Dual Boot using XP/7

You may also find that booting into winXP you loose your system restore points on Win7 when going back to win7. This is because they use different system restore methods. There is a microsoft registry hack for this but doesnt work for most people. Go to the EasyBCD site and check out HnS - called hide and seek which solves the problem. Otherwise its a third party loader such as acronis.

I think I am in the same situation or sort of.

I bought a 500MB hard drive, took the old drive out (with XP Pro on it), installed the new drive and loaded Windows 7 on it. I took the old drive (with XP) inserted back in and connected it to another SATA terminal on my mother board.

Windows 7 is running fine on drive C (which is the only software on drive C).

First would like to be able to dual boot to either 7 or XP as a first objective, but not quite certain how to set it up. Any help would be appreciated.

Second if that does not work at least boot to XP at least once, because the driver (which I downloaded last week) for my Maxtor back up drive (which ran under XP) does not run under Windows 7.

Have lots of files on that back up drive I would like to get to and the only way I can see to get to them is via the XP operating system which now resides on drive J (on the third disk in my system). I am assuming that I will be able to access the Maxtor if I can boot into XP, as I was accessing the Maxtor prior to swapping drives and operating systems.

If I boot into the XP drive what happens to Windows 7 restore points?

Any help would be appreciated.

Chuck
Fremont, CA

Since XP was already installed in that machine, just plug it back in, set the preferred HD as first HD to boot in BIOS setup (after DVD Drive) then when you want to boot the other HD use the one-time BIOS Boot menu key shown on first boot screen or in your Manual at the Support Downloads webpage for your computer or mobo.

This BIOS-booting method keeps the HD's independent to come and go as you please. If you want to establish a Windows-managed Dual Boot menu, install EasyBCD 2.0 in Win7 to Add XP but the HD's will then be interlocked.