[aldog]

I just bought a new better computer, it came with vista 64 bit which I didn't really want but it had everything else I wanted and th price was right well somethings about vista are good and some things suck. NOW I heard you can have more than one operating system one computer and since I have multiple hard drives I don't see why not. Problem is I know how to boot on a different op system but I don't know how to set it up to have both, can anyone tell me?

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Welcome to Geeks2Go!

http://windowssecret...ot-Vista-and-XP

Just ignore the first part about shrinking the Vista volume if you already have a separate drive already partitioned for XP.
XP doesn't have to be on the same physical disk as Vista, it's just that many tutorials assume most people will be doing that.
The 'dual-boot' principal works just the same if Vista and XP are on two different disks.

[pip22]

Welcome to Geeks2Go!

http://windowssecret...ot-Vista-and-XP

Just ignore the first part about shrinking the Vista volume if you already have a separate drive already partitioned for XP.
XP doesn't have to be on the same physical disk as Vista, it's just that many tutorials assume most people will be doing that.
The 'dual-boot' principal works just the same if Vista and XP are on two different disks.

[aldog]

don't know what tutorials your talking about dont know anything about shrinking vista. when I start to boot up xp it doesnt ask which drive i want it on, I just assume if i continue it will replace the existing vista i don't want that i want 1 on one hard drive c and the other on e that's the trick i need to know how to do. vista is on partition c.

[Buji]

aldog,

If it came with Vista, and you plan on leaving it then here is what you would do. Since Vista came pre installed, i am assuming it is your C:/ drive. With that said, when you put in the XP disk to install it, your C:/ should be the size of your 1st drive with Vista on it (ie- if you have a 100GB Hard Drive, then your C:/ partition should be slightly less than 100,000MB). That would mean that the next Partition (ie - D:/, E:/, F:/, or an UNPARTITIONED space) that is equivalent to the size of your second hard drive is where you want to install XP. From here you should be able to follow pip22's link to the tutorial to complete this. - Buji

[Buji]

I just seen your last post, my bad. When you install XP, there is a screen that says your going to install XP. But when you go forward it will bring up a list of partitions at the bottom of the screen. I think you press D to delete what is on partition E:/ since that is where you want XP. Then it will create an unpartitioned space. You will then press C to create a partition in that unpartitioned space. Then you can install XP on that newly created partition. - Buji

[aldog]

thanks I'll try that but how will I switch between the two systems? which will boot up when I turn on my computer? drive c: 283 gigs, drive e 283 gigs, drive d 17 gigs back up. O.K. I followed the link that good info problem is i have a xp home ed. sp2 disk to use that I used to upgrade my old computer but my new one from gateway didn't come with back up vista disk I know that most like dell give you one. so I guess I can still do it? I found a free download for a program to do the whole operation from Microsoft but doesn't work on vista home premium sp1 which is what I have. [bleep]

[Buji]

Vista and xp come with boot menus, I'm not sure which one will triumph over the other. But you will be able to select the one you want to run. I also think that by default you have a certain amount of time to select one or else the default OS will boot. - Buji