How to dual boot Vista and XP (with Vista installed first) — the step-by-step guide with screenshots

rOcKnRoLL:

I coppied the Vista’s root folder the folder Boot, and the files bootmgr, boot.ini, NTDETECT.COM and ntldr and pasted them to the root of my XP drive.
I am using Dell Inspiron laptop, didn’t changed anything from the bios settings. I have tried the Vista bootloader Pro to reisntall the vista bootloader from the bootloader tab. Still I couldn’t fint the word ‘reinstall’, the tab has 4 or more radio buttons and all i can do is ‘install’ bootloader and as soon as i reboot my system it ends up in DOS prompting that file is corrupted, I have installed vista boot loader by clicking on a radio button says “All”. Now my question is I have done the same trick in my bosses computer (desktop) and nothing unusual happened. Why with my laptop then? I don’t wanna uninstall vista os, and i have another partition to install only xp os. But how can I get the bootmenu where I can choose which os to select? i will appreciate your replies. forgive my bad english i am international.

bdon:

is this comment after following the direction from this page or is is prior to. Because now im questioning if i should even do a dual boot on my inspiron 1505. when i go to disk management i see 4 partition
1.is a 47 MB healthy
2.is 10 gig Drive D: (primary partition).
3 is C: 100 gig OS partion
4.is a random 2 gig (healthy partition)

so im guessing if i wanted to do a dual boot i would have to shrink the 100 gig OS?

Jennifer:

I saw Steve’s comment on problems with dual-booting Vista and XP on a notebook. I would like to ask some advice.

Right now I’m torn between buying an Acer TravelMate 6592G which has a 15 inch screen and XP pre-installed or an Acer TravelMate 7720G with a 17 inch screen and Vista pre-installed. I prefer the 17 inch screen because I’m a graphic designer and this particular model also has a better processor etc.

BUT, I use Adobe products that don’t run (well) on Vista. My computer salesman said it’s possible with the 17 inch model to do a dual-boot for Vista and XP, the bonus is it has two separate hard-drives so I wouldn’t need partitions.

I am NOT a techie and would try dual-booting myself with the help of a tutorial, hoping all will go smoothly. But is there any guarantee it will run properly, if I do everything right? Can anyone give me some advice? I would really appreciate it!

Anonymous2:

http://apcmag.com/5485/dualbooting_vista_and_xp

try this tutorial

and i would go with the 17in if that is what you really want
you can just dump vista and install Xp using this tutorial its for a Hp but its the best one to learn how to intregrate the SATA drivers

www.nogodforme.com/HPDV6500T.htm

i am not that big of a techie and i got it.

Oooooops!:

Ok, so I guess this stuff was a bit too much too chew. I got as far as creating the unallocated space, 2nd partition, on my hard drive. XP install disk does not see any hard drive and cannot continue.
(RETREAT!)… but now I can’t even reclaim the 73gb hard drive space.
a point in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

old noob (New user):

your not the only 1

when trying to install xp on a pre installed vista machine
I have made 43gig unallocated space but can not see the disk
WINDOWS XP PROFEEIONAL SETUP
Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer.

running sata drive on a rca410L/800-M2 MB

captain_bb (New user):

i think u should check bios ang disable the SATA whick is enable coz of vista program. hope this will help

uglymutt (New user):

Its not rocket science, no need for any software to run a dual boot either, all you need in vista and xp, its so simple a caveman can do it.. already have vista installed just use the disc partition tool if you know anything about windows you know what I mean, then make a new partition and install xp on this new partition, then reboot and ohhh xp took over well you need to edit the boot loader so if you know anything xp does not see vista but vista can see xp so you need to input your vista disc and boot and select repair and go to command prompt so now if you know anything about windows it all started with DOS and you need to edit the boot loader to show xp and its so simple… no need to run all this extra software crap to confuse everyone and it don’t work like it should, if you know anything about windows then doing a dual boot is as simple and knowing how to play with yourself, OMG this tutorial is about as far out in space as you can get….. glad I know how to run windows…. good luck

ChesterCopperpot:

Because you CANNOT install OSX on any generic motherboard.
You have to buy an Apple pc to install OSX. There has
never been a real case of somebody installing OSX on any ol’
motherboard! And by the way, it is not illegal to dual-boot 2 versions of Microsoft…read the EULA one more time my friend…

IndustrialG33k:

I have my Toshiba tri-booting with Fedora Core 6, Windows XP, and Mac OS 10.4.3. This has been possible for a couple years now…

Keys (New user):

Not true! You don’t need a mac to install Mac OS. It will install on an AMD or intel PC processor! I installed mac os on my 2nd partition as a dual boot – works perfectly (sound took a little bit to get working, but running well now that’s all sorted out)

The Dude:

Maybe because Macs are worthless pieces of crapola!

