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Dual Boot Instructions
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 will have XP. I would like to locate some good user-friendly instructions on how to do this by downloading from a web site, or maybe someone on the group has a set of instructions. Could someone assist please? Is there a good site on this topic? I have tried Virtual PC 2007 but I cannot get the screen to enlarge to any extent. Full screen mode fails every time I try it. Anyway, I figure the twin HDDs would be the cleanest way to go. One more thing, I plan on upgrading the Vista installation to Windows 7 when released, would there be issues with the dual boot when installing Win 7?? Thanks |
Dual Boot Instructions
The 'cleanest way' would be to disconnect your Vista drive then install
winxp as per normal, if its to a sata drive you may have to use the F6 option to install sata controler drivers from floppy early in the installation process. Once done and updated, shutdown, reconnect Vista drive. On booting you use the Bios options shortcut to select which drive to boot from "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 will have XP. I would like to locate some good user-friendly instructions on how to do this by downloading from a web site, or maybe someone on the group has a set of instructions. Could someone assist please? Is there a good site on this topic? I have tried Virtual PC 2007 but I cannot get the screen to enlarge to any extent. Full screen mode fails every time I try it. Anyway, I figure the twin HDDs would be the cleanest way to go. One more thing, I plan on upgrading the Vista installation to Windows 7 when released, would there be issues with the dual boot when installing Win 7?? Thanks |
Dual Boot Instructions
If you install XP on the second hard drive it will rewrite the boot manager
and Vista will not start. Vista uses a different and incompatible boot manager than XP. Unfortunately the automated tools on the Vista install disc are not very effective at reinstalling the Vista boot manager which is capable of recognizing both the vista and XP installs IF you installed Vista after XP. Having recently run into that issue I was pleasantly surprised to find that the automated tools on the Win7 install disc very effectively restored the Vista boot manager, recognized and configured both the Vista and XP installs without having to install Win7, when the Vista install disc tools failed to do so after multiple tries. You can then control which will be the default OS and how long the choice menu will display through Vista. |
Dual Boot Instructions
You might like to take a look at this link from my website:
http://www.winuser.co.uk/windows_vis...g_vista.htm l Upgrading to Windows 7 shouldn't be a problem because it will check for other operating systems and add them to the BCDedit bootloader. Sadly all Virtual Machine software suffer the problem you describe because they use only virtual drivers. I've installed XP on VMware Workstation (sadly this application isn't free) and it suits my needs even with the restricted desktop size, simply because I only use it to check out any problems that users are having. -- -- John Barnett MVP Windows XP Associate Expert Windows Desktop Experience Web: http://www.winuser.co.uk Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org Web: http://www.silversurfer-guide.com The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy, reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this mail/post.. "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 will have XP. I would like to locate some good user-friendly instructions on how to do this by downloading from a web site, or maybe someone on the group has a set of instructions. Could someone assist please? Is there a good site on this topic? I have tried Virtual PC 2007 but I cannot get the screen to enlarge to any extent. Full screen mode fails every time I try it. Anyway, I figure the twin HDDs would be the cleanest way to go. One more thing, I plan on upgrading the Vista installation to Windows 7 when released, would there be issues with the dual boot when installing Win 7?? Thanks |
Dual Boot Instructions
"DL" wrote:
The 'cleanest way' would be to disconnect your Vista drive then install winxp as per normal, if its to a sata drive you may have to use the F6 option to install sata controler drivers from floppy early in the installation process. Once done and updated, shutdown, reconnect Vista drive. On booting you use the Bios options shortcut to select which drive to boot from Clean and foolproof. I have a "triple boot" setup using three different drives. |
Dual Boot Instructions
Hi Friends,
