System Partition, but leave it formatted
and
empty; for now it's just a place holder. Then create a second partition;
30
GB is more than plenty; name it "WinXP Pro"; assign it any available
letter
that you like, let's say "X" for XP; format it NTFS. Now, while still in
Vista, insert the WinXP CD-ROM and run its Setup.exe to install WinXP to
your new Drive X:.

Caveat: I've not installed WinXP over Win7. Which WinXP you have? Is
SP3
included? Even SP3 does not know how to integrate with Vista or Win7.
With
any version of WinXP, you probably will need to boot from the Vista DVD
later and let it repair the System Partition - because you are violating
the
Golden Rule (newest system LAST) that I mentioned in my first post.

Now, reboot. It SHOULD start booting from your System Partition (still
the
only partition on your first HDD, which has Vista installed) and present
the
bootmgr menu with two choices (earlier and Vista). Choose Vista and
verify

  #26 (permalink)  
Old June 10th 09, 09:03 PM posted to microsoft.public.windows.vista.hardware_devices
R. C. White
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,871
Default Dual Boot Instructions

Hi, David.

I'm endeavouring to back up all my data, but I've had issues with the
backup


There are at least two reasons for using multiple partitions, and this is
the second. The first, of course, is to allow dual-booting by putting each
OS on a separate partition. The second is so that we can put our data files
in a "neutral" partition with NO OS at all. Then, when we want or need to
delete or update an OS, we can completely reformat Drive "Vista (V" (for
example) while our data remains safe and secure on Drive "Data (D". Then,
when we've reinstalled Vista or Win7 on V:, and reinstalled our applications
that use the data, we can immediately access the data without going through
the Restore process. After all, Word documents, for example, don't care
whether we are running WinXP or Vista or Win7, so long as Word is installed
in whichever OS we are using. We can easily start a letter while running
WinXP in the morning, then finish the same letter in Vista in the afternoon.
Just tell Word in each OS to use the same drive\folder for its data file.

When you install your new 750 GB HD for WinXP, make the WinXP partition just
50 GB. IF you've already created a single 750 GB partition, then either
Shrink it by 700 GB or delete it and start over. Then create a 700 GB
partition to use for your data. Move all your Word and Excel documents, all
your family photos, all your music and video files...all your data... to
this Data volume. Adjust these sizes and numbers to fit your own needs, of
course. It's the idea that is important, not the specific numbers.

Good luck. And let us know about your progress.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 RC 7100


"DavidG" wrote in message
...
G'day R.C.

Thanks for your advice. Sorry about the email.

You haven't studied Disk Management nearly enough! :^{


You are right, but I will have by the time I finish this exercise.

I could sit here and write a whole lot of "valid" reasons why I haven't
completed this job yet, but I guess we all have busy lives. So I won't.

I wish to thank you for being so patient and knowledgable, also the other
contributers to this post. The last post on this thread will be me saying
"I've completed the Job". And maybe I'll have more to comment on then.

I'm endeavouring to back up all my data, but I've had issues with the
backup
software, so I'm in conversations with the software vendor. Anyway,
that's
just a temp distraction. I will get there.

Thanks for your support,

Regards from down under,

David



You are looking only at the Volume List, which is at the top of the
window,
by default. Maybe you haven't Maximized the Disk Management window and
cannot see the Graphical View at the bottom of the window. The Graphical
View doesn't bother to put column headings, but the left-most column
shows
the PHYSICAL DISK number, not the partition (volume) letter.

It appears that my Disk 0 has the System
Partition and Boot Volume as well as other things.


You should, at any one time, see ONE System Partition and ONE Boot
Volume -
and they may or may not be the SAME volume. Are they, in your system?
But,
at another time, when you dual-boot into a different OS (WinXP?), the
System
Partition should remain the same volume, but a different volume will have
the Boot status - and the volume that was labeled Boot before will now be
"just another volume". Well, it will no longer the Boot volume, but if
it
was the System Partition (in Vista?), it still should have that status.
Remember the "Y": It stands on a single leg (the one System Partition)
and
can branch to any one of multiple Boot Volumes - but only one at a time
will
be the current boot volume.

I have downloaded VistaBootPro 3.3 is that all I need to download?
Is EasyBCD any better or they both do the same job? You haven't
made any reference to these utilities. Aside from that I think I'm
just
about ready to go, ("good to go"). Thanks again for your help mate (in
the
U.S. I think you say "buddy"). Much appreciated.


I've used the third-party BCD managers just enough to know that I prefer
to
use BCDEdit. Yes, it's clumsy and inscrutable and "techy", but I got
familiar with it during the Vista beta.

But you shouldn't need any 3rd-party programs. Just make up your mind
and
go for it. You started this thread more than a week ago and you've
received
nearly 2 dozen replies from nearly a dozen helpers. And you haven't
actually tried anything yet. You could read about "how to ride a
bicycle"
for years but, until you actually get on the bike, you still won't
understand what the book is trying to tell you. And, until you actually
try
to partition and format that new drive, you won't really understand Disk
Management. You'll understand it better after you've "crashed your bike"
a
couple of times, recovered from the crash, and tried again.

Please don't send me an email about this. Netiquette frowns on email
responses to newsgroup posts. In email, only two parties can benefit;
here
in the newsgroup, others can participate and learn or help, too. If my
answer is wrong or incomplete, someone here can correct or complete it.
If
I give you bad advice in email, you're just stuck with it.

Good luck, Mate!

RC

"DavidG" wrote in message
...
G'day RC,

You sound just like an Aussie.

To matters partitioning,

In disk management my computer shows

Disk 0 (C as 465GB NTFS (with Vista)
It is healthy with (System, Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump,

Primary Partition)

Disk 1 Storage (D as 698GB NTFS (just data storage)
Healthy (Primary Partition).

I haven't physically installed the 3rd XP disk yet. (I want to

make sure I understand exactly what I'm doing before I go messing

something up).

Having said that I'm sure I have enough information and support, I

just need to read over it all and absorb it.

I note that Disk Management has a first column called "Volume", but

I suspect this is at odds with what you have described, or is it?

What I've also gathered is there is a limit of 4 partitions to a

disk. But I can create an Extended Partition that can house

additional partitions. It appears that my Disk 0 has the System

Partition and Boot Volume as well as other things.

I have downloaded VistaBootPro 3.3 is that all I need to download?

Is EasyBCD any better or they both do the same job? You haven't

made any reference to these utilities. Aside from that I think I'm
just
about ready to go, ("good to go"). Thanks again for your help mate (in
the
U.S. I think you say "buddy"). Much appreciated.



"R. C. White" wrote:

G'day, Mate! (Did I say that right? g )

The only reason I'm putting in the extra HDD
is because of the negatives I've heard about 2 OSs on 1 drive. Am I
misled?

