Dual boot XP and Vista - how to?
 

I am not a computer whiz....my passion is photos, not bits and bytes
I have 64 bit Vista that I have been holding on to waiting for it to 'mature' as an OS. Now I'd like to give it a whirl. I don't want to commit to it yet and would still like to have the option to boot with XP as I get better acquainted with Vista.
My current pc has:
Antec P180 aluminum mid-tower case
Intel D975XBX2 motherboard
Intel Core2 Duo E6600
3 Hard Drives:
2 x WD Caviar 320GB (data)
1 x WD Raptor 36GB (for XP/apps)
Antec TRUEPOWER TRIO 550W power supply

This is my plan...tell me if anything is wrong with it:
I am considering buying a 1 TB hard drive for my RAWs and photos and another Raptor for my Vista. So I'll have a 5 HD rig.
I'd like to install Vista on a new raptor. Use the new 1 TB drive for data. Keep my existing raptor for XP. And use the existing 320gb WD HDs for CS3 and Windows file page (and maybe backup for my jpgs). I already have external HDs that I use for backup.
I'd like to know anything that I may be overlooking, i.e. my power supply is not up to it, the case won't support that many HDs, it is impossible to set it up this way, the set up is wasteful, excessive ect.
What problems will I encounter?
And when my rig boots how does it choose which OS will boot?
If I boot with Vista, will I still have access to the programs loaded on the drive with XP? That is where CS3 is loaded.
What will my Vista desktop look like? How will I open a program (like CS3) on my XP HD?
If I upgrade to CS4 what potential problems might this setup create?
Is it foolhardy to have the programs on a different HD from the OS? This is what will be happening if I am booted in Vista. Will I have to move a lot of my programs to the HS with Vista?
As you can see computers aren't my forte - so thanks for the help/tips/advice/warnings...

--
-----------------
Phil M. - Toronto, Canada
Please view my photos: Flickr: Phil Marion's Photostream

Ok, lets see.

First thing, when it comes to actually setting up the dual boot I highly suggest you read this:

How to dual boot Vista with XP (with XP installed first)

That is basically the best guide out there and should help alot.

It will boot up to a boot screen asking you which OS you want to go into.

Yes and no. The programs have to be installed under each OS. Now that said I have installed programs to exactly the same spot from both OSes, and had it work without issues. That way you are not taking up twice the space.

I would look like a regular Vista desktop. As for opening the programs like I mentioned before you will have to install your programs in Vista, just install them to the same location as they were in XP then you can use it within both OSes.

There should be no issues, I have multiple drives, Vista 64, XP, and CS4 and I have no issues.

Personally I like doing that when I have dual boot systems as it makes it easier for installing on both systems.


Hopefully that helps you out.

heh, since you have so many hard drives. Why not use 1 of them and try a dual boot on it.

Dual boot is easy as pie :haha:

i am currently using dual boot xp + vista and no 3rd party softwares used.

i just set time to display list of operation to 2 seconds :thumb: and the PC boots like any normal OS :biggrin:

I will tackle that shortly - thanks!

Do you mean put them both on a single HD? or separate drive?

Sorry for being ignorant.:help:

put them in a single hard drive, on xp setup it will ask you if you want to create a partition, enter the desire space and let it works its magic :haha:.

I recommend doing it on a clean hard drive and have all other OS/storage hard drives disconnected.

I tried with an old IDE 250gb and it works real easy :haha:

If anything does go wrong with the empty testing hard drive. Just boot to OS and format it :bleh:

Not really good with explanations someone help me out here :ph34r:

Actually, I prefer the option of putting the different OSes on different drives.

There is one simple reason why I say this, if the drive fails you still have your other OS, you don't lose both at the same time. Then you still have a machine while you are replacing and redoing the other OS.

That was what I was thinking.
For that reason I ruled out Microsoft Virtual PC 2007

http://www.microsoft.com/... .../overview.mspx?wt_svl=20323a&mg_id=20323b

I wonder if my boot drive is big enough. I find with the cache files from Bridge, ACR and Picasa that there's little room left for a partition.

I have done this for years and it is very easy - youi can install and multi boot different OS on different partitions - you can even have many XP and many VISTA installations too. Whenever you install other OSs it automatically creates the menu for you, you can later edit it using the tools in windows.

The way I set it up is my C drive is my main system drive with XP on it - the same physical drive is partitioned into 4 (you can use a seperate physical drive as well) - XP is installed on C, then I installed VISTA on D, once VISTA is installed it will create a menu but not the legacy menu you were used to as it uses a bootloader and a different approach - however it will add an option to access your legacy OSs (Xp, etc.). With XP on one partition and VISTA on another, you will not have interference between your programs and OS system files. You can restart your PC and boot any OS you want this way. You can later install Windows 7 and you will be able to boot XP, VISTA and Windows 7...... There ARE also ways of installing more than one OS on a partition although I do not recommend it ! I recommend seperate partitions, that's the way it should be done, always.

I used EasyBCD to set up my dual boot Vista and XP.

I installed each OS on it's own HDD, I then plugged them both onto my motherboard (plugging my Vista HDD into SATA connector 0 and XP HDD into connector 1 so that my machine boots up from my Vista HDD) and edited in XP onto Vista's boot menu using EasyBCD.

*You will also need XP files boot.ini, ntdetect and ntldr that are found in your XP's C: folder (you will have to use Tools/Folder Options/View and add a tick in "Show hidden files and folders" and maybe also untick "Hide protected operating system files" to be able to view those files), just copy them into Vista's C: folder and you will be ready to edit XP onto Vista's boot menu and boot in successfully thereafter!