Thanks for the generosity of your responses. I"m not sure how to make a "Reply to All" posting but I would like to thank each of you for your knowledge. DL and Josh, you have given me the simplicity I needed. Yes my drives are all Sata. Your instructions are probably the best for me as I need it simple. Jawade, you are probably trying to give me fantastic expert knowledge, but unfortunately much of what you are telling me has gone over my head. Maybe I'll become advanced enough to do those things later on. But thank you very much for your sharing. Botox, thank you also, your instructions are clear and concise and they work in well with earlier instructions. You have also have given me confidence when I come to upgrade the Vista drive to Windows 7. I will leave the XP drive as it is. Thank you. Finally John, much appreciated. I have downloaded the instructions from the Windows web site link that you gave. I will also explore the Vista and XP mvps.og sites as well. Thanks to you for your help in helping me solve this puzzle. I live in a regional country area in Australia called Albury. Me, and others like me rely so heavily on getting information from great sites like this, and great people like yourselves, Thanks again David |
Dual Boot Instructions
Just following up on your reply,
I do have sata drives. I don't have a floppy but I assume the drives are already there? Or I can download them. The last part, On booting you use the Bios options shortcut to select which drive to boot from Do I need to go into the BIOS everytime? I was kinda hoping I could create a menu choice there, so I could simply select what OS I was booting up, is that possible? |
Dual Boot Instructions
John I did take a look at your website, but the instructions were for
creating a partition and installing XP on the one disk. I'm wanting to install XP on its own physical HDD, so I will have 2 OS on the one machine. Are there instructions for that? "John Barnett MVP" wrote: You might like to take a look at this link from my website: http://www.winuser.co.uk/windows_vis...g_vista.htm l |
Dual Boot Instructions
"DavidG" wrote in message ... Just following up on your reply, I do have sata drives. I don't have a floppy but I assume the drives are already there? Or I can download them. The last part, On booting you use the Bios options shortcut to select which drive to boot from Do I need to go into the BIOS everytime? I was kinda hoping I could create a menu choice there, so I could simply select what OS I was booting up, is that possible? Getting a menu choice for which OS to boot into is the default dual/multi boot scenario when you do a normal 2nd OS install. Using separate harddrives or switching boot drives in BIOS isn't required, it's just the way some people like to operate. Usually you would create a partition for your second OS and install it from its disc while your first OS is running. There's no difference between installing to a 2nd harddrive or to a new partition as far as the bootloader is concerned. The dual boot startup menu works the same either way. The only tricky part comes if you want to install an older OS (XP) after newer operating systems (eg. VISTA) are already installed. Each new OS adds an entry to the boot manager start up menu but the XP boot manager will mess up the existing Vista boot manager and some remedial repairs will be necessary to be able to boot anything at all. If the instructions you've already received aren't sufficiently clear there are some others at the site below that might be helpful. Remember, 2nd harddrive or a new partition on a single drive is irrelevant to the installation. There is a second link explaining how to edit the XP registry in order to protect Vista's system restore points from being deleted every time you boot into XP. http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_v...step_guide.htm http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926185 -- Method 1 is the appropriate choice. Bitlocker isn't available in all versions of Vista. |
Dual Boot Instructions
The instruction are, as you say, for installing XP on another partition on
the same drive, but the principle remains the same whether it is a partition on your main drive or a second hard drive. -- -- John Barnett MVP Windows XP Associate Expert Windows Desktop Experience Web: http://www.winuser.co.uk Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org Web: http://www.silversurfer-guide.com The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy, reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this mail/post.. "DavidG" wrote in message ... John I did take a look at your website, but the instructions were for creating a partition and installing XP on the one disk. I'm wanting to install XP on its own physical HDD, so I will have 2 OS on the one machine. Are there instructions for that? "John Barnett MVP" wrote: You might like to take a look at this link from my website: http://www.winuser.co.uk/windows_vis...g_vista.htm l |
Dual Boot Instructions
You're Welcome, David.