The problem is in our often-imprecise use of the word "drive". Just
like
many other words ("right" and "left" come to mind), this word means
different things at different times, depending on the context.

If "drive" means a single partition or logical drive, then the
negatives
you've heard are very true.

But if "drive" means a physical hard disk drive, then I'm in big
trouble
because I have SIX versions of Windows installed on my 1 TB Disk 1, my
second HDD! I'm currently running the Win7 x64 RC from the 9th
logical
drive on that disk!

Rather than type it all over again, let me paste what I just typed in
another newsgroup. It's partly a repeat of what I just said - or said
in
an
earlier post - but it seems to need the repetition:

paste
About "drive" letters: This is one of my pet peeves because it is one
of
the hardest mindsets to break! "Drive" has many meanings, just like
"right"
and "left" and so many other English words. And in computer-speak, it
sometimes refers to the physical hardware, but more often to just a
partition - just a defined portion of the physical disk. Our often
cavalier
use of the word "drive" causes one of the biggest fallacies ingrained
into
the minds of new computer users - and the fallacy persists even in
many
(most?) computer veterans. :(

"Drive" letters are never assigned to physical disks; those are
assigned
NUMBERS, not letters. They start with zero, which is why Disk
Management
calls the HDDs "Disk 0", "Disk 1", etc. Each "drive" letter actually
is
assigned to a "volume", which can be either a primary partition or a
logical
drive in an extended partition on an HDD - or to a partition on a
flash
drive (not the flash drive itself) or to a partition on a CD/DVD drive
(not
to the whole drive) or to a camera or a card reader. (I've never had
a
network, but I understand that they also use "drive" letters.) But we
began
to refer to Drive A: way back when we first started to use floppy
disks
in
the 1970's - and the term really did refer to the whole 67.5 KB
diskette.
The name stuck when we added hard disk drives, reserving letters A:
and
B:
for the typical two floppy drives and assigning Drive C: to THE hard
disk.
Then we learned how to divide the hard disk platter into "partitions"
and
assign a different letter to each partition. But we continued to use
the
term "drive" to refer to each of the partitions, rather than to the
entire
disk. When we began to need more than 4 partitions on a single disk,
we
created one "extended partition" on the disk; we did not assign a
letter
to
the extended partition, but we created one or more logical drives in
the
extended partition and assigned a "drive" letter to each of those
logical
drives. (We now often use the term "volume" to refer to either a
primary
partition or a logical drive.) And then came optical drives, flash
drives
and all those other "drives".

If you run Disk Management, you will see this clearly in the Graphical
View.
Disk 0 might include 2 primary partitions and an extended partition
with
3
logical drives. The "drive" letters might be F:, C:, X:, D:, R:...
In
other words, the letters are independent of the sequence on the HDD.
In
fact, there may not be a Drive C: at all - which blows the mindset I
mentioned, but is perfectly legal.

Vista changed the algorithm for assigning drive letters during Setup.
In
WinXP, Setup first assigned Drive C: to the System Partition, which
usually
was also the boot volume. (See the oft-cited KB 314470 for the
counterintuitive definitions of "system volume" and "boot volume" -
legacy
terms that cause and perpetuate much confusion.) Then it assigned
letters
to the other partitions, optical drives, etc. Vista Setup, though,
when
run
by booting from the Vista DVD, assigns Drive C: to its own boot
volume,
which might be the 3rd partition on the second HDD! And then it
assigns
other letters in sequence, starting over with the first primary
partition
on
Disk 0, so it is quite probable that in a computer that already has an
OS
installed, the System Partition will become Drive D:. This will NOT
confuse
the computer, or Vista or other Windows installations - or any
well-written
utility or application. But it WILL confuse any user who is bound by
the
WinXP mindset. They will think it is "weird". :^}

We should always assign each volume a unique name (label), which will
be
written to the disk and will be the same, no matter which OS is
running,
and
no matter what "drive" letter is currently assigned.
/paste

Thanks for confirming that you have only a single partition on each of
your
HDDs. In that configuration, which is very typical, it's hard to see
the
distinction between the whole drive and the partition that covers the
whole
drive. One analogy might be a house that has only a single big room.
When
you enter the house, you enter the room - and when you leave the room,
you're out of the house. But if that house has six rooms with six
outside
doors, you can enter Room 1 without even knowing that Room 3 exists.
And
if
you've never seen a house with more than one room, you might have
trouble
picturing one in your mind.

You really need to run Disk Management and study what it tells you
about
your 3 HDDs. Hook 'em all up, then boot into Vista (or WinXP or
whichever
Windows is available) and run Disk Management. The easiest way is to
just
press Start, type "diskmgmt.msc" and press Enter. Maximize the window
and
the Status column so that you can see which is the System and Boot
volume(s). The Help file here is loaded with good information, but it
has
some flaws. First, this Help covers the entire Microsoft Management
Console
(MMC) and you want to focus on just the Disk Management parts.
Second,
it
is organized as a reference, not as a text or tutorial, so you can't
just
start at the beginning and read straight through. And, third, it
covers
some advanced features that you and I don't need to know yet (like GPT
disks
and dynamic volumes), so we have to kind of "read around" those parts.
But
an hour spent in this Help file will tell you more than I can about
how
your
hard disks are organized and can be used.

The 3rd volume is a Seagate Baracuda
500GB this is the one I propose installing and putting XP on.

No. That HDD is not a "volume". Once you use Disk Management to
create
a
partition on it, that partition will be a "volume". That volume can
be
any
size up to 500 GB, the whole HDD. But WinXP doesn't need nearly that
much
room.

If it were my system, I would first create a small partition (5 GB is
way
more than big enough, but you have "more disk space than you'll ever
need",
right?) that I could use for a System Partition, but leave it
formatted
and
empty; for now it's just a place holder. Then create a second
partition;
30
GB is more than plenty; name it "WinXP Pro"; assign it any available
letter
that you like, let's say "X" for XP; format it NTFS. Now, while still
in
Vista, insert the WinXP CD-ROM and run its Setup.exe to install WinXP
to
your new Drive X:.

Caveat: I've not installed WinXP over Win7. Which WinXP you have?
Is
SP3
included? Even SP3 does not know how to integrate with Vista or Win7.
With
any version of WinXP, you probably will need to boot from the Vista
DVD
later and let it repair the System Partition - because you are
violating
the
Golden Rule (newest system LAST) that I mentioned in my first post.

Now, reboot. It SHOULD start booting from your System Partition
(still
the
only partition on your first HDD, which has Vista installed) and
present
the
bootmgr menu with two choices (earlier and Vista). Choose Vista and
verify


  #27 (permalink)  
Old June 13th 09, 07:10 AM posted to microsoft.public.windows.vista.hardware_devices
DavidG
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 16
Default Dual Boot Instructions

G'day,

I'm staring at a black screen which says "Error loading Operating System".