Craig:

Nice article, exactly what I have been searching for. My problem is this PC only came with a “restore” disk and so don’t have the option of doing a repair install to fix the corrupt bootloader. Anyone have any suggestions?

drew:

I had the same problem with my Sony VAIO n250e.

You cannot do this without a vista install dvd. Don’t even try or you will be pulling your hair out. Even though theres other forums with information how to do this using vistaboot pro, I could never get that program working. I suggest you have someone download you a torrent of the dvd so you can get yourself an illegal copy. Your Vista key should be on the bottom of your computer.

Good luck.

Skippy:

You can do it from XP. Install SP2, .NET Framework 2.0, then EasyBCD. Run BCD, click Manage Bootloader. Select Reinstall the Vista Bootloader, then click write. Reboot and it should boot into Vista. From there you can install and run BCD. Click ADD/Remove Entries, and add an entry for XP and save it. That should be it.

Craig:

I couldn’t boot into anything….Vista or XP.

Now I have a copy of Vista so I got the repair done so I can boot into Vista.
I downloaded EasyBCD and ran it per instructions. On reboot I get both options: Vista or XP but when I try to boot to XP, I get another error blah, blah, “File: \ntdlr”. XP never finished setting up?!?!? How do I get past this?
Thanks

Reuben:

I am having the same problem. The dual boot is set up. I can run vista fine. I keep getting the “File: /ntdlr” is missing or corrupt. Any ideas?

James:

copy ntdetect.com and ntdlr from the /i386 directory on the XP CD to your XP drive, eg, copy e:\i386\ntldr c:\
and copy e:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\

Cally:

Just did that but I get the same error ??

KWR:

Two issues…

EasyBCD did not set the boot drive properly after I added an entry for XP while running Vista. So add your entry and then click on “Configure Boot”. Select you Windows XP OS under “Entry-Based Settings” and note the drive location. Make sure it’s set to C:\.

Even though I installed to a D: drive, the ntldr, boot.ini etc, were written to the C: drive. Since vista does not use these files I guess it’s ok to put them in the same directory…seems odd to me. At any rate, The boot entry has to be set to C:\ not D:\.

DW:

Changing the drive letter to Point to C: worked (even though XP is installed on F:)
Thanx allot… I needed to get this fixed for work

TheRealAnonymous:

1: BIG Help

>Changing the drive letter to Point to C: >worked (even though XP is installed on F:)
>Thanx allot… I needed to get this fixed >for work

You need to stop thanxing and alloting and learn to spell.

cmoohasdfa:

Should the files bec opied to c:\ or f:\?

Anton Donchev Donchev:

This was very, very, very helpfull information. I have no words to say THANK YOU !!! cheers and from meee ))

raj shekhar:

Hurray,

Follow these step my problem is resolved right now i have dual boot system

very very thanks

Canifrou:

Great! Thanx to all who helped. To get dualboot out of my new Toshiba laptop w/ VistaHP. I follow the steps of the article (http://apcmag.com/5485/dualbooting_vista_and_xp?page=1) and the downloads (EasyBCD). I got the Vista dualboot screen, Vista loaded ok, XP came with a error code re: NTLDR. I used EzBCD redirected XP to C drive and PRESTO! Thank you all. CHAU!

Kevin:

I would just like to thank you for that wonderful bit of information. I have been searching all over the web for over 5 hours trying to sort my dual boot system out, and eventually i come across your post about copying the files from the xp disc onto the harddrive and now all is well. YIPPPEEE im so happy now im off to bed. Cheers once again.

ping182nz:

Great tips from Skippy….this works great

Heath:

Top Tip, running OEM Vista Business with an asus recovery disc, only thing I had to do different was install .net framework 3.0…2.0 didnt work??? after that install easy BCD into XP repair MBR jump back into Vista install easy bcd there too and use as described…BEST TIP EVER!!!

Intrepidman:

Thank you so much. Your suggestion worked like a champ!

RickD43:

Thank you, you are a lifesaver.

Need XP as can’t get SQL Server running on bloody F%*ing Vista for some reason.

