Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and XP

Hi,

I seem to have got myself stuck.

A few weeks ago I installed XP on a new PC.
I was aware that 7 was coming along, so I created 3 primary partitions, and one extended partition holding drives d:, e:, f: and so on.

I installed XP, which went on the first primary partition.

Today I installed 7, selecting the second primary partition for it.

Having removed the 'boot from dvd' option from bios, I found that XP loaded automatically, with no options.

I managed to find the boot.ini file, and tried to add a second entry to specify the Win7 partition.

>>
However, although it could load XP successfully, if I tried the Win7 option I got a 'corrupt ntoskrnl' message.
>>

I saw some advice saying that you could only successfully boot xp from 7, and not the other way around.

So, I went into Disk Management in XP, and made the second partition active. (Hoping the second primary partition would now become the c: drive, and Win7 could boot as default).

>>
However, now when I boot from harddrive I get 'Bootmgr not found' error.
>>

I have since run a repair option from the Win7 DVD as boot device.

However I am now stuck.
Current situation:

1)
I can only run Win7 by booting from DVD.
It asks me my password and runs ok

2)
I saw some comment about running repair installation 3 times for Win7, but I no longer see that option on booting from the DVD

3)
I managed to find DiskManagement in Win 7, so I could make the first primary partition active again - so I can get back to XP boot ok.

4)
I don't know if my understanding about primary partitions is out of date.
I thought an advantage of swapping primary partitions is that XP and Win7 do not see each other, and therefore cannot overwrite or corrupt each other. Whichever partition is active, that is the only c: drive in town...

However, I noticed when in disk management in 7, that Win7 was aware of the XP primary partition, and had for whatever reason given it a drive letter d: ?
I don't particularly want this to happen, so is there any way around it?


5)
Any suggestions gratefully accepted...
Reinstalling 7 would be no problem, as all I have loaded is a graphics driver.

thanks

Hello bathsheba666, welcome to Seven Forums!



Here's what I would do ...

1) Install windows 7 on the first partition.

2) Install XP to the second partition.

3) Do a 'repair' on 7 with the 7 disk so you'll have both options at boot time.


Please post back to tell us how it turns out.

bathsheba666 said:

I am slightly hesitant to reinstall XP elsewhere, as I already have installed licenced software, and not sure (from ignorance) whether the built in validation checks will choke on the new arrangement when I reinstall and revalidate it.

You should have no problems re-activating your XP on another partition on the same machine; if you choose to go that way.

bathsheba666 said:

However, it seems to me that before I rearrange partitions, I should make sure I understand them, and it seems I don't , or something has changed.

I used to think that - with primary partitions - only one could be active at any one time.
So an OS on one, could not possibly see an OS on the other.
Here that doesn't seem to be the case?

True, they can 'see' each other.

bathsheba666 said:

Am I supposed to have all partitions named and provided with a drive letter - in both OSs ?
Or am I confusing this with an ancient setup where the first partition consisted of nothing other than a boot option which decided which of the remaining two primaries became active, and therefore booted?

No, you can choose whether they 'see' each other by deleting the drive letter, i.e. for XP in 7 so 7 can't 'see' XP.

bathsheba666 said:

The partitions I have, I created on the disk as part of the XP installation.
could it be that 'partition' in Windows means something different from what I had in mind?
Lastly, going back to your suggestion, would it be possible to get a utility to copy my XP installation from the first to the second partition?
and therefore hang on to existing installations and existing licences?
I imagine this might partly depend on the answer above about enabling one partition and disabling the other...

Yes, you could use something like Acronis or Paragon to make a clone that can be used to image the OS to be used later.

bathsheba666 said:

And the impression I get from all that has gone before is that there is a single boot record for the whole set of drives on the first partition of the first hard disk? would
that be correct?
t&r

Installed as I suggest W 7 will take over the boot process.