I'm wondering what went wrong. No matter which way I turn this error
message comes up. This why I have such low confidence in dealing with
activities like this. It always happens.

I faithfully followed instructions, or so I thought. I installed the
physical HDD. I booted to Vista and activated the new hdd. I created a
primary partition, I named the volume WinXP and assigned the drive letter X.
I then rebooted the machine and inserted the XP CD. It booted to setup and I
moved through the setup. When XP then went to reboot, as it rebooted, up
came the error message.

I have tried going through the process a number of times. One of the quirky
things I noticed when going through this the first time (installing XP) was
that when it offered me what drive to load it to, it didn't have X it offered
me E. I thought that was curious. Anyway, what could I do there is no
option to change it to X.

I'm suspecting that XP has installed it has corrupted the Vista
installation. But it seems the XP install is also corrupt. The only thing
that works on my computer now is the CD/DVD drive. I have rebooted off it
and I've selected a slow format of the E drive in a hope that may fix
something.

The only way I can communicate with the group is by using my laptop. Which
is slow and tedious. But at least it works. So I guess I have gone to prove
that no matter how much instruction you have, it ain't no guarantee.

There you go, any wisdom would be appreciated.
Regards
David G.




"R. C. White" wrote:

Hi, David.

I'm endeavouring to back up all my data, but I've had issues with the
backup


There are at least two reasons for using multiple partitions, and this is
the second. The first, of course, is to allow dual-booting by putting each
OS on a separate partition. The second is so that we can put our data files
in a "neutral" partition with NO OS at all. Then, when we want or need to
delete or update an OS, we can completely reformat Drive "Vista (V" (for
example) while our data remains safe and secure on Drive "Data (D". Then,
when we've reinstalled Vista or Win7 on V:, and reinstalled our applications
that use the data, we can immediately access the data without going through
the Restore process. After all, Word documents, for example, don't care
whether we are running WinXP or Vista or Win7, so long as Word is installed
in whichever OS we are using. We can easily start a letter while running
WinXP in the morning, then finish the same letter in Vista in the afternoon.
Just tell Word in each OS to use the same drive\folder for its data file.

When you install your new 750 GB HD for WinXP, make the WinXP partition just
50 GB. IF you've already created a single 750 GB partition, then either
Shrink it by 700 GB or delete it and start over. Then create a 700 GB
partition to use for your data. Move all your Word and Excel documents, all
your family photos, all your music and video files...all your data... to
this Data volume. Adjust these sizes and numbers to fit your own needs, of
course. It's the idea that is important, not the specific numbers.

Good luck. And let us know about your progress.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 RC 7100


"DavidG" wrote in message
...
G'day R.C.

Thanks for your advice. Sorry about the email.

You haven't studied Disk Management nearly enough! :^{


You are right, but I will have by the time I finish this exercise.

I could sit here and write a whole lot of "valid" reasons why I haven't
completed this job yet, but I guess we all have busy lives. So I won't.

I wish to thank you for being so patient and knowledgable, also the other
contributers to this post. The last post on this thread will be me saying
"I've completed the Job". And maybe I'll have more to comment on then.

I'm endeavouring to back up all my data, but I've had issues with the
backup
software, so I'm in conversations with the software vendor. Anyway,
that's
just a temp distraction. I will get there.

Thanks for your support,

Regards from down under,

David



You are looking only at the Volume List, which is at the top of the
window,
by default. Maybe you haven't Maximized the Disk Management window and
cannot see the Graphical View at the bottom of the window. The Graphical
View doesn't bother to put column headings, but the left-most column
shows
the PHYSICAL DISK number, not the partition (volume) letter.

It appears that my Disk 0 has the System
Partition and Boot Volume as well as other things.

You should, at any one time, see ONE System Partition and ONE Boot
Volume -
and they may or may not be the SAME volume. Are they, in your system?
But,
at another time, when you dual-boot into a different OS (WinXP?), the
System
Partition should remain the same volume, but a different volume will have
the Boot status - and the volume that was labeled Boot before will now be
"just another volume". Well, it will no longer the Boot volume, but if
it
was the System Partition (in Vista?), it still should have that status.
Remember the "Y": It stands on a single leg (the one System Partition)
and
can branch to any one of multiple Boot Volumes - but only one at a time
will
be the current boot volume.

I have downloaded VistaBootPro 3.3 is that all I need to download?
Is EasyBCD any better or they both do the same job? You haven't
made any reference to these utilities. Aside from that I think I'm
just
about ready to go, ("good to go"). Thanks again for your help mate (in
the
U.S. I think you say "buddy"). Much appreciated.

I've used the third-party BCD managers just enough to know that I prefer
to
use BCDEdit. Yes, it's clumsy and inscrutable and "techy", but I got
familiar with it during the Vista beta.

But you shouldn't need any 3rd-party programs. Just make up your mind
and
go for it. You started this thread more than a week ago and you've
received
nearly 2 dozen replies from nearly a dozen helpers. And you haven't
actually tried anything yet. You could read about "how to ride a
bicycle"
for years but, until you actually get on the bike, you still won't
understand what the book is trying to tell you. And, until you actually
try
to partition and format that new drive, you won't really understand Disk
Management. You'll understand it better after you've "crashed your bike"
a
couple of times, recovered from the crash, and tried again.

Please don't send me an email about this. Netiquette frowns on email
responses to newsgroup posts. In email, only two parties can benefit;
here
in the newsgroup, others can participate and learn or help, too. If my
answer is wrong or incomplete, someone here can correct or complete it.
If
I give you bad advice in email, you're just stuck with it.

Good luck, Mate!

RC

"DavidG" wrote in message
...
G'day RC,

You sound just like an Aussie.

To matters partitioning,

In disk management my computer shows

Disk 0 (C as 465GB NTFS (with Vista)
It is healthy with (System, Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump,

Primary Partition)

Disk 1 Storage (D as 698GB NTFS (just data storage)
Healthy (Primary Partition).

I haven't physically installed the 3rd XP disk yet. (I want to

make sure I understand exactly what I'm doing before I go messing

something up).

Having said that I'm sure I have enough information and support, I

just need to read over it all and absorb it.

I note that Disk Management has a first column called "Volume", but

I suspect this is at odds with what you have described, or is it?

What I've also gathered is there is a limit of 4 partitions to a

disk. But I can create an Extended Partition that can house

additional partitions. It appears that my Disk 0 has the System

Partition and Boot Volume as well as other things.

I have downloaded VistaBootPro 3.3 is that all I need to download?

Is EasyBCD any better or they both do the same job? You haven't

made any reference to these utilities. Aside from that I think I'm
just
about ready to go, ("good to go"). Thanks again for your help mate (in
the
U.S. I think you say "buddy"). Much appreciated.



