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Author Topic: can i run vista on one harddrive and xp on another harddrive on one computer  (Read 3760 times)

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cuttter5

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    can i run vista on one harddrive and xp on another harddrive on one computer

    BC_Programmer


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    Yes.
    I was trying to dereference Null Pointers before it was cool.

    cuttter5

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      and how

      JJ 3000



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      Which operating system are you running now? Vista?
      Do you have the other hard drive?
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      cuttter5

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        i have vista running now on a sata hard drive and windows xp on a ide harddrive i want to install

        JJ 3000



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        Do you have the XP disk? Do you just have a hard drive that has XP already installed on it?
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        cuttter5

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          i have the disk

          JJ 3000



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          Cool.

          Since you already have Vista on your sata drive we're gonna go about this bass ackwards, but let's dive in!

          Unplug your Vista drive and install XP on the PATA.

          Now, after you plug that Vista drive back in, you have to decide how you want to configure your dual boot machine.

          You could just go into BIOS each time you want to start up your computer to choose which drive to boot. That would be the simplest solution.

          However, If you want the "standard" dual boot machine, you will need to install the boot loader on your computer.

          If you choose a standard dual-boot setup you can repair Vista's boot loader by booting to the Vista DVD after XP's been installed and instead of installing choose the Repair my computer option in the bottom left corner of the second screen. Start up Repair will then restore the new windows boot loader and make both Vista and XP bootable.


          or


          After you install XP, You can boot to the XP drive and follow the instructions here
          http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919529/en-us
          to enable a dual boot without having to access the BIOS every time you start up.

          good luck.



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          jbmwx

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          yeah you are dual booting. You can already install windows into 2 different partitions. And partitions can be physically2 different hard drives or one hard drive cut into two or more pieces.