Dual-boot

[Guest ecthlipsis]

So as several of you know from my other posts, I just ordered XP SP2 because I'm sick and tired of Vista being such a pain. That said, I don't want it completely gone if I don't have to, as it does have DX10 support.

 

So the question is... how does dual-booting affect performance, if at all? Also, does one get to choose which OS is loaded easily or is it a big headache?

 

Also, is there an order to best install them in?

 

My plan is to delete all the games and large files from my Vista, create a new (larger) partition and install XP on to that. What else do I need to know? The only other time I've ever dual-booted was back in the day with XP and Red Hat Linux. I had someone help with it at the time, but they didn't end up liking each other and I never got it to work.

[hardnrg]

make sure you read up how to do this... last night I tried installing Vista on a 2nd partition of my RAID-0 volume (booting the Vista install DVD) and it could only start Vista if the DVD was in the drive, otherwise it would boot XP...

 

then I tried installing Vista from within XP to get it to recognise XP existing, and it created a bootmenu that resulted in a bluescreen for Vista, and XP wouldn't load, so I had to fix the MBR or bootsector or both to get XP to load... so now Vista doesn't load... it might if I now do a Vista repair?

 

there are numerous guides on how to achieve the dual boot however...

[Guest ecthlipsis]

make sure you read up how to do this... last night I tried installing Vista on a 2nd partition of my RAID-0 volume (booting the Vista install DVD) and it could only start Vista if the DVD was in the drive, otherwise it would boot XP...

 

then I tried installing Vista from within XP to get it to recognise XP existing, and it created a bootmenu that resulted in a bluescreen for Vista, and XP wouldn't load, so I had to fix the MBR or bootsector or both to get XP to load... so now Vista doesn't load... it might if I now do a Vista repair?

 

there are numerous guides on how to achieve the dual boot however...

 

I'll read up on a few and see if there are any questions left unanswered. I just wanted to get a few of the less common questions out of the way first. Good luck fixing your your own dual-boot. I hope things go much more smoothly on my end, lol.

[WhenKittensATK]

Dual booting with Xp and Vista is very simple. I dual boot with them, but I am never on Vista. I used to be on it when Shadowrun came out, but that game has gone to hell. It's pretty simple to setup.

 

1. Format your hdd and create to partitions. ( I split my hdd into two partitions of 18gb)

2. Install Xp First.

3. Install Vista. (Vista install with updates can take up quite a few GB of storage unlike Xp, so make sure you use more than 10 gb for the vista partition).

4. When you boot into Vista read this link to setup what OS you want to boot on default and what time limit you want to set before it boots that default.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vis...ual-boot-setup/

Edited June 21, 2007 by Krazyxazn

[GameGuru1]

I'm dual-booting XP and Vista. Krazyxazn's post pretty much outlines the whole process... and I've not noticed any performance hit, it's not like they're both running at the same time

[hardnrg]

If your system drive is NOT the primary disk on the primary controller (e.g. you use a RAID-0 volume for your OS's, and also have some IDE harddrives and w/e else) then you might run into problems with the Vista bootloader...

 

I had to manually rebuild the bootloader and move the BCD file from the *wrong* C: (primary controller - primary disk) to the correct C: (sata raid - raid 0 volume - partition 1)