"R. C. White" wrote:

G'day, Mate! (Did I say that right? g )

The only reason I'm putting in the extra HDD
is because of the negatives I've heard about 2 OSs on 1 drive. Am I
misled?

The problem is in our often-imprecise use of the word "drive". Just
like
many other words ("right" and "left" come to mind), this word means
different things at different times, depending on the context.

If "drive" means a single partition or logical drive, then the
negatives
you've heard are very true.

But if "drive" means a physical hard disk drive, then I'm in big
trouble
because I have SIX versions of Windows installed on my 1 TB Disk 1, my
second HDD! I'm currently running the Win7 x64 RC from the 9th
logical
drive on that disk!

Rather than type it all over again, let me paste what I just typed in
another newsgroup. It's partly a repeat of what I just said - or said
in
an
earlier post - but it seems to need the repetition:

paste
About "drive" letters: This is one of my pet peeves because it is one
of
the hardest mindsets to break! "Drive" has many meanings, just like
"right"
and "left" and so many other English words. And in computer-speak, it
sometimes refers to the physical hardware, but more often to just a
partition - just a defined portion of the physical disk. Our often
cavalier
use of the word "drive" causes one of the biggest fallacies ingrained
into
the minds of new computer users - and the fallacy persists even in
many
(most?) computer veterans. :(

"Drive" letters are never assigned to physical disks; those are
assigned
NUMBERS, not letters. They start with zero, which is why Disk
Management
calls the HDDs "Disk 0", "Disk 1", etc. Each "drive" letter actually
is
assigned to a "volume", which can be either a primary partition or a
logical
drive in an extended partition on an HDD - or to a partition on a
flash
drive (not the flash drive itself) or to a partition on a CD/DVD drive
(not
to the whole drive) or to a camera or a card reader. (I've never had
a
network, but I understand that they also use "drive" letters.) But we
began
to refer to Drive A: way back when we first started to use floppy
disks
in
the 1970's - and the term really did refer to the whole 67.5 KB
diskette.
The name stuck when we added hard disk drives, reserving letters A:
and
B:
for the typical two floppy drives and assigning Drive C: to THE hard
disk.
Then we learned how to divide the hard disk platter into "partitions"
and
assign a different letter to each partition. But we continued to use
the
term "drive" to refer to each of the partitions, rather than to the
entire
disk. When we began to need more than 4 partitions on a single disk,
we
created one "extended partition" on the disk; we did not assign a
letter
to
the extended partition, but we created one or more logical drives in
the
extended partition and assigned a "drive" letter to each of those
logical
drives. (We now often use the term "volume" to refer to either a
primary
partition or a logical drive.) And then came optical drives, flash
drives
and all those other "drives".

If you run Disk Management, you will see this clearly in the Graphical
View.
Disk 0 might include 2 primary partitions and an extended partition
with
3
logical drives. The "drive" letters might be F:, C:, X:, D:, R:...
In
other words, the letters are independent of the sequence on the HDD.
In
fact, there may not be a Drive C: at all - which blows the mindset I
mentioned, but is perfectly legal.

Vista changed the algorithm for assigning drive letters during Setup.
In
WinXP, Setup first assigned Drive C: to the System Partition, which
usually
was also the boot volume. (See the oft-cited KB 314470 for the
counterintuitive definitions of "system volume" and "boot volume" -
legacy

  #28 (permalink)  
Old June 13th 09, 12:46 PM posted to microsoft.public.windows.vista.hardware_devices
DavidG
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 16
Default Dual Boot Instructions

Further to my last posting, I've been able to re-install Vista, back to
square one. I endeavoured to use the repair function with Vista install, but
it failed to repair the corrupt boot sector. So Vista advised me that it now
takes the old corrupted install and removes it to a Windows.old folder.

So now i have Vista with a lot of programs and updates to reinstall as well
as a new hdd with nothing but a corrupt Win XP installation on it. I'm now
figuring if I went with the simple install i.e. disconnect Vista sata from
m'board and install XP that way, which was suggested at the first posting on
this thread.

Then the issue will be how do I have both of these hdds connected to the
m'board and not have XP corrupt the Vista bootloader?

That's it for now,
Thanks
David G.

"R. C. White" wrote:

Hi, David.

I'm endeavouring to back up all my data, but I've had issues with the
backup


There are at least two reasons for using multiple partitions, and this is
the second. The first, of course, is to allow dual-booting by putting each
OS on a separate partition. The second is so that we can put our data files
in a "neutral" partition with NO OS at all. Then, when we want or need to
delete or update an OS, we can completely reformat Drive "Vista (V" (for
example) while our data remains safe and secure on Drive "Data (D". Then,
when we've reinstalled Vista or Win7 on V:, and reinstalled our applications
that use the data, we can immediately access the data without going through
the Restore process. After all, Word documents, for example, don't care
whether we are running WinXP or Vista or Win7, so long as Word is installed
in whichever OS we are using. We can easily start a letter while running
WinXP in the morning, then finish the same letter in Vista in the afternoon.
Just tell Word in each OS to use the same drive\folder for its data file.

When you install your new 750 GB HD for WinXP, make the WinXP partition just
50 GB. IF you've already created a single 750 GB partition, then either
Shrink it by 700 GB or delete it and start over. Then create a 700 GB
partition to use for your data. Move all your Word and Excel documents, all
your family photos, all your music and video files...all your data... to
this Data volume. Adjust these sizes and numbers to fit your own needs, of
course. It's the idea that is important, not the specific numbers.

Good luck. And let us know about your progress.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 RC 7100


"DavidG" wrote in message
...
G'day R.C.

Thanks for your advice. Sorry about the email.

You haven't studied Disk Management nearly enough! :^{


You are right, but I will have by the time I finish this exercise.

I could sit here and write a whole lot of "valid" reasons why I haven't
completed this job yet, but I guess we all have busy lives. So I won't.

I wish to thank you for being so patient and knowledgable, also the other
contributers to this post. The last post on this thread will be me saying
"I've completed the Job". And maybe I'll have more to comment on then.

I'm endeavouring to back up all my data, but I've had issues with the
backup
software, so I'm in conversations with the software vendor. Anyway,
that's
just a temp distraction. I will get there.

Thanks for your support,

Regards from down under,

David



You are looking only at the Volume List, which is at the top of the
window,
by default. Maybe you haven't Maximized the Disk Management window and
cannot see the Graphical View at the bottom of the window. The Graphical
View doesn't bother to put column headings, but the left-most column
shows
the PHYSICAL DISK number, not the partition (volume) letter.

It appears that my Disk 0 has the System
Partition and Boot Volume as well as other things.

