I am moving house & there will now be two people sharing my PC, one using XP & the other 7.
I would like to ideally do a fresh install of XP, or maybe, or not, an in place upgrade. Trouble is I've read that you need to install Window's OSs in order of age, XP>Vista>7.
Is there a way to reinstall XP fresh, leaving my 7 partition alone & not screwing NT boot loader in the process?
Follow Method Two here: Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and XP
I never realised that booting XP would delete all but most recent backups from 7. The work around stops XP seeing the disk 7 is on, however I have XP/7 soft partitioned on same disk, so guess will have to live with it?
Are you referring to System Restore points being affected by XP Dual Boot? I believe that issue has been fixed by MS. Turn on Sys Restore in both and watch. If one turns itself off, then post back for the latest fix.
Ah OK, old info. How do you turn on restore in 7? It's not by default I take it?
Yes it is. But check in both XP and 7 periodically by rightclicking Computer>Properties>System Protection.
Hmmm, don't assume anything when it comes to computers!
Followed guide for installing XP after 7, but did not decrypt drives which were BitLocker encrypted. I wonder if that particular feature is necessary as it gets in the way time & again.
Basically I deleted old XP partition & created a new partition. But XP setup disc did not want to continue without formatting Win 7 partition as well, which it recognised as an incompatible format. Then upon reboot I am unable to "bootrec /FixBoot" or "bootrec /RebuildBcd".
Putting it down to experience I think I can kiss my data goodbye!
When you deleted XP, it wiped out the System Active MBR which controlled the Dual Boot.
To recover the MBR into Win7, boot the Win7 DVD Repair console or Repair CD, press Shift F10 to open a Command box, then type these Diskpart Commands to mark Win7 active:
DISKPART
LIST DISK
SELECT DISK 0 (confirm this is Win7 HD # first)
LIST PARTITION
SELECT PARTITION 1 (confirmt his is Win7 partition # first)
ACTIVE
EXIT
Now boot back in to DVD/CD, click through to Recovery Tools list to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times with reboots to write the MBR to Win7 partition now that it is marked Active.
If Win7 will not start copy files out of Win7 by booting Win7 DVD, at screen where you select where to install Win7, click Load Drivers link, browse to your files which need retrieving and copy them to paste to flash stick, DVD or external HD.
If Win7 will boot, back up files, save a Win7 or (free) Macrium Reflect backup image externally, then clean the HD using Diskpart, install XP to first partition, then reimage Win7 to unallocated space to it's right: Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command
Backup Complete Computer - Create an Image Backup
Thanks, I have gone ahead with the nuclear option of a fresh install. It has made me think that encrypting the drive my backups reside on is a bad idea.
I am going to purchase a USB III external HDD to back up to & will NOT encrypt this time.
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