-- -- John Barnett MVP Windows XP Associate Expert Windows Desktop Experience Web: http://www.winuser.co.uk Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org Web: http://www.silversurfer-guide.com The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy, reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this mail/post.. "DavidG" wrote in message ... Hi Friends, Thanks for the generosity of your responses. I"m not sure how to make a "Reply to All" posting but I would like to thank each of you for your knowledge. DL and Josh, you have given me the simplicity I needed. Yes my drives are all Sata. Your instructions are probably the best for me as I need it simple. Jawade, you are probably trying to give me fantastic expert knowledge, but unfortunately much of what you are telling me has gone over my head. Maybe I'll become advanced enough to do those things later on. But thank you very much for your sharing. Botox, thank you also, your instructions are clear and concise and they work in well with earlier instructions. You have also have given me confidence when I come to upgrade the Vista drive to Windows 7. I will leave the XP drive as it is. Thank you. Finally John, much appreciated. I have downloaded the instructions from the Windows web site link that you gave. I will also explore the Vista and XP mvps.og sites as well. Thanks to you for your help in helping me solve this puzzle. I live in a regional country area in Australia called Albury. Me, and others like me rely so heavily on getting information from great sites like this, and great people like yourselves, Thanks again David |
Dual Boot Instructions
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 -- 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 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 will have XP. I would like to locate some good user-friendly instructions on how to do this by downloading from a web site, or maybe someone on the group has a set of instructions. Could someone assist please? Is there a good site on this topic? I have tried Virtual PC 2007 but I cannot get the screen to enlarge to any extent. Full screen mode fails every time I try it. Anyway, I figure the twin HDDs would be the cleanest way to go. One more thing, I plan on upgrading the Vista installation to Windows 7 when released, would there be issues with the dual boot when installing Win 7?? Thanks |
Dual Boot Instructions
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 -- 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 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 will have XP. I would like to locate some good user-friendly instructions on how to do this by downloading from a web site, or maybe someone on the group has a set of instructions. Could someone assist please? Is there a good site on this topic? I have tried Virtual PC 2007 but I cannot get the screen to enlarge to any extent. Full screen mode fails every time I try it. Anyway, I figure the twin HDDs would be the cleanest way to go. One more thing, I plan on upgrading the Vista installation to Windows 7 when released, would there be issues with the dual boot when installing Win 7?? Thanks |
Dual Boot Instructions
Hi DL,
I really like your instructions, they are pure and simple. Why are so many of the other responses so detailed and technical? I don't get it. So all I have to do is disconnect the Vista drive from the motherboard, install the brand new drive and boot from the XP CD in order to install it. Then, once XP is installed, I shut down the PC. OK, then, I power the PC on and I have to go to into the BIOS and select which HDD to boot. Question. How do I set up a menu choice like 1) Vista, 2) XP, and away it goes, how do I do that? "DL" wrote: The 'cleanest way' would be to disconnect your Vista drive then install winxp as per normal, if its to a sata drive you may have to use the F6 option to install sata controler drivers from floppy early in the installation process. Once done and updated, shutdown, reconnect Vista drive. On booting you use the Bios options shortcut to select which drive to boot from "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 will have XP. I would like to locate some good user-friendly instructions on how to do this by downloading from a web site, or maybe someone on the group has a set of instructions. Could someone assist please? Is there a good site on this topic? I have tried Virtual PC 2007 but I cannot get the screen to enlarge to any extent. Full screen mode fails every time I try it. Anyway, I figure the twin HDDs would be the cleanest way to go. One more thing, I plan on upgrading the Vista installation to Windows 7 when released, would there be issues with the dual boot when installing Win 7?? Thanks |
Dual Boot Instructions
If you install XP first, then Vista, Vista will setup the dual boot menu
automatically. To install XP second can be a PITA. http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/22...-vista-xp.html -- Windows 7 RC http://get.live.com/wlmail/overview http://download.live.com/wlmail "DavidG" wrote in message ... Hi DL, I really like your instructions, they are pure and simple. Why are so many of the other responses so detailed and technical? I don't get it. So all I have to do is disconnect the Vista drive from the motherboard, install the brand new drive and boot from the XP CD in order to install it. Then, once XP is installed, I shut down the PC. OK, then, I power the PC on and I have to go to into the BIOS and select which HDD to boot. Question. How do I set up a menu choice like 1) Vista, 2) XP, and away it goes, how do I do that? "DL" wrote: The 'cleanest way' would be to disconnect your Vista drive then install winxp as per normal, if its to a sata drive you may have to use the F6 option to install sata controler drivers from floppy early in the installation process. Once done and updated, shutdown, reconnect Vista drive. On booting you use the Bios options shortcut to select which drive to boot from "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 will have XP. I would like to locate some good user-friendly instructions on how to do this by downloading from a web site, or maybe someone on the group has a set of instructions. Could someone assist please? Is there a good site on this topic? I have tried Virtual PC 2007 but I cannot get the screen to enlarge to any extent. Full screen mode fails every time I try it. Anyway, I figure the twin HDDs would be the cleanest way to go. One more thing, I plan on upgrading the Vista installation to Windows 7 when released, would there be issues with the dual boot when installing Win 7?? Thanks |
Dual Boot Instructions
Hi, again, David.