You should, at any one time, see ONE System Partition and ONE Boot
Volume -
and they may or may not be the SAME volume. Are they, in your system?
But,
at another time, when you dual-boot into a different OS (WinXP?), the
System
Partition should remain the same volume, but a different volume will have
the Boot status - and the volume that was labeled Boot before will now be
"just another volume". Well, it will no longer the Boot volume, but if
it
was the System Partition (in Vista?), it still should have that status.
Remember the "Y": It stands on a single leg (the one System Partition)
and
can branch to any one of multiple Boot Volumes - but only one at a time
will
be the current boot volume.

I have downloaded VistaBootPro 3.3 is that all I need to download?
Is EasyBCD any better or they both do the same job? You haven't
made any reference to these utilities. Aside from that I think I'm
just
about ready to go, ("good to go"). Thanks again for your help mate (in
the
U.S. I think you say "buddy"). Much appreciated.

I've used the third-party BCD managers just enough to know that I prefer
to
use BCDEdit. Yes, it's clumsy and inscrutable and "techy", but I got
familiar with it during the Vista beta.

But you shouldn't need any 3rd-party programs. Just make up your mind
and
go for it. You started this thread more than a week ago and you've
received
nearly 2 dozen replies from nearly a dozen helpers. And you haven't
actually tried anything yet. You could read about "how to ride a
bicycle"
for years but, until you actually get on the bike, you still won't
understand what the book is trying to tell you. And, until you actually
try
to partition and format that new drive, you won't really understand Disk
Management. You'll understand it better after you've "crashed your bike"
a
couple of times, recovered from the crash, and tried again.

Please don't send me an email about this. Netiquette frowns on email
responses to newsgroup posts. In email, only two parties can benefit;
here
in the newsgroup, others can participate and learn or help, too. If my
answer is wrong or incomplete, someone here can correct or complete it.
If
I give you bad advice in email, you're just stuck with it.

Good luck, Mate!

RC

"DavidG" wrote in message
...
G'day RC,

You sound just like an Aussie.

To matters partitioning,

In disk management my computer shows

Disk 0 (C as 465GB NTFS (with Vista)
It is healthy with (System, Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump,

Primary Partition)

Disk 1 Storage (D as 698GB NTFS (just data storage)
Healthy (Primary Partition).

I haven't physically installed the 3rd XP disk yet. (I want to

make sure I understand exactly what I'm doing before I go messing

something up).

Having said that I'm sure I have enough information and support, I

just need to read over it all and absorb it.

I note that Disk Management has a first column called "Volume", but

I suspect this is at odds with what you have described, or is it?

What I've also gathered is there is a limit of 4 partitions to a

disk. But I can create an Extended Partition that can house

additional partitions. It appears that my Disk 0 has the System

Partition and Boot Volume as well as other things.

I have downloaded VistaBootPro 3.3 is that all I need to download?

Is EasyBCD any better or they both do the same job? You haven't

made any reference to these utilities. Aside from that I think I'm
just
about ready to go, ("good to go"). Thanks again for your help mate (in
the
U.S. I think you say "buddy"). Much appreciated.



"R. C. White" wrote:

G'day, Mate! (Did I say that right? g )

The only reason I'm putting in the extra HDD
is because of the negatives I've heard about 2 OSs on 1 drive. Am I
misled?

The problem is in our often-imprecise use of the word "drive". Just
like
many other words ("right" and "left" come to mind), this word means
different things at different times, depending on the context.

If "drive" means a single partition or logical drive, then the
negatives
you've heard are very true.

But if "drive" means a physical hard disk drive, then I'm in big
trouble
because I have SIX versions of Windows installed on my 1 TB Disk 1, my
second HDD! I'm currently running the Win7 x64 RC from the 9th
logical
drive on that disk!

Rather than type it all over again, let me paste what I just typed in
another newsgroup. It's partly a repeat of what I just said - or said
in
an
earlier post - but it seems to need the repetition:

paste
About "drive" letters: This is one of my pet peeves because it is one
of
the hardest mindsets to break! "Drive" has many meanings, just like
"right"
and "left" and so many other English words. And in computer-speak, it
sometimes refers to the physical hardware, but more often to just a
partition - just a defined portion of the physical disk. Our often
cavalier
use of the word "drive" causes one of the biggest fallacies ingrained
into
the minds of new computer users - and the fallacy persists even in
many
(most?) computer veterans. :(

"Drive" letters are never assigned to physical disks; those are
assigned
NUMBERS, not letters. They start with zero, which is why Disk
Management
calls the HDDs "Disk 0", "Disk 1", etc. Each "drive" letter actually
is
assigned to a "volume", which can be either a primary partition or a
logical
drive in an extended partition on an HDD - or to a partition on a
flash
drive (not the flash drive itself) or to a partition on a CD/DVD drive
(not
to the whole drive) or to a camera or a card reader. (I've never had
a
network, but I understand that they also use "drive" letters.) But we
began
to refer to Drive A: way back when we first started to use floppy
disks
in
the 1970's - and the term really did refer to the whole 67.5 KB
diskette.
The name stuck when we added hard disk drives, reserving letters A:
and
B:
for the typical two floppy drives and assigning Drive C: to THE hard
disk.
Then we learned how to divide the hard disk platter into "partitions"
and
assign a different letter to each partition. But we continued to use
the
term "drive" to refer to each of the partitions, rather than to the
entire
disk. When we began to need more than 4 partitions on a single disk,
we
created one "extended partition" on the disk; we did not assign a
letter
to
the extended partition, but we created one or more logical drives in
the
extended partition and assigned a "drive" letter to each of those
logical
drives. (We now often use the term "volume" to refer to either a
primary
partition or a logical drive.) And then came optical drives, flash
drives
and all those other "drives".

If you run Disk Management, you will see this clearly in the Graphical
View.
Disk 0 might include 2 primary partitions and an extended partition
with
3
logical drives. The "drive" letters might be F:, C:, X:, D:, R:...
In
other words, the letters are independent of the sequence on the HDD.
In
fact, there may not be a Drive C: at all - which blows the mindset I
mentioned, but is perfectly legal.

Vista changed the algorithm for assigning drive letters during Setup.
In
WinXP, Setup first assigned Drive C: to the System Partition, which
usually
was also the boot volume. (See the oft-cited KB 314470 for the
counterintuitive definitions of "system volume" and "boot volume" -
legacy

  #29 (permalink)  
Old June 14th 09, 10:49 AM posted to microsoft.public.windows.vista.hardware_devices
Andy
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 117
Default Dual Boot Instructions

On Sat, 13 Jun 2009 00:10:01 -0700, DavidG
wrote:

G'day,

I'm staring at a black screen which says "Error loading Operating System".


This messages comes from the MBR and is caused by an invalid boot
sector in the active primary partition..
http://bootmaster.filerecovery.biz/appnote4.html


I'm wondering what went wrong. No matter which way I turn this error
message comes up. This why I have such low confidence in dealing with
activities like this. It always happens.

