[SocialWarfare]

To dual boot is easy if you have two HDD's, but I will now explain how to do so if you have one and have to create a partition

Before you try this please back up any important data just in case

~If you already have Vista installed and want to dual boot XP~

1.Download VistaBootPRO and save to Memory stick/CD

2.Decide on the space you want for XP, it is recommended that you have about 30gb, but it all depends on the size of your HDD

3.In Vista go to Start/Control panel/Administrative tools/Computer management/Disk management. Select primary partition, right click and select shrink, now choose the size you want, Vista will then automatically give it a new drive letter

4.Now reboot with your XP CD inserted, install XP

5.Log into XP, install VistaBootPro(.net framework 2.0 needed to run it)
6.Open VistaBootPro, ignore backup message, click System Bootloader and All Drives, click on Install Bootloader

7.Select Run Diagnostic, you will see Vista and XP menu, rename them if you want to

8. Click Apply to update settings

9. Reboot you PC and you will now have a boot option for Vista and XP

Thats it
Enjoy

[Dave Hybrid]

Nice one, needed this.

[philthomas]

Nice guide Social ..... just to add, you can also do a dual boot with 2 versions of Vista, if you're so inclined

[rfmeredith]

When I shrink the primary partition and create a new one, can I create a third partition? I'm installing XP on a new Vista machine. I first wanted to replace Vista with XP but since I'm setting up a 750GB system drive (actually 2x750 mirrored) I have plenty of space so I might as well keep the option to boot in Vista. But I figure if I have two OS on separate partitions, I would be better off to keep all files on a third partition; that would make it a lot easier to do a clean re-install on either system.

[SocialWarfare]

Yes you can, that is how I have mine set up, vista,xp and storage

[rfmeredith]

I'm having a of of trouble with this... I know just enough to be dangerous.

My system RAID is 750GB. I can't shrink the Vista partition to anything less than about half of that. I want it to be only 80 GB, not 350GB but that's the limit I keep hitting.

But another bigger problem is that I can't get past the blue screen of death on the XP install. I downloaded the Win XP Sata drivers on a thumb drive. Pressing F6 on the XP install does nothing. Holding it down or constantly tapping it makes no difference. I always end up on the blue screen.

I don't really care about having Vista on this machine, I really need XP but I figured since I had so much disk space, why not have both. So ideally I would setup an 80GB Vista partition and a 200GB XP partition and a third partition for files. But I can't even get close to even starting all this given the two problems I keep running up against.

Suggestions? Or is it time to go to a professional?

[kanoakavirus]

great guid

[rfmeredith]

Originally Posted by kanoakavirus great guid

???

[kanoakavirus]

Originally Posted by rfmeredith ???

Whats with the question marks? SocialWarfare wrote a great guide on dual booting hence "great guide"

[rfmeredith]

Originally Posted by kanoakavirus Whats with the question marks? SocialWarfare wrote a great guide on dual booting hence "great guide"

Yes, sorry, it is a great guide, I agree. I thought maybe you were starting a longer post that got interrupted.