Installing WinXP as dual-boot with existing Win7, partition confusion

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  1. Posts : 8
    Win7 Professional x64 & Win7 Home Premium x64
    Thread Starter
       #11

    gregrocker - thanks, will do.

    theog - yep, had that thread bookmarked and it was on my to-do list!

    It's installing now, and there was one bit of curiosity when WinXP Setup was displaying the partition selection: the drive letters didn't match Disk Mgmt in Win7.
    Disk Mgmt showed this:
    Recovery (no drive letter)
    System Reserved (no drive letter)
    ACER (C: )
    WinXP (X: )

    WinXP Setup showed this:
    Recovery (G: )
    System Reserved (C: )
    ACER (D: )
    WinXP (E: )

    I went ahead with the install, hoping that if there were drive-letter problems on the WinXP install I would still be able to boot into Win7 normally and start over. Should I be worried?
      My Computer

  2.    #12

    XP will choose the drive letter it wants. There's little you can do to affect drive letter choice in XP unless you install it first to claim C, then correctly boot Win7 to install next which will also claim C when booted.

    System Reserved should have no drive letter in either DIsk Mgmt after install. If so, remove it so nothing will write to it and take up the free space necessary for staging an image: https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...ndows-7-a.html
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 8
    Win7 Professional x64 & Win7 Home Premium x64
    Thread Starter
       #13

    Ok now I'm a bit worried 'cause System Reserved does show with a drive letter in WinXP Disk Mgmt (and it's C:!). I'm hesitant to remove that because it was OEM-installed and I want to muck with as little as possible when it comes to the original Win7 install. See the smartphone picture below of WinXP Disk Mgmt - should I be worried? I'm going to continue the Dual-Boot Install tutorial with the EasyBCD steps hoping that I'll still be able to boot into Win7 and be able to check Disk Mgmt there to see what it looks like now after the WinXP install.
    Installing WinXP as dual-boot with existing Win7, partition confusion-photoxp.jpg
      My Computer

  4.    #14

    Then leave it. As stated the risk is a program will write to it and clog the space needed for SysvolInfo file which enables a Win7 backup image. You can wait until that happens if you want.

    There is no risk in removing a drive letter from SysReserved, only an OS.
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 11,408
    ME/XP/Vista/Win7
       #15

    thejtrain said:
    gregrocker - thanks, will do.

    theog - yep, had that thread bookmarked and it was on my to-do list!

    It's installing now, and there was one bit of curiosity when WinXP Setup was displaying the partition selection: the drive letters didn't match Disk Mgmt in Win7.
    Disk Mgmt showed this:
    Recovery (no drive letter)
    System Reserved (no drive letter)
    ACER (C: )
    WinXP (X: )

    WinXP Setup showed this:
    Recovery (G: )
    System Reserved (C: )
    ACER (D: )
    WinXP (E: )

    I went ahead with the install, hoping that if there were drive-letter problems on the WinXP install I would still be able to boot into Win7 normally and start over. Should I be worried?
    Drive Letters as seen from Windows XP & Windows 7.

    Installing WinXP as dual-boot with existing Win7, partition confusion-drive-letters-xp.png
      My Computer


  6. Posts : 8
    Win7 Professional x64 & Win7 Home Premium x64
    Thread Starter
       #16

    Thanks for showing that, theog - makes me less nervous seeing that what I was seeing wasn't unusual.

    However, when I went into EasyBCD I was left very confused by the drive letter assignment that it automatically picked up for the WinXP installation (which was C:, even though Disk Mgmt in WinXP showed it was E: ), so I chickened out and didn't go through with the write to the MBR, instead using a Win7 Installation disk to get to a command console to be able to boot back into Win7 again. Where I saw that the drive letters and partition attributes were back to "normal", and Win7 is working normally.

    I think I decided to not dual-boot my laptop after all, after seeing the inside of the WinXP installation w/SP3 and how virtually none of the devices were loaded and working (no network, no wireless, no sound, gimped display resolutions, etc.), and searching Acer's support site for WinXP device drivers and finding they only provide Win7 drivers for my model. Guess it's too new? I think I'll give XP Mode another shot on my Win7 Pro desktop (DIY so I still have XP drivers for everything), and if I still don't like it, I'll try dual-booting it instead.

    Thanks for the help guys! I may very well be back but I've learned a bit about what to look for in the future.
      My Computer

  7.    #17

    If you still have XP partition on the HD you can add it from Win7 using EasyBCD Add OS tab. It works a lot better and has no risks.

    Then you can spend time when you have it in XP trying to find its drivers by googling the actual device model + XP driver. It takes some detective work. If you start with the network driver you can get quite a few delivered via Custom Windows Updates. Consider it a project over time rather than standing it up all at once.
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 10
    Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit.
       #18

    i CAN boot from the DVD. the installation starts fine, finds the hard drives, i choose the drive D, it formats the drive & copies the files, then reboots and nothing happens.

    The "Press any key to boot from CD'' appears but nothing happens after that.

    any ideas ?

      My Computer


 
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