I faithfully followed instructions, or so I thought. I installed the
physical HDD. I booted to Vista and activated the new hdd. I created a
primary partition, I named the volume WinXP and assigned the drive letter X.
I then rebooted the machine and inserted the XP CD. It booted to setup and I
moved through the setup. When XP then went to reboot, as it rebooted, up
came the error message.


For some reason, it seems that Windows XP setup is not writing its
boot sector on the Vista partition correctly.


I have tried going through the process a number of times. One of the quirky
things I noticed when going through this the first time (installing XP) was
that when it offered me what drive to load it to, it didn't have X it offered
me E. I thought that was curious. Anyway, what could I do there is no
option to change it to X.


Drive letters are unique to the operating system that is running.
Another operating system may assign drive letters differently.


I'm suspecting that XP has installed it has corrupted the Vista
installation. But it seems the XP install is also corrupt. The only thing
that works on my computer now is the CD/DVD drive. I have rebooted off it
and I've selected a slow format of the E drive in a hope that may fix
something.

The only way I can communicate with the group is by using my laptop. Which
is slow and tedious. But at least it works. So I guess I have gone to prove
that no matter how much instruction you have, it ain't no guarantee.

There you go, any wisdom would be appreciated.
Regards
David G.




"R. C. White" wrote:

Hi, David.

I'm endeavouring to back up all my data, but I've had issues with the
backup


There are at least two reasons for using multiple partitions, and this is
the second. The first, of course, is to allow dual-booting by putting each
OS on a separate partition. The second is so that we can put our data files
in a "neutral" partition with NO OS at all. Then, when we want or need to
delete or update an OS, we can completely reformat Drive "Vista (V" (for
example) while our data remains safe and secure on Drive "Data (D". Then,
when we've reinstalled Vista or Win7 on V:, and reinstalled our applications
that use the data, we can immediately access the data without going through
the Restore process. After all, Word documents, for example, don't care
whether we are running WinXP or Vista or Win7, so long as Word is installed
in whichever OS we are using. We can easily start a letter while running
WinXP in the morning, then finish the same letter in Vista in the afternoon.
Just tell Word in each OS to use the same drive\folder for its data file.

When you install your new 750 GB HD for WinXP, make the WinXP partition just
50 GB. IF you've already created a single 750 GB partition, then either
Shrink it by 700 GB or delete it and start over. Then create a 700 GB
partition to use for your data. Move all your Word and Excel documents, all
your family photos, all your music and video files...all your data... to
this Data volume. Adjust these sizes and numbers to fit your own needs, of
course. It's the idea that is important, not the specific numbers.

Good luck. And let us know about your progress.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 RC 7100


"DavidG" wrote in message
...
G'day R.C.

Thanks for your advice. Sorry about the email.

You haven't studied Disk Management nearly enough! :^{

You are right, but I will have by the time I finish this exercise.

I could sit here and write a whole lot of "valid" reasons why I haven't
completed this job yet, but I guess we all have busy lives. So I won't.

I wish to thank you for being so patient and knowledgable, also the other
contributers to this post. The last post on this thread will be me saying
"I've completed the Job". And maybe I'll have more to comment on then.

I'm endeavouring to back up all my data, but I've had issues with the
backup
software, so I'm in conversations with the software vendor. Anyway,
that's
just a temp distraction. I will get there.

Thanks for your support,

Regards from down under,

David



You are looking only at the Volume List, which is at the top of the
window,
by default. Maybe you haven't Maximized the Disk Management window and
cannot see the Graphical View at the bottom of the window. The Graphical
View doesn't bother to put column headings, but the left-most column
shows
the PHYSICAL DISK number, not the partition (volume) letter.

It appears that my Disk 0 has the System
Partition and Boot Volume as well as other things.

You should, at any one time, see ONE System Partition and ONE Boot
Volume -
and they may or may not be the SAME volume. Are they, in your system?
But,
at another time, when you dual-boot into a different OS (WinXP?), the
System
Partition should remain the same volume, but a different volume will have
the Boot status - and the volume that was labeled Boot before will now be
"just another volume". Well, it will no longer the Boot volume, but if
it
was the System Partition (in Vista?), it still should have that status.
Remember the "Y": It stands on a single leg (the one System Partition)
and
can branch to any one of multiple Boot Volumes - but only one at a time
will
be the current boot volume.

I have downloaded VistaBootPro 3.3 is that all I need to download?
Is EasyBCD any better or they both do the same job? You haven't
made any reference to these utilities. Aside from that I think I'm
just
about ready to go, ("good to go"). Thanks again for your help mate (in
the
U.S. I think you say "buddy"). Much appreciated.

I've used the third-party BCD managers just enough to know that I prefer
to
use BCDEdit. Yes, it's clumsy and inscrutable and "techy", but I got
familiar with it during the Vista beta.

But you shouldn't need any 3rd-party programs. Just make up your mind
and
go for it. You started this thread more than a week ago and you've
received
nearly 2 dozen replies from nearly a dozen helpers. And you haven't
actually tried anything yet. You could read about "how to ride a
bicycle"
for years but, until you actually get on the bike, you still won't
understand what the book is trying to tell you. And, until you actually
try
to partition and format that new drive, you won't really understand Disk
Management. You'll understand it better after you've "crashed your bike"
a
couple of times, recovered from the crash, and tried again.

Please don't send me an email about this. Netiquette frowns on email
responses to newsgroup posts. In email, only two parties can benefit;
here
in the newsgroup, others can participate and learn or help, too. If my
answer is wrong or incomplete, someone here can correct or complete it.
If
I give you bad advice in email, you're just stuck with it.

Good luck, Mate!

RC

"DavidG" wrote in message
...
G'day RC,

You sound just like an Aussie.

To matters partitioning,

In disk management my computer shows

Disk 0 (C as 465GB NTFS (with Vista)
It is healthy with (System, Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump,

Primary Partition)

Disk 1 Storage (D as 698GB NTFS (just data storage)
Healthy (Primary Partition).

I haven't physically installed the 3rd XP disk yet. (I want to

make sure I understand exactly what I'm doing before I go messing

something up).

Having said that I'm sure I have enough information and support, I

just need to read over it all and absorb it.

I note that Disk Management has a first column called "Volume", but

I suspect this is at odds with what you have described, or is it?

What I've also gathered is there is a limit of 4 partitions to a

disk. But I can create an Extended Partition that can house

additional partitions. It appears that my Disk 0 has the System

Partition and Boot Volume as well as other things.

I have downloaded VistaBootPro 3.3 is that all I need to download?

Is EasyBCD any better or they both do the same job? You haven't

made any reference to these utilities. Aside from that I think I'm
just
about ready to go, ("good to go"). Thanks again for your help mate (in
the
U.S. I think you say "buddy"). Much appreciated.