In this post you are mixing apples and oranges. :( EITHER: You choose Microsoft's built-in system for multi-booting, which I've described (at length) in this thread. This always boots from the same System Partition on the same HDD each time and presents a menu. OR You create multiple System Partitions, one on each HDD, and reset the BIOS before each reboot. Each System Partition boots only a single OS, either WinXP or Vista. So far as I know (I haven't used this much), this does not offer a menu; you must reboot - and reset the boot device in the BIOS - each time. Using the built-in system, and assuming a single installation of Vista and a single installation of WinXP, the opening menu (simplified) would look like this: Which system would you like for this session: Earlier version of Windows Windows Vista If you choose Vista, Vista will be loaded and started. If you choose "earlier", WinXP will be loaded and started. I like the built-in system better, but the choice is yours. 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 DL, I really like your instructions, they are pure and simple. Why are so many of the other responses so detailed and technical? I don't get it. So all I have to do is disconnect the Vista drive from the motherboard, install the brand new drive and boot from the XP CD in order to install it. Then, once XP is installed, I shut down the PC. OK, then, I power the PC on and I have to go to into the BIOS and select which HDD to boot. Question. How do I set up a menu choice like 1) Vista, 2) XP, and away it goes, how do I do that? "DL" wrote: The 'cleanest way' would be to disconnect your Vista drive then install winxp as per normal, if its to a sata drive you may have to use the F6 option to install sata controler drivers from floppy early in the installation process. Once done and updated, shutdown, reconnect Vista drive. On booting you use the Bios options shortcut to select which drive to boot from "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 will have XP. I would like to locate some good user-friendly instructions on how to do this by downloading from a web site, or maybe someone on the group has a set of instructions. Could someone assist please? Is there a good site on this topic? I have tried Virtual PC 2007 but I cannot get the screen to enlarge to any extent. Full screen mode fails every time I try it. Anyway, I figure the twin HDDs would be the cleanest way to go. One more thing, I plan on upgrading the Vista installation to Windows 7 when released, would there be issues with the dual boot when installing Win 7?? Thanks |
Dual Boot Instructions
DavidG wrote:
Hi DL, I really like your instructions, they are pure and simple. Why are so many of the other responses so detailed and technical? I don't get it. So all I have to do is disconnect the Vista drive from the motherboard, install the brand new drive and boot from the XP CD in order to install it. Then, once XP is installed, I shut down the PC. OK, then, I power the PC on and I have to go to into the BIOS and select which HDD to boot. Question. How do I set up a menu choice like 1) Vista, 2) XP, and away it goes, how do I do that? You don't, using that method. Entering the BIOS is your "menu". "DL" wrote: The 'cleanest way' would be to disconnect your Vista drive then install winxp as per normal, if its to a sata drive you may have to use the F6 option to install sata controler drivers from floppy early in the installation process. Once done and updated, shutdown, reconnect Vista drive. On booting you use the Bios options shortcut to select which drive to boot from |
Dual Boot Instructions
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 -- 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 ... 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 will have XP. I would like to locate some good user-friendly instructions on how to do this by downloading from a web site, or maybe someone on the group has a set of instructions. Could someone assist please? Is there a good site on this topic? I have tried Virtual PC 2007 but I cannot get the screen to enlarge to any extent. Full screen mode fails every time I try it. Anyway, I figure the twin HDDs would be the cleanest way to go. One more thing, I plan on upgrading the Vista installation to Windows 7 when released, would there be issues with the dual boot when installing Win 7?? Thanks |
Dual Boot Instructions
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 will have XP. I would like to locate some good user-friendly instructions on how to do this by downloading from a web site, or maybe someone on the group has a set of instructions. Could someone assist please? Is there a good site on this topic? I have tried Virtual PC 2007 but I cannot get the screen to enlarge to any extent. Full screen mode fails every time I try it. Anyway, I figure the twin HDDs would be the cleanest way to go. One more thing, I plan on upgrading the Vista installation to Windows 7 when released, would there be issues with the dual boot when installing Win 7?? Thanks |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
Dual Boot Instructions
"DavidG" wrote in message ... 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. Don't bother with drive letters. Think drives and partitions. Assigning it a drive letter, you're telling Vista you want this partition on this drive to be letter X: and it stores the information in the Registry. This information only applies to this installation of Vista. Booting up in XP, it will assign drive letters in the order that the drives are detected, not by what Vista has in it's Registry. If you assign a partition x on this drive y to Z:. in XP and reboot to Vista the drive letters will be what you set it to in Vista X: and not what you set it to in XP, Z: Same with setup, it will assign drive letters in the order drives/partitions were detected, which is why there is no X:. X: only exist for Vista, because you told it this partition on this drive you want to be called 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. |
Dual Boot Instructions
Hi, David.
