Another 7 and XP Dual Boot Question

007vsMagua said:

I stumbled into this forum this morning, while researching dual booting with two hard drives, and this looks like a great forum. I see there are a lot of questions about dual booting, but after reading through some of them, I'm still not sure what works for me.

I just ordered a new mb, i5, hd, memory, and Windows 7, and should have it early next week. I will be removing my WD 500GB Blue, which has XP SP3 on it, from my MSI i650 when I make the changeover.

My plan to date is to assemble the new system, install the XP hd and see what happens.

Will I need to do a clean install of XP? A repair install?

After XP is installed and booting, I would then install the new hd and in the bios set the new hd as the primary, and install Windows 7.

Somehow, this sounds too easy to me.

Do I need to install Windows 7 first?

I would like to have Windows 7 as my C drive, and XP as my H drive. Right now my XP hd is my H drive.

It is my understanding that in order to select which OS will boot, one must make the selection in the BIOS, but from what I have read, it sounds like there are other options.

I'm a bit of a greenhorn, so understanding formatting and partitions is not one one of my strengths.

If anyone could explain the process in laymen's terms, I would greatly appreciate it__Thanks

Welcome to Seven Forums, 007vsMagua.

There are a couple of ways to do this, depending on what you want the final system to look like/do.

If you want a clean XP and Windows 7 both available, I would put the old XP drive in and do a clean install of XP first. Once that is up and running, then boot from the DVD and do a "Custom" install of Windows 7.

With the two drives in the machine, it should ask you where you want Windows 7 to go. Indicate the new drive, and it will set up a dual boot menu for you.

That's probably the easiest way to go. If you want some other sort of lash-up, please post back and the folks here will figure out how to do it. :)

P.S. - Here's a tutorial that may be helpful - Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and XP

(scroll down in it to the part about two drives.)

Welcome to Seven Forums.

If you scroll down on the tutorial TheSchaft mentioned you will see

2. To Use a Separate Hard Disk Drive than the XP Drive -
A) Boot from your Windows 7 installation disc.

It is required to have both HDs connected to get the dual boot setup.

When you get your new HD, install it, start your computer, it will detect the new hardware and ask you to initialize and partition it. Setup the partitions as you prefer, then mark the partition you want to install Win7 on as Active before you install Win7.

Take a few minutes to decide if your going to want to keep XP as a dual boot option. It is easy to setup but, can be difficult to remove XP from the boot manager and still be able to boot to Win7. We have seen a lot of issues with removing XP from the boot manager.

If you just want to keep it for a short time, you might consider booting it from BIOS.

You can try to just plug in the XP HD and see if it works, but when you install a new processor and motherboard, you will need to re-install XP.

If you are going to dual boot, install XP first and then Win7.

007vsMagua said:

Thanks for the reply Dave. There is more to the tutorial than what I first believed, and the extended thread should prove to be very helpful.

I talked to a friend yesterday, who has a lot of experience with builds, and this is what he told me to do.

1-) Assemble the new computer with all hardware attached...

2-) In the BIOS select the XP drive to boot first...

3-) Activate XP if needed...restart computer...

4-) In the BIOS select the DVD drive to boot first...

5-) With Windows 7 in the DVD drive...boot...

6-) Windows 7 will take care of partitions and formatting...

Is that it in a nut shell?

That is precisely the way to do it.

Sorry for the delay in responding - too nice outside. :)

Your friend suggests doing a repair install of XP so that it reconfigures the drivers since it was in another machine previously. This sometimes works.

Think hard about whether you really want a dual boot. Problem is, you may not be sure - but we are seeing many who have set up dual boots and then bailed out within hours or days once they experience 7. It is never that easy to do.

Consider installing Win7 to your new HDD with only it plugged in, then choosing which HDD (XP or Win7) to boot by using the BIOS boot order shortcut key (normally f10) at bootup. This makes the other HDD a data drive when not booted. And it makes unplugging XP or formatting it for later use as a data drive very simple.

If you really want a dual boot, then you'll want both drives plugged in and to install Win7 last in order so that it configures the boot menu properly.

007vsMagua - I think gregrocker has hit it. What is it you want to do with the dual boot? Once I installed Windows 7 (the RC), I never looked back. All my XP programs worked, as did some from as far back as 1999 (Micro CD Burner - no longer around except at my site and a few others).

The point here is what does a dual boot buy you? It really sounds like a good option would be to load Windows 7 on the new HD and see if you really need XP. If you do, you can always go back to your friend's scenario.