Installing two Windows on a hard drive

[marossity]

I have Windows XP Pro installed on my SONY laptop. It is in English.
I want to install another Windows XP in a different language, on a separate partition.
Can I do this, or does MS Windows demand to be installed on the C: drive?

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello marossity, welcome to Seven Forums!



You can install a second XP to the same Hard Disk Drive (HDD) on a separate partition and XP will even configure a dual boot menu but I have not as yet been able to get the second XP to install ac C: so that may cause issues with some installed programs/apps that are hard-coded to look for C: during their installation process.

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[marossity]

Thank you for the reply -
Yes, I can see how that might be a problem, but I am going to give it a go anyway and see what develops.
Me thinks me is going to need a little luck, me thinks.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

I know it's possible to install 2 separate XPs; be sure to post back to keep me informed.



I'm still working to see if I can get the second to install as C: but am having no luck so far.

 

[mjf]

BFK,
I thought installing 2 OSs (both XP or otherwise) on two separate HDD BIOS booting was fine. But wouldn't this have the drive letter problem also you refer to when it comes to some applications?

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello Michael.



Each could be C: if installed to separate HDDs, one connected at a time for each install and using the BIOS one-time boot menu but not the case on a single HDD.

The installer for the second XP install will 'see' the first installed XP and not allow the letter C: to be used for the second install; thankfully Windows 7 is more intelligent than that.

I even tried using the Windows 7 installer to boot to diskpart and create a new partition and assign it C: and format for it but that's not allowed either.


I tried this thinking creating a second partition in the first spot on the HDD, after the first install would 'fool' the second XP into thinking it was being installed as C: but that didn't work either.

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[mjf]

Hello Michael.



Each could be C: if installed to separate HDDs, one connected at a time for each install and using the BIOS one-time boot menu but not the case on a single HDD.

The installer for the second XP install will 'see' the first installed XP and not allow the letter C: to be used for the second install; thankfully Windows 7 is more intelligent than that.

OK but one of the HDDs installs would be assigned a "floating" letter assigned by Windows at boot I believe.

I wonder if multiple licenses would be required for OSs and third party software installed on different partitions of the same disk?

 

[gregrocker]

Use free Partition Wizard bootable CD to shrink your existing XP to make space for your Dual Boot XP.

Boot the XP installer, create a New Partition in the space you created and full format it NTFS.

After install, Install Easy BCD 2.0 to add the other XP to a Dual Boot menu. You'll need to install Net Framework 2.0 first to run Easy in XP.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Did you not see my #2 post above?


There's no need to use EasyBCD, the second XP added a dual boot menu without any out-side help.