"R. C. White" wrote:

G'day, Mate! (Did I say that right? g )

The only reason I'm putting in the extra HDD
is because of the negatives I've heard about 2 OSs on 1 drive. Am I
misled?

The problem is in our often-imprecise use of the word "drive". Just
like
many other words ("right" and "left" come to mind), this word means
different things at different times, depending on the context.

If "drive" means a single partition or logical drive, then the
negatives
you've heard are very true.

But if "drive" means a physical hard disk drive, then I'm in big
trouble
because I have SIX versions of Windows installed on my 1 TB Disk 1, my
second HDD! I'm currently running the Win7 x64 RC from the 9th
logical
drive on that disk!

Rather than type it all over again, let me paste what I just typed in
another newsgroup. It's partly a repeat of what I just said - or said
in
an
earlier post - but it seems to need the repetition:

paste
About "drive" letters: This is one of my pet peeves because it is one
of
the hardest mindsets to break! "Drive" has many meanings, just like
"right"
and "left" and so many other English words. And in computer-speak, it
sometimes refers to the physical hardware, but more often to just a
partition - just a defined portion of the physical disk. Our often
cavalier
use of the word "drive" causes one of the biggest fallacies ingrained
into
the minds of new computer users - and the fallacy persists even in
many
(most?) computer veterans. :(

"Drive" letters are never assigned to physical disks; those are
assigned
NUMBERS, not letters. They start with zero, which is why Disk
Management
calls the HDDs "Disk 0", "Disk 1", etc. Each "drive" letter actually
is
assigned to a "volume", which can be either a primary partition or a
logical
drive in an extended partition on an HDD - or to a partition on a
flash
drive (not the flash drive itself) or to a partition on a CD/DVD drive
(not
to the whole drive) or to a camera or a card reader. (I've never had
a
network, but I understand that they also use "drive" letters.) But we
began
to refer to Drive A: way back when we first started to use floppy
disks
in
the 1970's - and the term really did refer to the whole 67.5 KB
diskette.
The name stuck when we added hard disk drives, reserving letters A:
and
B:
for the typical two floppy drives and assigning Drive C: to THE hard
disk.
Then we learned how to divide the hard disk platter into "partitions"
and
assign a different letter to each partition. But we continued to use
the
term "drive" to refer to each of the partitions, rather than to the
entire
disk. When we began to need more than 4 partitions on a single disk,
we
created one "extended partition" on the disk; we did not assign a
letter
to
the extended partition, but we created one or more logical drives in
the
extended partition and assigned a "drive" letter to each of those
logical
drives. (We now often use the term "volume" to refer to either a
primary
partition or a logical drive.) And then came optical drives, flash
drives
and all those other "drives".

If you run Disk Management, you will see this clearly in the Graphical
View.
Disk 0 might include 2 primary partitions and an extended partition
with
3
logical drives. The "drive" letters might be F:, C:, X:, D:, R:...
In
other words, the letters are independent of the sequence on the HDD.
In
fact, there may not be a Drive C: at all - which blows the mindset I
mentioned, but is perfectly legal.

Vista changed the algorithm for assigning drive letters during Setup.
In
WinXP, Setup first assigned Drive C: to the System Partition, which
usually
was also the boot volume. (See the oft-cited KB 314470 for the
counterintuitive definitions of "system volume" and "boot volume" -
legacy

  #30 (permalink)  
Old June 14th 09, 10:59 AM posted to microsoft.public.windows.vista.hardware_devices
Andy
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 117
Default Dual Boot Instructions

On Sat, 13 Jun 2009 05:46:01 -0700, DavidG
wrote:

Further to my last posting, I've been able to re-install Vista, back to
square one. I endeavoured to use the repair function with Vista install, but
it failed to repair the corrupt boot sector. So Vista advised me that it now
takes the old corrupted install and removes it to a Windows.old folder.


The easiest and most straightfoward way to rewrite the boot sector is
to use the bootsect.exe utility that is on the Vista DVD.


So now i have Vista with a lot of programs and updates to reinstall as well
as a new hdd with nothing but a corrupt Win XP installation on it. I'm now
figuring if I went with the simple install i.e. disconnect Vista sata from
m'board and install XP that way, which was suggested at the first posting on
this thread.

Then the issue will be how do I have both of these hdds connected to the
m'board and not have XP corrupt the Vista bootloader?


XP in and of itself will not corrupt Vista's boot sector. If you
really want to learn what's happening, you have to take a look at the
boot sector when you get the Error loading operating system message.


That's it for now,
Thanks
David G.

"R. C. White" wrote:

Hi, David.

I'm endeavouring to back up all my data, but I've had issues with the
backup


There are at least two reasons for using multiple partitions, and this is
the second. The first, of course, is to allow dual-booting by putting each
OS on a separate partition. The second is so that we can put our data files
in a "neutral" partition with NO OS at all. Then, when we want or need to
delete or update an OS, we can completely reformat Drive "Vista (V" (for
example) while our data remains safe and secure on Drive "Data (D". Then,
when we've reinstalled Vista or Win7 on V:, and reinstalled our applications
that use the data, we can immediately access the data without going through
the Restore process. After all, Word documents, for example, don't care
whether we are running WinXP or Vista or Win7, so long as Word is installed
in whichever OS we are using. We can easily start a letter while running
WinXP in the morning, then finish the same letter in Vista in the afternoon.
Just tell Word in each OS to use the same drive\folder for its data file.

When you install your new 750 GB HD for WinXP, make the WinXP partition just
50 GB. IF you've already created a single 750 GB partition, then either
Shrink it by 700 GB or delete it and start over. Then create a 700 GB
partition to use for your data. Move all your Word and Excel documents, all
your family photos, all your music and video files...all your data... to
this Data volume. Adjust these sizes and numbers to fit your own needs, of
course. It's the idea that is important, not the specific numbers.

Good luck. And let us know about your progress.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 RC 7100


"DavidG" wrote in message
...
G'day R.C.

Thanks for your advice. Sorry about the email.

You haven't studied Disk Management nearly enough! :^{

You are right, but I will have by the time I finish this exercise.

I could sit here and write a whole lot of "valid" reasons why I haven't
completed this job yet, but I guess we all have busy lives. So I won't.

I wish to thank you for being so patient and knowledgable, also the other
contributers to this post. The last post on this thread will be me saying
"I've completed the Job". And maybe I'll have more to comment on then.

I'm endeavouring to back up all my data, but I've had issues with the
backup
software, so I'm in conversations with the software vendor. Anyway,
that's
just a temp distraction. I will get there.

Thanks for your support,

Regards from down under,

David



You are looking only at the Volume List, which is at the top of the
window,
by default. Maybe you haven't Maximized the Disk Management window and
cannot see the Graphical View at the bottom of the window. The Graphical
View doesn't bother to put column headings, but the left-most column
shows
the PHYSICAL DISK number, not the partition (volume) letter.

