XP / Vista dual-boot question

Its-A-New-Age-Thing

alexlyne wrote: »

A quick tip for anyone thinking about dual booting - but will use only one OS for the majority of work. If you have two separate hard drives, disconnect one and install the first OS, then disconnect this drive, reconnect the other and install the second OS. Then have them both plugged in and use the BIOS settings to select the primary HDD - every time you boot you will have that OS and if you need the other, it's a simple BIOS change. It works for me!

good tip that one peeps when i was into using win98 a few years back, i had that set-up myself, best place to hide the hard drive is in a spare dvd/cd rom caddy that way its out of site and out of mind,

but hey lest we forget the JOYS of VMWARE and there counterparts,

and just have VIRTUAL OPERATING SYSTEMS INSTEAD

:cool::cool::cool:

esuhl

alexlyne wrote: »

A quick tip for anyone thinking about dual booting - but will use only one OS for the majority of work. If you have two separate hard drives, disconnect one and install the first OS, then disconnect this drive, reconnect the other and install the second OS. Then have them both plugged in and use the BIOS settings to select the primary HDD - every time you boot you will have that OS and if you need the other, it's a simple BIOS change. It works for me!

Good tip, but there's no need to physically disconnect the drives. Just set the BIOS to boot from disk 1, then install OS 1 to it; set the BIOS to boot from disk 2 and install OS 2 on that. You can then choose which disk to boot in the BIOS and will only see the boot manager for that OS.

To fix the OP's original problem, he/she would need to set the XP partition as active, boot into the XP Recovery Console, then run fixmbr and fixboot to restore the disk's master boot record and XP's boot manager. Then the Vista partition can be removed.

alexlyne

I physically disconnect them to ensure 100% that there's no way to get them confused (I unplug all my data drives too just to make sure I don't install on the wrong disk!), or that the boot manager then gets both of them.

Its-A-New-Age-Thing

esuhl wrote: »

Good tip, but there's no need to physically disconnect the drives. Just set the BIOS to boot from disk 1, then install OS 1 to it; set the BIOS to boot from disk 2 and install OS 2 on that. You can then choose which disk to boot in the BIOS and will only see the boot manager for that OS.

To fix the OP's original problem, he/she would need to set the XP partition as active, boot into the XP Recovery Console, then run fixmbr and fixboot to restore the disk's master boot record and XP's boot manager. Then the Vista partition can be removed.

100% correct hence why i pointed out my second drive was HIDDEN out of site and out of mind in a spare dvd rom drive bay, as they were ALWAYS BOTH connected that way and i certainly wouldnt of been opening an closing it every time i wanted to boot into a new OS lol

Its-A-New-Age-Thing

alexlyne wrote: »

I physically disconnect them to ensure 100% that there's no way to get them confused (I unplug all my data drives too just to make sure I don't install on the wrong disk!), or that the boot manager then gets both of them.

the way i always ENSURED no mix up, is each time i was logged onto my desktop i would manually SWITCH OFF from the my computer menu the 'other hard drive' in the 'my computer menu'

and it worked EVERY TIME 'switch off from desktop switch on switch off from desktop switch on' became a MANTRA