IVIYTH0S Posted June 28, 2009 Posted June 28, 2009 I know that dual booting Vista and Win7 isn't impossible but is it also possible to boot both XP and Win7 off of one harddrive?? And to complicate things I'd want to have an XP partition copied from a second drive and then combined with a Win7 partition copied from a third drive. I'm pretty sure this is impossible to do though [Drive 2: XP HDD]-----Acronis Image Copy------>[Drive 1: Hybrid XP/Win 7 HDD]<------Acronis Image Copy----[Drive 3: Win 7 HDD] Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Verran Posted June 28, 2009 Posted June 28, 2009 Of course it's possible to dual boot 7 and XP from the same hard drive. I've done it several times already as I've tested and dropped new versions of the 7 client. Everyone's so darn fixated on dual-booting from separate physical drives these days. A good 'ol partition still goes a long ways As for your copying/combining and all that, I don't understand what you mean, but I bet that's possible too. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
xPETEZx Posted June 28, 2009 Posted June 28, 2009 I have never used Acronis, so cant comment on how you would do it, but I should imagine, that if Drive 1, is big enough to store both the image of Drive 2 & 3, it should be possible. Like I said, I havent used Acronis, but I am sure it must be possible. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
IVIYTH0S Posted June 28, 2009 Posted June 28, 2009 yeah basically what I have is a new 500GB and I want to transfer an XP partition from a 250GB drive and a Windows 7 partition from an 80GB drive. I'd put the two other hard drives onto just the one big one but I'm not sure if Acronis would allow me to copy 250GB's partition onto there and also allow the 80GB's drive to join the other without overwriting it. (This is must be pretty hard to comprehend ) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Verran Posted June 28, 2009 Posted June 28, 2009 Meh, just suck it up and let your old installs go. Reinstall and just copy the data you need from the old disks. I'll never understand why people spend so much effort just dragging old program and game files between OS installs. I don't understand the benefit of all the imagining over just doing a fresh install and copying the files you need over to the new image. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
IVIYTH0S Posted June 29, 2009 Posted June 29, 2009 Meh, just suck it up and let your old installs go. Reinstall and just copy the data you need from the old disks. I'll never understand why people spend so much effort just dragging old program and game files between OS installs. I don't understand the benefit of all the imagining over just doing a fresh install and copying the files you need over to the new image. It's not for me, it's for my dad. I mean he could just use the 500GB for the win7 install and then have his old 250GB still with XP. Though I was worried if he booted from the XP harddrive on his new computer (going from an AMD 3200+ to a Phenom II 940) that the OS might get a whole bunch of errors from such a dramatic hardware switch (also he'd be switching from nvidia discrete to ati integrated ) I personally don't do the whole image backup thing myself but it seemed like the right solution in this case. I suppose I could always just have two harddrives there Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dr_bowtie Posted June 29, 2009 Posted June 29, 2009 if you want to do it then clone the XP side of the drive onto the new 500 and set the partition to the size you like...then re-install Win7 on the remainder partition for the dual boot loader if you have Acronis it will let you manually set the partition size within the cloning part... Just click manual and then play with the size and pay attantion...I think the 1st number is the remainder part of the partition...it will show you the drive before it does the magic...if you like it go with it...if not then just cancel and redo... to the best of my knowledge with acronis it wont see partitions when cloning just the whole drive as the source so that means installing Win7 on the remainder part... even if win7 cloned the win7 part to the partition you wouldnt get thr boot loader and you wouldnt be able to boot to it...I dont think Acronis is smart enough yet to add the boot loader and see XP to give you the dual option... best best is to clone the XP side with a partition and re-install win7....then you will get the dual boot option... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
IVIYTH0S Posted June 29, 2009 Posted June 29, 2009 (edited) if you want to do it then clone the XP side of the drive onto the new 500 and set the partition to the size you like...then re-install Win7 on the remainder partition for the dual boot loader if you have Acronis it will let you manually set the partition size within the cloning part... Just click manual and then play with the size and pay attantion...I think the 1st number is the remainder part of the partition...it will show you the drive before it does the magic...if you like it go with it...if not then just cancel and redo... to the best of my knowledge with acronis it wont see partitions when cloning just the whole drive as the source so that means installing Win7 on the remainder part... even if win7 cloned the win7 part to the partition you wouldnt get thr boot loader and you wouldnt be able to boot to it...I dont think Acronis is smart enough yet to add the boot loader and see XP to give you the dual option... best best is to clone the XP side with a partition and re-install win7....then you will get the dual boot option... Ya, that's what I was probably going to do anyway. Since the Win7 side isn't really important, how would I add a boot loader that would let me switch between XP and Win7? Edited June 29, 2009 by IVIYTH0S Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
taowulf Posted June 29, 2009 Posted June 29, 2009 Ya, that's what I was probably going to do anyway. Since the Win7 side isn't really important, how would I add a boot loader that would let me switch between XP and Win7? You don't have to add a boot loader. Install XP first, or if it is already installed, just install Win7 on to the new partition. I am running XP 32 and W7 64 off of the same drive, different partitions. when you boot up, it will give you 30 seconds to pick the old windows install or will default to the W7 install. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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