| Author |
 Topic Search  Topic Options
|
PrivateEye 
Groupie
Joined: 21 March 2003
Location: United Kingdom
Status: Offline
Points: 168
|
 Post Options
 Thanks(0)
 Quote  Reply
 Topic: VISTA, XP Dual Boot
Posted: 28 September 2007 at 5:48pm |
Hello all,
I have purchased new SONY VAIO that comes with VISTA Home Premium and 120 GB hard, 2 GB RAM. Laptop has only one partition by default. I want to make it dual boot so that I can run XP because VB 6 and Visual Studio 2000 are not supported by Vista. Can anyone tell me the solution please.
|
|
The Judgement Day
|
 |
iSec
Senior Member
Joined: 13 February 2005
Status: Offline
Points: 1140
|
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 28 September 2007 at 9:28pm |
|
You need to partition the hard drive...
create a second partition (using a software like PartitionMagic) and install XP on it.
|
|
"When it gets dark enough, you can see the stars"
-Charles A. Beard
|
|
PrivateEye
Groupie
Joined: 21 March 2003
Location: United Kingdom
Status: Offline
Points: 168
|
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 29 September 2007 at 9:19pm |
Ok, suppose I create second partition. I am still confuse because VISTA is latest than XP so it can't be installed after VISTA, though I have not tested this and I think that if I install XP like this, it may modify MBR. If so or what-so-ever, I may lost my VISTA again. So pleas help me out that is it right way to install vista?
|
|
The Judgement Day
|
|
iSec
Senior Member
Joined: 13 February 2005
Status: Offline
Points: 1140
|
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 04 October 2007 at 8:00am |
|
This should not happen... just make sure you assign each OS a spearate partition.
|
|
"When it gets dark enough, you can see the stars"
-Charles A. Beard
|
|
dpyers
Senior Member
Joined: 12 May 2003
Status: Offline
Points: 3937
|
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 04 October 2007 at 3:26pm |
|
A physical drive has a "master boot record" (MBR) that tells the hardware which partition to go to in order to find a boot record. It also contains a small partition for the MBR to live in that you don't normally see.
Usually, when you repartition a drive to create additional partitions, the new ones don't have a boot record so they show up as drive "D:" with Drive "C:" being the boot partition pointed to by the MBR.
Software like partition magic can also create a partition with a new boot record and add a menu to the MBR that lets you select which boot record to use.
So, a drive with 2 boot records winds up having 2 "C:" drives as long as the MBR knows about each boot record.
Each C drive knows nothing about the other one so you can have different OS's associated with each drive containing a boot record.
I've had up to five OS's on one computer before.
EDIT: NOTE - A lot of software to repartition drives wipes all data from the drive being repartitioned and creates two empty partitions. Partition Magic has options that allow you to move data instead of deleting it to make enough space for a new empty partition. Make sure you use that option and don't wipe the old data partition.
Edited by dpyers - 04 October 2007 at 3:33pm
|
Lead me not into temptation... I know the short cut, follow me.
|
|
PrivateEye
Groupie
Joined: 21 March 2003
Location: United Kingdom
Status: Offline
Points: 168
|
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 13 October 2007 at 4:48pm |
|
Ok, I am going to share my experience of trying to have XP with VISTA. My VAIO VGN-FE880E comes with one partition 150 GB. I take backup of VISTA with SONY utility comes with laptop, it createds 3 DVDs. Now I inserted XP Bootable CD and start XP Installation. I done this because according to my thinking I would not be able to install XP with having VISTA, as XP is previous version. Then I created partitions from XP Installation wizard and install XP on "C" drive. Then after XP installed, I tried to restore VISTA from those DVDs. It simply denies to restore, I don't know what exactly the error was, but it behaves as it is asking for the same 150 GB drive and not partitioned low space drive. Ultimately, I uninstalled XP, created one single partition and then restored VISTA and it restored and running same as it originally came with laptop. Now I have VISTA one sigle 150 GB drive, so can anyone guide me how to install XP now?
|
|
The Judgement Day
|
|
michael
Senior Member
Joined: 08 April 2002
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 4670
|
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: 15 October 2007 at 6:51pm |
That Sony tool is probably just Ghosting your Hard Drive. That measn you need to restore to the exact same partition size. Do what dpyers said if you have Partition Magic, otherwise do a full computer backup from within Vista and re-do what you did previously...
|
|
|
|
