Win7 machine - How can I dual boot with WinXP?

bilm · 03 Mar 2018

I understand (I think) that if you have an WinXP machine and then install Win7, it will optionally setup a dual boot with the old WinXP.

But I have a Win7 machine and want to dual boot using the old WinXP HD from my old computer. I have read an article saying it is possible using something like EasyBCD? I've downloaded the last freeware version but I'm not clear about what to do next.

The Win7 machine was a gift and came with no install disk.

Do I hookup the HD from my old XP machine as the slave or the primary drive on the Win7 machine? If the XP HD needs to be primary how do I makeit the system/active drive/partition?

So far I have not found a clear step-by-step explanation of actually how to setup a dual boot in this situation. If it is even possible.

TIA

bilm

lehnerus2000 · 03 Mar 2018

Check out "Option Two" in Brink's tutorial, "Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and XP".

There are steps using EasyBCD. :)

Tutorial
Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and XP

townsbg · 04 Mar 2018

You have to be very careful with using EasyBCD or you'll mess your system up and not be able to boot from either system. Also I didn't find it completely clear within the application as to which partition was which when I used it. If you do virtual machines I highly suggest that you practice setting up a dual boot system first especially one with XP or 2000 and Vista or later setting up separate installs in order to simulate the steps needed to Add the older OS to the newer bootloader. I practiced on a virtual machine before I attempted it on my actual machine and I still screwed it up. On the plus side it has to be easier than running the BCD commands through command line which I wouldn't even attempt to do. Your use though is different than mine was when I needed it. I was reverting from the older bootloader to the newer one whereas you are only adding XP to the newer bootloader. That's much safer to do but it is still risky.

Something else to consider is that windows really needs to be reinstalled on a different computer in order to avoid driver and registry conflicts. Also you need XP drivers for your computer or your install will be just about worthless since XP has way less native drivers than Vista and later.

bilm · 04 Mar 2018

Thank you lehnerus200and townsbg for your replies.

I think I haveenough to go on now. I may not do it
and just stick with my current way of using a VM(VirtualBox).

My main concern has been how to connect the HD from my old XP machine
to my Win7 machine. So far I gather that I should connect it as slave
and use EasyBCD within Win7 and add a "new" XP to to the dual boot menu
somehow.
If this is not the way to do it I hope some will post here and let
me know.

Thanks
bilm

townsbg · 05 Mar 2018

Your computer might have the option of selecting the drive to boot from when you first boot your computer. If is then you can set the default to which ever drive you want and select the other drive if you want to boot into the other OS. It wouldn't be as convenient but it wouldn't require messing with the boot loader using EasyBCD. But yes you would add the drive as a slave and use EasyBCD to add XP to the Windows 7 bootloader. You really need to make sure that there are XP drivers for your computer. Without it your graphics won't be right so your resolution could look weird, especially if you have a wide screen monitor. You also won't be able to use any wireless cards or have audio. Also as I stated you could end up having weird errors or crashing issue by not doing a clean install of XP on that computer.

AddRAM · 05 Mar 2018

I would keep them totally separate from each either and use the PC`s boot menu to choose XP when you want to use it.

There`s no need to add an extra boot menu.

And once you`re in W7 remove XP`s letter, and when you`re in XP remove W7`s letter, and they will never see each other.

And yes setup XP as the slave, that must be one old PC you`re using if it uses IDE

mrjimphelps · 05 Mar 2018

If you were using VMWare Workstation Player as your VM software, there is an option for sharing the host drive with the VM session. I'm sure that there is a similar option in Oracle VirtualBox.

Another way to do it is to share the drive. While in Windows 7, decide which folder(s) you want to share, and make them shareable. Now go into an XP VM session, and open File Explorer. You should be able to find the shared folders by looking in the Network section. You could map these folders as drives in XP, so that they would always be available and easy to access.

badcrc · 05 Mar 2018

bilm said:

Do I hookup theHD from my old XP machine as the slave or the primary
drive on the Win7machine?

I have my doubts whether an XP HDD from a different computer would even boot in the 'new' pc. The XP install is expecting to see particular hardware. I've seen HDD swaps give nothing but a BSOD.

Nowadays, Windows 10 is quite forgiving with such swaps, but XP is from a different era. I mean - big blue cables ?

Worth a try . . .

bilm · 27 Mar 2018

It turns out thatbadcrc was right. I hooked up the old WinXP HD as slave to the Win7 HD. TheWin7 machine's bios recognized it without a problem but it would not boot fromit no matter what. So I had to re-install Windows XP.

If the old WinXPmachine had been newer I might have been able to use "New Jersey"'sidea of keeping the HDs totally separate. I likethat idea. All the apps that work in Win7 were transferred over from the old XPdrive so there is no reason for either drive to know about each other.
Also I likemrjimphelps's idea of configuring a VM's HD as the old WinXP drive. But I wouldneed a newer system for that. This Win7 machine's hardware is almost as old aWin7 itself. A newer system would have the juice (cpu + ram) to run a VM likethat within Win7 but I don't think this one would.

Anyway so Ineeded a dual boot menu. First I tried EasyBCD but could not get it to make adual boot menu for me. I'm sure it wasmy fault for not understanding how it works even though I read all I could findabout it.
I finally justused BCDedit straight from my Win7 repair disc's command prompt. BCDedit hassomething of a learning curve but the basics needed to make a dual boot menuare really not that difficult. One of the boot entries in my case is an ntldrbased Windows OS so I had to take that into account.

So I now bootinto a very nice dual boot menu and can use Win7(default) or WinXP; whichever Ineed.

Personally Irecommend using BCDedit and not messing with EasyBCD.

Thanks for allthe ideas. I may use them in the future.

bilm

(BTW - The reasonfor still needing Windows XP is neither Microtek nor Microsoft provided Win7drivers for a Microtek 36-bit(600X1200 dpi) color scanner that produces scans as good as any I've seen amongthe latest. And CorelDrawversion 8 which does everything I need but cannot work in Win7. On generalprinciples I refused to shell out the hundreds of bucks it would take to getWin7 equivalents.)

mrjimphelps · 28 Mar 2018

bilm said:

Also I likemrjimphelps's idea of configuring a VM's HD as the old WinXP drive. But I wouldneed a newer system for that. This Win7 machine's hardware is almost as old aWin7 itself. A newer system would have the juice (cpu + ram) to run a VM likethat within Win7 but I don't think this one would.

I checked your System Specs, and you are absolutely right - you have 1GB of RAM in your computer. There is absolutely no way to run a VM if that's all the RAM you have.

I'm surprised you are able to run Windows 7 with only 1GB of RAM.