Fullmetal (User):

They have an SQL version for vista

ThomasLHS:

Thank you very much, Skippy! You’ve saved me a lot of trouble. Just spent the past 8 hours re-installing all my programs on XP only to discover I couldn’t boot into Vista!
Followed your advise and it worked perfectly. Thanks again! Now I can finally get some rest…

dicko:

Or you could just install MS Virtual Workstation 2007 which seems to run ok under Vista and is free.

Mayclone:

According to the MS website, virtual PC will not run with Vista Home Premium or Basic as host!

The17thsailor:

HA!

Callak:

This is incorrect. I’m running a 64 bit version of microsoft virtual machine on windows vista ultimate 64 bit, but that doesn’t help me with my issue since I don’t reccomend using a virtual machine to run 3d graphics intensive programs.

Nemo:

I unsuccessfully tried to dual boot with my HP Pavillion Notebook which came with pre-installed Vista Ultimate.

I desparately needed to have XP on my machine as I wanted to connect to my work via VPN.

Nothing worked … then came trying this with MS Virtual PC 2007… gave me exacly what I was looking for. I can now run Visa as the Host OS and XP as Guest OS. Enjoying best of both worlds..
MS Virtial PC 2007 is highly recommended if you need both OS running in the same machine…

Jazza:

I do same on hp dv6589us and works okay but on vpc 2007 cannot use actual video driver, e.g., on a desktop with samsung 22″ monitor.
but on laptop even though one reason I bought new one was for vista and dual core, etc., with vpc 2007 and xp I can make it look like my old laptop. BTW my new laptop has 4GB RAM so I allocate 2 to xp and could probably do more even.

Luis:

I installed MS Virtual PC 2007 and it is working fine with guess XP Pro, I have Windows Vista Business with 2 Gigas of Ram, and 256 of video ram, but virtual xp only reconize 4 megas !!, but i need more, since i run programas like photohop and corel draw..do you know a way to solve this problem.

thank you in advance.

Amit:

Hi,

My Laptop is preinstalled with Windows Vista Business. Now, I badly need to have XP on my laptop so that I can install a specific software that does not work with vista.

Kindly guide me with detailed steps of how can I have Vista as the Host OS and XP as Guest OS using the MS Virtual PC 2007?

Appreciate your immediate reply.

rikis:

hello,

I have (finally) successfully installed (triboot) Ubuntu “Gutsy”, Vista “Home Basic” and XP in my Compaq Presario C700. The key here is that Hp does not ship the vista cd’s and instead uses a “Recovery partition” so once you install Xp (needles to say that the box came with Vista installed) there was no way to boot back into Vista. At this point there are two options:

1.- Boot into Xp, download and install Easy BCD and fix the Vista Bootloader with the option under the “Diagnostics Center” tab.

Or

2.- Dowload and Burn a “Vista recovery CD iso image” and use it instead of the Vista DVD (the one that actually installs the operating system).

I had some problem with the first option so I had to use the second…

In case you guys are willing to try here is a link

http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Repairing+the+Windows+Vista+Bootloader

Regars,

wilkie:

i don’t get why you need to boot with vista disc just to shrink the drive. can’t you just do it within vista’s disk management as detailed below?

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial133.html#shrink

James Bannan:

You can use the embedded tool or the DVD – there’s no actual requirement to do it either way.  I was just demonstrating the DVD method because it uses DISKPART from within Windows PE 2.0 and is just rather nifty.

You could certainly use the GUI or DISKPART from within the OS.

Baggy52:

One question, how can I use the repair option without a disk? I have a laptop that came with the OS installed, and I am wondering how to get the the boot repaired without a disk.

JL:

I was wondering this myself

Frank vd Horst:

You don’t need the DVD, and you don’t need to reboot.
Just type diskpart in an cmd prompt and follow the guidelines as described.
things will work fine, your system will automaticly reboot, and there you have your new space

Wes:

I think this is a good step by step guide but I cannot understand why there would be a need to dual boot Vista with XP. If you have installed Vista and for some reason you need XP then you can have that XP install in a virtual environment instead without going the dual boot way.

Hagar:

Virtual environments have come a long, long way, but the more you work with them, you realize there are some things you just can’t expect to do. Especially for a gamer like myself – there’s no way you can run a game that won’t run under Vista (and there’s a bunch at this point) – in a virtual environment. Dual-booting gives you full native access to either O/S with no simulation layers and problems to get in the way. I’ve been doing it this way since Windows 95 and NT 3.51 – and there’s no better way to go!

JimmyConga:

Gaming under Vista is pretty bad at the moment. That is one excellent reason to keep a native partition of XP on hand…