Windows Vista forum: Dual Booting Windows Vista and Windows XP

It is really easy to do what you want to do.

Read down the list below for my post on buying a Gateway MT6840 and putting XP and Vista on it.

that you could accomplish this easily for your Gateway MT6840.

However, I think when it comes to my particular notebook, the Dell XPSM1330, issues like support for Windows XP drivers is trickier. The tech support claims that this laptop is built only to run Vista, so that makes matters worse. But that is not the point of this thread. I can live with the problems posed by Win XP as long as I have Win Vista undisturbed.

There are a few niggles I have with doing it your way:
1.) Can't I install Windows XP professional without completely nuking the hard drive? Like create a partition for it alongside the existing Vista and recovery partitions and install XP professional on there?
2.) I don't have an external floppy drive

Thanks for your inputs on this. Any more insights on this from the others?

The general public is getting a SNOW job by Microsoft and the retailer's they supply.

The story the tech gave you that you can't run XP on your computer is an out right lie.

nVideo.com
They will have what you need.

Get Sigmatel here:



http://list.driverguide.com/list/company1690/index.html

believe it or not!

The Dell team hasn't validated it, but here is the link for it for everyone's benefit: http://ftp.us.dell.com/audio/R158235.EXE

Now there are only a couple of issues on Win XP concerning some Dell applications. One of them is that I can't use the fingerprint reader that comes with my model because there's no compatible software for windows XP . However, it is not too big a loss on the face of it.

The only thing I'm worried about is - what if I want to get back to Windows Vista? How do you take backups of your recovery partition? If you leave the recovery partition intact do you still need to back it up? (You're only going to install XP by wiping Vista's partition, correct?)

Thanks for the help!

The Gateway 6840 came with a recovery disk labeled "use to reinstall the original operating system".

After I deleted the recovery partition and Vista operating systems I put it in the DVD drive and it booted to Vista install.

All it was was a Vista DVD.

Thunderhead

If it bothers you to delete the recovery partition you can save it to a disk.


You cant use Partition Magic in VISTA.

You cant use PowerQuest Drive Image 7.0 in VISTA.

You MUST have a recovery DVD that came with the computer so if you want to reinstall VISTA you just put the DVD drive and boot to it.

DONT GO ANY FURTHER UNLESS YOU HAVE A VISTA DVD AS A RECOVERY DISK.

PLUS you need an external hard drive plugged in and turned on at step 6.


HERE IS HOW IT MUST BE DONE MY WAY.

1. I would put the XP CD in the drive and boot to press any key to boot from CD.

2. When it loads and gives you options, choose delete the VISTA operating system.

3. Put the Windows XP in and boot and install on the unformatted space left from deleting the Vista operating system.

4. Install Partition Magic.

5. Install Microsoft NetFramework 1.1

6. Install PowerQuest Drive Image 7.0

7. Boot

8. Open a partition on an external hard drive and create a new folder and label it {recovery disk ,partition 1} you must label it the correct partition NUMBER that it is found on the hard drive reading the drive from left to right.

8. Open PowerQuest Drive Image 7.0 and choose back up a drive.

9. Choose the recovery partition.

10. Make the target the folder you just created in the external hard drive.

11. When it is finished you now have a recovery partition saved on your external hard drive.

12. Click next and it will save the drive image of the recovery partition into the folder labeled {recovery disk ,partition 1}. It will only take a minute or two since it is very small partition.

13. At this point you could restore the computer to its original condition.

14. If you had an old computer to practice on you would do this to restore it to the condition it was in when you bought it. Find an old computer and practice this stuff, it is really easy.

15. Erase the hard drive.

16. Boot to Windows XP and do steps 3,4,5,6,7.

Step three will only be one big unformatted hard drive whereas in the original step 3 above the hard drive still had partition one as the recovery partition.

17. Open partition magic and create a new primary partition and make it about size of the original recovery partition{make is 20 MBs bigger} and make it a fat file system.

18. Now open PowerQuest Drive Image 7.0 and select restore a drive and restore the saved recovery partition in your external hard drive to the primary partition you just created in step 17.

19. Now put the Vista DVD in the drive and boot.

20.When Windows asks you what you want to do , DELETE the Windows XP operating system you were just using and install VISTA on the unformatted space and your computer is back to the way it was>>>>>> WHEN YOU BOUGHT IT.>>>>>>>>>

thanks for your generous efforts to extend all the support you can possibly give.

I have not received my order yet, but I'm sure my notebook will ship with a genuine Windows Vista DVD. It will also come pre-formatted with the Vista OS installed and recovery partitions as well, along with the appropriate CDs/DVDs.

To reiterate, what I want to do is get rid of Vista and install Windows XP on the notebook. My concern with this is that I will not be able to install Vista back smoothly again.

Now, based on what you said, I have gauged the following:
a.) If I get disks which can restore the operating system as well as the recovery partition (i.e. bring the comp back to its factory state), I needn't worry...right? (But from what you said about old recovery CDs/DVDs, I guess that's not very likely).
b.) I can take a backup of my recovery partition (How do I do this? Is it as simple as buring the contents of the partition to disks?)
c.) I get rid of the recovery partition during the XP installation and restore it by the method you suggested.

Is there any way by which I can install windows XP on the partition on which Vista is currenly present, and not disturb the recovery partition at all? Or do I have to get rid of it to get XP installed?

Am I assessing my options correctly?

for the moment, I'd like some support on whether at all I can leave the original recovery partition undisturbed...and if not, how do I take a backup of it, in more detail.

that sucks, because I could use your guidance through this (I am paranoid almost about all this because my academic term starts rolling on the 20th and I need to get all this done by then...).

In any case, thanks for your efforts and I hope this goes off without any major blemishes.

but that article assumes Windows XP is already installed, whereas I'm doing the reverse here.

right now I'm in favour of removing Vista, because most problems associated with it have been solved for my notebook and I won't be using it much if I have XP Professional installed (for academic reasons).

Now I just want to make sure I can get back to Vista whenever I want. So I want to preserve my recovery partitions and have a setup where if I want to install Vista, I can simply pop in the DVD which came along with my notebook.

Will installing XP over Vista affect the recovery partition (or other partitions) in any way? If so, how can I back it up?

Thanks again.

I have something a little diferent. I have 2 computers: one with Vista and nvida video and the other with XP Pro with ati video. How can I take the XP pro hard drive out and put it into the Vista computer so I can dual boot them and get rid of the other computer?

handimn1