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? But that's the point that I've been trying to get across! WinXP Setup WILL "corrupt" the Vista boot SECTOR. And then Vista's Startup Repair will un-corrupt it. The boot SECTOR is not the bootLOADER. Vista's bootloader is the file "bootmgr". The boot sector is not a file. You can't see, copy, delete or otherwise handle it with Windows Explorer or any other of the usual Windows tools; only a special utility can do this, such as bootsect.exe or DiskPart.exe - or the Setup.exe that installs Windows. And no matter whether you have one HDD, or 2 or 7 connected, only ONE will hold the boot sector that matters. There may well be other boot sectors on other HDDs, but only ONE at a time has any effect on what happens. WinXP Setup has NO IDEA about VISTA! So it bulldozes right over the Vista boot sector. On the next reboot, when the system finds the HDD currently designated as the boot device and looks at the first physical sector, it finds the partition table for that HDD and sees that the first partition is Active (bootable) so it reads the first physical sector of that partition. That is the WinXP boot sector so it simply loads and runs WinXP. Even if you have 3 HDDs connected, Setup.exe will overwrite only ONE boot sector - the one that is in the System Partition at the time the computer is turned on or rebooted. Partitions on other HDDs don't matter at all. Who cares if the 3rd HDD also has a bootable partition, if the BIOS instructs the system to boot from the first HDD? Let's stop here and absorb this. So far, we've not looked for WinXP or Vista or any other Windows or Linux or any other OS. So far, the computer is just trying to discover the hardware, wake it up, and get enough instructions to start looking for ANY OS. Each breadcrumb leads to the next one where the system gains a little more intelligence. By the time it gets the boot sector code loaded into memory and starts executing those few bytes of code, the system is able to follow the instruction to find a file named NTLDR, load it, and start executing its instruction. NTLDR has instructions for finding NTDETECT.COM and Boot.ini - but it knows absolutely nothing about Vista's file named bootmgr, much less about Vista's Root-level folder named \Boot. That's the reason for the newest-OS-last Golden Rule. When that rule is violated, we no longer can simply (1) install WinXP, (2) install Vista and let it create the dual-boot in the same System Partition that WinXP was using. Now, since we violated the Golden rule, the complete install sequence becomes more complex: (1) Install Vista (no dual-boot menu gets created because there's no other OS installed); on the next reboot, the boot sector says nothing about NTLDR, of course, but looks for bootmgr. (2) Install WinXP - which will "corrupt" (your word, not mine) Vista's boot sector by completely overwriting it; on the next reboot, the system ignores bootmgr and follows the new instructions to load NTLDR, et seq; (3) Install Vista again - or at least, run its Repair Startup function - so that it can once again write the Vista-version boot sector, which will look for bootmgr rather than NTLDR. Vista's Setup DOES know about the older WinXP, so when it detects WinXP on any connected HDD, it will add the {ntldr} entry in its BCD. On the next reboot, the system will follow the boot sector's instruction and load bootmgr - which will include in its menu the {ntldr} option to boot the "Earlier...Windows". If you choose Earlier, bootmgr will load NTLDR, turn over control to that, and get out of the way so that WinXP can be loaded. Is there an echo in here? It seems I've said all this at least a couple of times already. :^{ 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. That's still an option. But it still means that you will have to reset your BIOS each time to switch to the other OS. Good luck. This whole job SHOULD be done in less than a couple of hours, maybe a lot less. Less time than it took me to type it all out - again. Keep us posted on 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 ... 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 |
Dual Boot Instructions
Hi R. C.
