Two OS in one drive,,?

for a start, easybcd will not let you point to two OSes on one drive partition.

your xp install will not work, and your windows 7 may be broken and crash all the time.

if you have plenty of time to waste, you can try it and let us know what happens. :)

why do you not want to partition your drive?

mickey megabyte said:

for a start, easybcd will not let you point to two OSes on one drive.

This is simply and absolutely NOT TRUE! Absolutely false (unless by "one drive" you really mean "one drive letter", i.e. "partition").

There is zero consideration for both Windows and EasyBCD regarding the bootable Windows OS partitions and whether they are on a single hard drive or multiple hard drives.


I have both WinXP and Win7 partitions on the same single hard drive:




And, the boot manager menu is handled perfectly by EasyBCD:




Nevertheless, we both agree that it is 100% absolutely true that you simply CANNOT install two versions of Windows into the same single physical partition.

The installers simply will not allow that. That's just not how it works. Two physical partitions are required, coupled by a boot manager menu.

sorry, i meant partition!

oops

Bare Foot Kid said:

dsperber said:

To clarify... when you install XP, the partition it is installed to names itself C when you boot to it. It's a particular physical partition on some drive, but when WinXP comes up that partition is lettered C.

When you install Win7 on a second partition, and then you boot to Win7, once again THAT particular physical partition is lettered C. It's a physically different partition than the WinXP partition, but they both are logically named C from their own perspective.

To clarify, you need to revisit and regroup on the miss-information you are telling people around here.

When Windows XP is not installed to the first physical partition of a HDD it will not be C: at all.

click to enlarge

To clarify... (so that there is no MIS-information spread, and I agree with that)

You have a very unusual "system reserved" partition lettered C in that WinXP setup. This is essentially unheard of in my own experience, when installing WinXP onto a brand new hard drive which is what I was describing as the way he could add WinXP as a second OS to an existing Win7 environment.

In fact, a separate "system reserved" partition on a WinXP disk in a WinXP-only environment is just not going to happen as a result of a "stock" WinXP install to that disk booting directly from the Microsoft WinXP installation CD. It is a construct from Win7, not WinXP. It gets no drive letter in Win7, but gets a drive letter in WinXP. That's why it forces WinXP to get a letter other than C on that hard drive... but this is in my opinion a "should not occur" situation. If WinXP is installed first and Win7 installed as the second OS, this would never happen.

With a brand new drive, and BIOS set that drive to "hard disk #1", and no pre-existing "system reserved" partition marked as "active" and "primary" as would be the case on a brand new second hard drive, then WinXP absolutely WILL install itself as the one and only "active" and "primary" partition on that brand new drive. And it WILL be lettered as C to itself, when you boot to WinXP.


Hey... if you have a running Win98 partition, and you decide to install 32-bit WinXP as a second OS by running the WinXP installer (i.e. running SETUP.EXE from the WinXP installation CD) under Win98, then whatever Win98 drive letter you select for the target partition of that WinXP will actually be the drive letter the installed WinXP sees itself as when you boot to WinXP!

So yes, I agree with you that in very unusual installation situations, drive letters other than C are possible for an installed WinXP.

But not if you have a brand new empty hard drive, and boot from the CD to run the installer (rather than from a pre-existing installed Windows)... then the resulting WinXP will get a drive letter of C to itself when booted. And that's what I was describing to him.

I was trying NOT to talk about the more esoteric and exotic advanced installation setups, which I agree with you can result in drive letters other than C for WinXP as seen from itself. I was trying to "keep it simple", which seemed appropriate at the time.

dsperber said:

Actually, when you install Win7 into an environment in which WinXP already exists, you have two options:

(a) upgrade your WinXP partition to now be Win7. Existing programs and settings are migrated to the new Win7 environment, etc., and you no longer have WinXP when the installation process completes. You will simply end up with just Win7 in the same physical partition in which WinXP previously existed, replacing that old WinXP. There will be no more WinXP.

(b) ADD a Win7 system into a SECOND PARTITION, producing a multi-boot two-Windows setup. That's where boot manager comes into play, and you will be able to choose either your old untouched existing WinXP, or your newly installed "virgin" Win7 system with none of your WinXP programs or settings at all. Pure Microsoft vanilla starter Win7... from scratch, out of the box.

very well done dear dsperber,, appearing these two option of windows seven setup (on an existing xp os already installed on a partition) I did never know before,,,
thanks a lot, nice work,,,:)
now I m done...

Quote from dsperber
[Quote](a) upgrade your WinXP partition to now be Windows 7. Existing programs and settings are migrated to the new Windows 7 environment, etc., and you no longer have WinXP when the installation process completes. You will simply end up with just Windows 7 in the same physical partition in which WinXP previously existed, replacing that old WinXP. There will be no more WinXP.[Quote]

You would need to upgrade to Vista first, than Windows 7.

theog said:

Quote from dsperber

(a) upgrade your WinXP partition to now be Windows 7. Existing programs and settings are migrated to the new Windows 7 environment, etc., and you no longer have WinXP when the installation process completes. You will simply end up with just Windows 7 in the same physical partition in which WinXP previously existed, replacing that old WinXP. There will be no more WinXP.

You would need to upgrade to Vista first, than Windows 7.

I didn't know that.

I've never done anything but a "cold" Win7 install (either standalone, or added to an existing WinXP environment as a second OS). Never had any desire to upgrade my WinXP... to either Vista or Win7. I much prefer to start from a vanilla pure OS and install everything from scratch.

Nor have I ever used Vista. Skipped that entirely.

I just assumed you could upgrade directly from WinXP to Win7, but I stand corrected.

Thanks.

Bare Foot Kid said:

That was a clean install of XP to a HDD that was set up with the SysResv and an Extended in advance

If I might ask, what is the purpose of having an extra "system reserved" partition when you are installing XP?? Yes, it's "primary" and "active" and would normally be where boot manager files would go for Win7. But for what purpose would it have benefit in an XP-only environment.

And besides, without your pre-preparing of the drive in this way, an XP install would simply create one partition on the drive, which would be both "primary" and "active" and also contain XP itself. No boot manager at the moment. And it would then be C, to itself.

And if you then were to add Win7 to this environment, the Win7 installer would place the boot manager files in that WinXP partition, which was already both "active" and "primary" on "hard disk #1". No need to create a "system reserved" partition.

None of this affects the rest of the hard drive, where you could have any other partitions you want. But I'm asking for what reason you would create the "system reserved" partition, which is (a) unneeded for a pure WinXP setup, and (b) unneeded for a dual XP/Win7 setup when Win7 is added second?

I'm not trying to be argumentative. I just don't see what purpose that extra partition serves in either a single-XP or dual-XP/7 environment. Why have it at all?