Dual boot help request:2k and XP?

Hi,
I have a laptop that has XP pro preinstalled. I would like to add Win2000pro to it. How do I do that? Do I need to start from scratch, or can I add? I have Partition Magic 6.0SE, which came to me with a motherboard purchase, but they have been bought out by Symantec, and Symantec won't support anything prior to 7.0, so they won't give me the time of day.
Do I even need third party software, or will the 2000pro CD just partition the drive for me?
If anyone out there has a link to a "How to" site that'll describe what needs to be done, I would sure appreciate it. Asking for a letter with all of the steps is a bit much, so I won't.
I'm doing this because we are using an ActionTec external USB modem that has the call-waiting feature. ActionTec told me they don't support it under anything but 98SE, Me, 2000, and NT. In other words, they aren't writing a driver for XP. We have two daughters out there in college, and hate to make ourselves unavailable while online. So, I'd like to boot into 2000 for the internet, and use XP otherwise.
Thanks.

 

By far the easiest if you don't have a lot of stuff already done to XP would be to start over, create a partition and put the older OS on first. Then a 2nd (larger) partition and have all the housekeeping done automatically by XP when you install it.

Otherwise you have to do a few interesting things and by far the simplest approach is the one Here. It still calls for partitioning so if you have XP on a single large partition, you'll need to use PM to create a 2nd one for 2K. Doesn't need to be real large and with 10Gb you will have way more than enough. 6Gb should do if you are pinched for room but still want to load some apps onto 2K. Otherwise, you can get by with around 4Gb.

 

Hi Newt,
Thanks for the response. This laptop has a 40g HD,so I can certainly spare 10g. I've never used partition magic, but I'm sure I can struggle through it. Do you know enough to say whether version 6.0SE is capable of partitioning a NTFS harddrive, or would I have to go out and buy a newer version? That link you gave me doesn't mention anything other than saving two files and then just going ahead with the installation of 2000. Does that mean the 2000pro CD will do the partitioning and PM is irrelevant?
Thanks again.

 

The process described in the link assumes you have a spare partition or drive to use. 2K (or XP) can partition but only when one or the other is being installed. If the drive is already formatted, you have to use another tool.

I'm not a PM user so I can't say for sure but from reading, I think that version 6 will work OK for you. One of the big knocks on PM is the very short support life of a version.

Still, I'm guessing and I know we have quite a few folks on here who use the product so probably good to wait for someone who knows to answer.

 

I believe PM 6.0 is not XP compliant. Version 7.0 is required. I have version 8.xx and it works a treat. Found this MSKB that mentions problems with 6.0 and XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308322

 

Thanks Paul.

I think that given the problems with PM dropping version support so quickly I'd opt for another app if I needed to do partition management often enough to buy an app.

What's out there that does the job but has better after-support?