Is there an echo in here? It seems I've said all this at least a couple of times already. :^{ Before saying anything about the topic, I need to say this. To employ a euphemism in this situation, I have a condition that affects my short term memory. I'm sorry this has been a frustrating experience for you. I can only admire your patience and perserverance in a difficult situation. You have the patience of Job. I applaud you for this. Thanks. Both HDDs are functional. 1) with XP, 2) with Vista. I ended up reinstalling Vista, (after installing XP). It seemed to automatically come up with "Earlier version of Windows" and "Windows Vista" as alternatively when booting. The only thing remaining seems to be the system restore points being deleted by XP. I have gone to kb926185. In method 1 my path runs out at MountedDevices, I don't have the \Offline subkey. It mentions this further down the article. My confidence is not high with registry editing. Do I need to worry about restore points if I systematically backup my data to external HDDs? If it is any consolation to you I have copied all your postings along with other postings and am making it into a manual of instructions on this whole topic. Thank you once again R.C. Things seem to be running OK, (aside from restore points). "R. C. White" wrote: Hi, David. 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? But that's the point that I've been trying to get across! WinXP Setup WILL "corrupt" the Vista boot SECTOR. And then Vista's Startup Repair will un-corrupt it. The boot SECTOR is not the bootLOADER. Vista's bootloader is the file "bootmgr". The boot sector is not a file. You can't see, copy, delete or otherwise handle it with Windows Explorer or any other of the usual Windows tools; only a special utility can do this, such as bootsect.exe or DiskPart.exe - or the Setup.exe that installs Windows. And no matter whether you have one HDD, or 2 or 7 connected, only ONE will hold the boot sector that matters. There may well be other boot sectors on other HDDs, but only ONE at a time has any effect on what happens. WinXP Setup has NO IDEA about VISTA! So it bulldozes right over the Vista boot sector. On the next reboot, when the system finds the HDD currently designated as the boot device and looks at the first physical sector, it finds the partition table for that HDD and sees that the first partition is Active (bootable) so it reads the first physical sector of that partition. That is the WinXP boot sector so it simply loads and runs WinXP. Even if you have 3 HDDs connected, Setup.exe will overwrite only ONE boot sector - the one that is in the System Partition at the time the computer is turned on or rebooted. Partitions on other HDDs don't matter at all. Who cares if the 3rd HDD also has a bootable partition, if the BIOS instructs the system to boot from the first HDD? Let's stop here and absorb this. So far, we've not looked for WinXP or Vista or any other Windows or Linux or any other OS. So far, the computer is just trying to discover the hardware, wake it up, and get enough instructions to start looking for ANY OS. Each breadcrumb leads to the next one where the system gains a little more intelligence. By the time it gets the boot sector code loaded into memory and starts executing those few bytes of code, the system is able to follow the instruction to find a file named NTLDR, load it, and start executing its instruction. NTLDR has instructions for finding NTDETECT.COM and Boot.ini - but it knows absolutely nothing about Vista's file named bootmgr, much less about Vista's Root-level folder named \Boot. That's the reason for the newest-OS-last Golden Rule. When that rule is violated, we no longer can simply (1) install WinXP, (2) install Vista and let it create the dual-boot in the same System Partition that WinXP was using. Now, since we violated the Golden rule, the complete install sequence becomes more complex: (1) Install Vista (no dual-boot menu gets created because there's no other OS installed); on the next reboot, the boot sector says nothing about NTLDR, of course, but looks for bootmgr. (2) Install WinXP - which will "corrupt" (your word, not mine) Vista's boot sector by completely overwriting it; on the next reboot, the system ignores bootmgr and follows the new instructions to load NTLDR, et seq; (3) Install Vista again - or at least, run its Repair Startup function - so that it can once again write the Vista-version boot sector, which will look for bootmgr rather than NTLDR. Vista's Setup DOES know about the older WinXP, so when it detects WinXP on any connected HDD, it will add the {ntldr} entry in its BCD. On the next reboot, the system will follow the boot sector's instruction and load bootmgr - which will include in its menu the {ntldr} option to boot the "Earlier...Windows". If you choose Earlier, bootmgr will load NTLDR, turn over control to that, and get out of the way so that WinXP can be loaded. Is there an echo in here? It seems I've said all this at least a couple of times already. :^{ 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. That's still an option. But it still means that you will have to reset your BIOS each time to switch to the other OS. Good luck. This whole job SHOULD be done in less than a couple of hours, maybe a lot less. Less time than it took me to type it all out - again. Keep us posted on 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 ... 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). |
Dual Boot Instructions
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