I have a M2010 running W7 ultimate using raid. I was wondering if I put in a hd in the secondary spot if I could add XP Pro and dual boot. I have some things that work better under XP. I put my old laptop drive in and set the bios raid to auto detect/ata. It booted to 7 and installed drive E:. I didn't change any Matrix software settings so it's a raid/non raid setup. Thanks for any help. GBY
Hi,
Welcome to the forum.
I would disconnect the Windows 7 drive, then install XP on the new drive.
Then reconnect the Windows 7 drive a boot to it.
Then using a program such as EasyBCD (it's free), add XP to the boot menu.
Assuming your old laptop drive is slower than your system drive, why would you want to boot XP off a slow drive? Carve off a partition on the system drive. Install XP to it. Use the slow laptop drive for data.
Best to boot Dual Boot via the BIOS, setting preferred OS HD to boot first, then choosing the other by tapping the one-time BIOS Boot Menu key at boot.
Install XP with RAID unplugged to achieve this.
Thanks for the welcome. So should I just unplug the primary drive and let it go to the secondary drive? I was just going to boot with the cd rom and have it choose to
load on drive E:.
If you install XP with Win7 HD plugged in it will steal the boot from Win7, requiring repair of Win7 to boot independently.
Take advantage of the benefit of having separate HD's for this Dual Boot: Unplug WIn7 while installing XP, then boot chosen OS via the BIOS so they remain independent drives without assorted complications.
If you don't like this arrangement, you can install EasyBCD to Win7 to add XP to a Dual Boot menu.
Thanks all, I'll give it a go. My last question. Does it matter if the XP drive isn't raid.. Should I change any Intel Matrix settings?
This varies with every mobo model. If it's recognizing the secondary now and holding its RAID then it's a good sign. Be sure to note the settings so they can be replicated if/when you unplug the RAID.
May I ask why you RAID Win7? We see a lot of problems with it and it doesn't seem to confer any benefit.
It was set up like that. I guess it was turned on and left like that when they deleted/upgraded the original XP Media Center..Ironically it still has a media center splash screen before W7 boots. I just got it non working on ebay for $250. I just re-greased the video card and reinserted the video card leaving the screws loose on one side. It booted up and has been working since. BTW, what settings should I note. This whole raid setup is new to me..Thanks...GBY
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