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Advice on dual boot software for Windows XP HE SP2

Discussion in 'Windows XP' started by scottdietert, 2005/09/14.

  1. 2005/09/14
    scottdietert

    scottdietert Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    Good morning Staff and readers,
    I am considering dual booting ( "db ") my Dell 4600 (with an XP OS on a 40 GB hard drive) onto a recently added second 160 GB internal hard drive (for ?Linus; for ?Win Vista when available). Can you provide me advice concerning the potential problems with dual booting and the optimal software for facilitating such a "d-b" option for someone with no dual boot experience.
    Thank you for you your help.

    Sincerely,
    Scott :)
     
    Last edited: 2005/09/14
    scottdietert,
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  2. 2005/09/14
    charlesvar

    charlesvar Inactive Alumni

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    Hi Scott,

    Not clear on what you want to do now. I'm reading your post as: you have XP on a 40gig drive which is C. Do you want to "move" it to the new drive and dual boot there? Right now, if you install XP on the new drive, you'll be dual booting when it's finished - no special software needed for that.

    If Vista follows MS current dual booting practice, then XP should be the first OS in the chain - with Vista following. C (partition or drive) would XP, Vista would be D (partition or drive). Whether that can happen that way for certain, I don't know.

    BTW, IMO dual booting should be done on two different drives, not partitions. If one of the drives drops dead, you would still have a working installation.

    Linux is totally outside of my experience.

    Regards - Charles
     
    charlesvar,
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  4. 2005/09/14
    scottdietert

    scottdietert Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    Thank you Charlesvar for your help,

    I have Windows XP HE SP2 as my current and only OS on the C: drive.

    I purchased and had installed by local gurus a second internal drive named F: drive that is 160GB in size. This second drive is the one I'm considering for a second OS, possibly the Win MS Vista (when available) or possibly a Linux distribution.
    I'm looking for general advice and experience with the use of dual boot software, rather than a particular OS to place in the second hard drive.
    Sorry for any confusion.
    Sincerely,
    Scott
     
    scottdietert,
    #3
  5. 2005/09/14
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    Hi Scott

    Dual booting in Win XP is quite straightforward - I currently run a triple boot system for Win XP Pro (C:\), Win XP Pro x64 (G:\) and Windows Vista Beta 1 (I:\). They were loaded in that order. Simply boot from the OS install CD and on one of the blue set up screens you will be asked which partition you want to install the OS on.

    As Charles posts if the dual boot is aimed at overcoming a drive failure then the use of a second hard drive for the second OS is very sound. If however the other OS's are installed for evaluation/testing - my case - then installing in different partitions on the same hard drive is OK. All my OS's are on the same physical drive.

    When installing a second/third Windows based OS Windows will set up the boot.ini and when the computer is booted up you are presented with an OS menu and can boot to whichever OS takes your fancy.

    Be aware that applications must be installed for each OS - this can pose a problem with apps like Office 2003 which must be activated - Office can be installed on 2 computers, but when you have the second copy on the laptop there is no possibility of installing it on a second OS, unless another copy is purchased.

    A footnote here - if you want to dual boot Win 98 and a flavour of XP, Win 98 should be installed first. Trying to install Win 98 on an XP system is somewhat complex :)

    There are basically no problems with a dual boot - the two OS's cannot 'see' each other, but each can access data on any data partitions.

    Linux is way outside my current experience :)
     
    PeteC,
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  6. 2005/09/14
    charlesvar

    charlesvar Inactive Alumni

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    Hi Scott,

    Ok, that's the setup I would recommend - a seperate HD for the new OS and when that happens, you could creat at least two partitions, one - for the OS, and then other(s) for user data.

    Regards - Charles
     
    charlesvar,
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  7. 2005/09/14
    charlesvar

    charlesvar Inactive Alumni

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    Hi Pete,
    You seem to be confirming the same boot order relationship between 9x (first) and XP (last) with XP and Vista, correct?

    I'm an old dual booter, and you know that's what I'm going to do with XP and Vista :)

    Regards - Charles
     
    charlesvar,
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  8. 2005/09/14
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    Hi Charles,
    Yes - installing 9x after XP is a PITA. The order of the XP installs is not important - XP Pro was originally installed on my desktop, timewise x64 followed then Vista. The fact that they are in the same order partitionwise is coincidence - Vista could just have well been installed on a partition preceding x64, but that's how I chose to do it given that I needed to clear out a couple of partitions to enable the installs.
     
    PeteC,
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  9. 2005/09/14
    charlesvar

    charlesvar Inactive Alumni

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    Thank you Pete, good to know.

    Regards - Charles
     
    charlesvar,
    #8

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