Boot vista after xp dual install

Greg Shultz is a freelance Technical Writer. Previously, he has worked as Documentation Specialist in the software industry, a Technical Support Specialist in educational industry, and a Technical Journalist in the computer publishing industry. The location options In order to install Windows Vista in a dual-boot configuration along with Windows XP, you need to have either a second partition on your existing hard disk or a second hard disk in your system.

The installation options. Editor's Picks. The best programming languages to learn in Check for Log4j vulnerabilities with this simple-to-use script. TasksBoard is the kanban interface for Google Tasks you've been waiting for. Paging Zefram Cochrane: Humans have figured out how to make a warp bubble.

Comment and share: How do I Show Comments. Hide Comments. My Profile Log out. Join Discussion. Add your Comment. The default settings on the regional and language screen are for the U. I created a second partition on a GB hard disk on which to install Windows Vista.

The Windows Boot Manager allows you to select which operating system you want to boot. Open drive D the partition on which you installed Windows XP.

Copy the files "ntldr", "ntdetect. Open drive C and drag the files in. Note that a UAC dialog may pop up asking for confirmation. Click Start and type cmd. Right-click on cmd. Type the following:. Now that you have Windows XP and Vista installed on the same computer, you may install drivers and software. Remember to activate your copies of Windows within 30 days; before you activate, however, make sure that Windows runs correctly, and that everything is set up the way you want it.

Method 2: XP installed first This is the method I tried after I figured out that the other one didn't work for me. What I needed I faced a dilemma. Preparation Assumptions: In this tutorial, it is assumed that you have a single hard disk in your computer, and your computer meets Windows Vista's system requirements. Planning your disk configuration The first thing to do when preparing a dual-boot is to plan how you will configure your hard drive.

I have partitioned the disk as illustrated below: Partitioning the disk I happened to have a second installation of Windows XP on a separate hard drive, and I thus used Windows XP's diskmgmt. Installing Windows Vista Before we can actually install Vista, there is an important thing we must do, viz. Type the following: diskpart select disk 0 select partition 1 active Close the command prompt and click Next. Proceed with the Vista installation as usual. Adding XP back into Vista's boot menu Now that you have Vista installed and working, you may have noticed that there is no way to get into XP.

Conclusion Now that you have Windows XP and Vista installed on the same computer, you may install drivers and software. Comments 5 Skip to comment form. I followed this tutorial with Windows 7 instead of Vista and this worked flawlessly! Create two partitions, C and D. Install XP on D. I remember from previous experiences that XP still called its drive C even though it is technically D. First of all, drive letters are defined within the context of an operating system not the BIOS.

Therefore, the idea of XP "calling its drive C even though it is technically D" isn't entirely correct. Second, XP always calls the active partition on the first hard drive "C:" in the installer stage. It doesn't matter what size the partitions are. Of course, if neither partition is marked as active, it might choose based on the size or order of partitions Third, the main point of this tutorial was the separation of both systems. Even if you successfully install XP on C: and Vista on "D:" the Vista installer still calls the active partition "C:" but renames the system partition to C: even if it was different in the installer window , it would work perfectly, EXCEPT for the fact that Vista's boot files will be on the active partition in this case, the one XP is on.

This would prevent you from just deleting the XP partition, and would give you issues if you're trying to boot from GRUB for example. Never once had any issues with it or formatting the second Partition.

Though with the advent of Windows 7, I forgo installing XP. It works just fine This tutorial specifically addresses how to separate both operating systems completely and ensure that they both boot independently by simply switching the "active" bit. This is necessary if you want to use GRUB for multi-booting, and this allows you to just delete the XP partition without requiring you to repair your Vista partition's boot.

SysChat is a free online computer support community. Ask questions, share resources, contribute knowledge and discuss technology. Join our growing community to access all features. Register Now! User Name Password Remember Me? Install XP. Fix Bootloader. By rclarke on , PM. I have a couple of questions: In step 4 where we need to use the editor, isn't vista assigned to C and xp assigned to drive E?

Up to step 4 everything doesn't seem difficult. But if we mess up here it seems big problems. On the other hand perhaps I missed a crucial point you made earlier and I should just enter exactly what you have shown in step 4 to conclude the dual boot facility. My last question has to do with possible need for drivers.

I found out my notebook hd is a seagate SATA drive. Will xp pro need to be concerned about this drive type and require drivers? Unfortunately for us newbies, the initial hd configuration may not be straight forward and simple as yours. This raised another question which while seeming to go off subject, anyone following your instructions may encounter especially newbies who would never in their life of ownership consider hd management and partitions a situation where the single drive has already been partitioned into 3 primary partitions.

Question: Must the xp partition to be created be a primary partion? If so, and 3 primary partitions already exist does this preclude adding xp? If yes does that mean no dual boot of xp? Thanks for your time and patience to help with these questions You can still dual boot, but what you must understand is that a partition which will load an OS must be a primary drive.

There is the option when installing XP to leave the file system intact You could always resize them to move the files around. I received my acer aspire as a gift from my daughter.

Yesterday I started following your 4 steps to installing xp. Using the disk mgt wizard on vista I shrunk the partition and allocated a new partition of 8 gb for xp. I ended up re-doing this step as I neglected to remove a flash drive and this caused the partition to be assigned a drive letter of G.

I then deleted the new partition, expanded the C and restarted the procedure by rebooting again. After I got back to recreating the partition again, I saw it wasn't a primary partition, but an extended one. I also saw via disk mgt three existing partitions, one un-named eisa configure , vista c drive and data d drive So using the wizard doesn't give me a primary partition so I need to use some other means to make sure the partition created is a primary one and not an extended partition By Kishore on , AM.

Hooray, it really works.