It appears that my Disk 0 has the System
Partition and Boot Volume as well as other things.

You should, at any one time, see ONE System Partition and ONE Boot
Volume -
and they may or may not be the SAME volume. Are they, in your system?
But,
at another time, when you dual-boot into a different OS (WinXP?), the
System
Partition should remain the same volume, but a different volume will have
the Boot status - and the volume that was labeled Boot before will now be
"just another volume". Well, it will no longer the Boot volume, but if
it
was the System Partition (in Vista?), it still should have that status.
Remember the "Y": It stands on a single leg (the one System Partition)
and
can branch to any one of multiple Boot Volumes - but only one at a time
will
be the current boot volume.

I have downloaded VistaBootPro 3.3 is that all I need to download?
Is EasyBCD any better or they both do the same job? You haven't
made any reference to these utilities. Aside from that I think I'm
just
about ready to go, ("good to go"). Thanks again for your help mate (in
the
U.S. I think you say "buddy"). Much appreciated.

I've used the third-party BCD managers just enough to know that I prefer
to
use BCDEdit. Yes, it's clumsy and inscrutable and "techy", but I got
familiar with it during the Vista beta.

But you shouldn't need any 3rd-party programs. Just make up your mind
and
go for it. You started this thread more than a week ago and you've
received
nearly 2 dozen replies from nearly a dozen helpers. And you haven't
actually tried anything yet. You could read about "how to ride a
bicycle"
for years but, until you actually get on the bike, you still won't
understand what the book is trying to tell you. And, until you actually
try
to partition and format that new drive, you won't really understand Disk
Management. You'll understand it better after you've "crashed your bike"
a
couple of times, recovered from the crash, and tried again.

Please don't send me an email about this. Netiquette frowns on email
responses to newsgroup posts. In email, only two parties can benefit;
here
in the newsgroup, others can participate and learn or help, too. If my
answer is wrong or incomplete, someone here can correct or complete it.
If
I give you bad advice in email, you're just stuck with it.

Good luck, Mate!

RC

"DavidG" wrote in message
...
G'day RC,

You sound just like an Aussie.

To matters partitioning,

In disk management my computer shows

Disk 0 (C as 465GB NTFS (with Vista)
It is healthy with (System, Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump,

Primary Partition)

Disk 1 Storage (D as 698GB NTFS (just data storage)
Healthy (Primary Partition).

I haven't physically installed the 3rd XP disk yet. (I want to

make sure I understand exactly what I'm doing before I go messing

something up).

Having said that I'm sure I have enough information and support, I

just need to read over it all and absorb it.

I note that Disk Management has a first column called "Volume", but

I suspect this is at odds with what you have described, or is it?

What I've also gathered is there is a limit of 4 partitions to a

disk. But I can create an Extended Partition that can house

additional partitions. It appears that my Disk 0 has the System

Partition and Boot Volume as well as other things.

I have downloaded VistaBootPro 3.3 is that all I need to download?

Is EasyBCD any better or they both do the same job? You haven't

made any reference to these utilities. Aside from that I think I'm
just
about ready to go, ("good to go"). Thanks again for your help mate (in
the
U.S. I think you say "buddy"). Much appreciated.



"R. C. White" wrote:

G'day, Mate! (Did I say that right? g )

The only reason I'm putting in the extra HDD
is because of the negatives I've heard about 2 OSs on 1 drive. Am I
misled?

The problem is in our often-imprecise use of the word "drive". Just
like
many other words ("right" and "left" come to mind), this word means
different things at different times, depending on the context.

If "drive" means a single partition or logical drive, then the
negatives
you've heard are very true.

But if "drive" means a physical hard disk drive, then I'm in big
trouble
because I have SIX versions of Windows installed on my 1 TB Disk 1, my
second HDD! I'm currently running the Win7 x64 RC from the 9th
logical
drive on that disk!

Rather than type it all over again, let me paste what I just typed in
another newsgroup. It's partly a repeat of what I just said - or said
in
an
earlier post - but it seems to need the repetition:

paste
About "drive" letters: This is one of my pet peeves because it is one
of
the hardest mindsets to break! "Drive" has many meanings, just like
"right"
and "left" and so many other English words. And in computer-speak, it
sometimes refers to the physical hardware, but more often to just a
partition - just a defined portion of the physical disk. Our often
cavalier
use of the word "drive" causes one of the biggest fallacies ingrained
into
the minds of new computer users - and the fallacy persists even in
many
(most?) computer veterans. :(

"Drive" letters are never assigned to physical disks; those are
assigned
NUMBERS, not letters. They start with zero, which is why Disk
Management
calls the HDDs "Disk 0", "Disk 1", etc. Each "drive" letter actually
is
assigned to a "volume", which can be either a primary partition or a
logical
drive in an extended partition on an HDD - or to a partition on a
flash
drive (not the flash drive itself) or to a partition on a CD/DVD drive
(not
to the whole drive) or to a camera or a card reader. (I've never had
a
network, but I understand that they also use "drive" letters.) But we
began
to refer to Drive A: way back when we first started to use floppy
disks
in
the 1970's - and the term really did refer to the whole 67.5 KB
diskette.
The name stuck when we added hard disk drives, reserving letters A:
and
B:
for the typical two floppy drives and assigning Drive C: to THE hard
disk.
Then we learned how to divide the hard disk platter into "partitions"
and
assign a different letter to each partition. But we continued to use
the
term "drive" to refer to each of the partitions, rather than to the
entire
disk. When we began to need more than 4 partitions on a single disk,
we
created one "extended partition" on the disk; we did not assign a
letter
to
the extended partition, but we created one or more logical drives in
the
extended partition and assigned a "drive" letter to each of those
logical
drives. (We now often use the term "volume" to refer to either a
primary
partition or a logical drive.) And then came optical drives, flash
drives
and all those other "drives".

If you run Disk Management, you will see this clearly in the Graphical
View.
Disk 0 might include 2 primary partitions and an extended partition
with
3
logical drives. The "drive" letters might be F:, C:, X:, D:, R:...
In
other words, the letters are independent of the sequence on the HDD.
In
fact, there may not be a Drive C: at all - which blows the mindset I
mentioned, but is perfectly legal.

Vista changed the algorithm for assigning drive letters during Setup.
In
WinXP, Setup first assigned Drive C: to the System Partition, which
usually
was also the boot volume. (See the oft-cited KB 314470 for the
counterintuitive definitions of "system volume" and "boot volume" -
legacy

 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On



All times are GMT. The time now is 10:53 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.Search Engine Optimization by vBSEO 3.0.0 RC6
Copyright ©2004-2024 Vista Banter.
The comments are property of their posters.