Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and XP

You could try booting from the XP DRIVE and it might work, it would probably take a while to boot up while it replaces drivers etc or it might not work at all.
I used a drive that I had XP Home installed on on a new motherboard and it worked but they were both ASUS boards and I had to make sure that the drive was readable in the BIOS by connecting it to a SATA port that was IDE Enabled as the normal mode for the new board was ACHI. Once it had booted into the old XP that I had I then installed the ACHI drivers and XP would then boot from a SATA port that was ACHI enabled.
You can but try. Both boards were AMD processors.
If you have installation media and the Key that should be on your machine you could always reinstall XP and make it a dual boot machine either by booting to the drive from the BIOS or using EasyBCD to create a dual boot file.
I can't say much more as the information given is too sparse, old motherboard, new motherboard, processor old and new etc but read this tutorial at the beginning and it should give you a better idea.
Generally when a new motherboard is installed it needs a new install of the Operating system.
:)

Hi; thanks for the reply.

The relevant basics of my recently deceased venerable PC:

Dell Optiplex GX280 SFF
P4 HT 3.2 GHz Prescott
Dell mbo (I don't have a record of the number)

Samsung HD080HJ/P SATA; boots into 32-bit XP Pro

For the newer PC:

Dell Optiplex 780 MT
Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0 GHz Wolfdale
Dell 0C27VV mbo

Samsung HD161GJ SATA; boots into 64-bit Win 7 Pro

***

The XP came pre-installed by the mfr; it's a valid license, but I have no media for reinstalling.

As things stand, if I try booting the new machine from the XP drive, it shows the XP Pro logo for a minute, then it stops dead. I'm feeling pessimistic, but I may try to fiddle with the BIOS settings when I get the chance.

Thanks again.

P.S. Cornwall, eh? My wife's got us watching "Poldark" these days

Hi Ron,
Poldark is filmed in Cornwall not many miles from where I live, a lot of the moorland scenes are filmed on Bodmin moor which is only 20 miles away. Your wife will be pleased to know that the Poldark series is going to be continued.
I would check the Sata settings in the Bios to see that IDE is supported as the older XP installation will almost certainly be using IDE not ACHI. I will look at finding install media for you.
Both processors are the same family so that is good so check in your Bios the Sata settings it might be as simple as that to get it to work.
I have kept XP as my old printer will not work with W7 and some of the old games that I play with my daughter will not work properly on W7.
Can you burn a CD or DVD as I might be able to find an iso file to burn install media from.
Regards
KingWhiskers

Looking on Dell support site XP is no longer supported so you can't download it from there.
There is ebay and there are lots of new packages on there with COA that would allow you to install and these are pretty cheap.
There are other methods of obtaining a copy but I can't talk about those methods on here as I would be banned.
Installing XP would probably require installing the relevant Sata drivers at installation and for this you will need a floppy drive or a small usb stick configured to run as a floppy.
I got a USB floppy drive from Amazon for very little money and very useful it is too as you can use it to boot into DOS or run Mem test AND easily load device drivers for an XP install.
There does seem to be a lot of dell XP Pro install discs on ebay and one of these should be good for your application but I would still check out the Sata drivers for your new machine.
The only other way I can help is if you let me have your email.
Regards
KingWhiskers.

I have checked the operating manuals for both computers and on page 18 of the manual
http://downloads.dell.com/Manuals/al...ual2_en-us.pdf
the Sata settings are

configuresthe operating mode of the integrated hard drive controller.
RAID Autodetect / AHCI = RAID if signed drives, otherwise AHCI
RAID Autodetect / ATA= RAID if signed drives, otherwise ATA
RAID On / ATA= SATA is configured for RAID on every boot
Legacy= The hard drive controller is configured for legacy mode
Legacymode provides for compatibility with some older operating systems that do not support native resources assigned to the drive controller

select Legacy and save settings and then try booting from the XP drive. It should then now boot from that drive as it will be able to read it properly.
hope this helps
Regards
KingWhiskers.

Hi, Thank you very much for your looking into this -- I was under the weather for a few days, and am just getting back to dealing with things digital. :)

I'll review your replies and see what I can do re the SATA drivers.

If need be, I'll be glad to send you my email address. Is there some way that forum members can do that privately, or do I have to post it here openly?

Thanks again, KW.

RS

Hi Ron,
sorry to hear that you have been unwell, hope you mend quick.
Hopefully the BIOS setting change will solve your problem.
You can send a PM (Private Message) by going on "Quick links" and selecting "Send PM" from there or hover over my name at the top left of a post and left click on it and send a message from there.
I should not be tempted to go along the Windows 10 road yet as the feedback on that is quite bad with lots of cases of failure and things not working.
Get back to me when you can.
Regards
KingWhiskers

Hi,

My wife is in the throes of Win 10 right now -- she recently got a new laptop with Win 8.1 pre-installed, and she decided that Win 10 could not make things any worse. We shall see....

Re my problem, I tried rebooting from the drive that has XP installed, after disabling the other drive, and then setting the SATA option to 'Legacy.' Booting very soon took me to the screen which asks me to choose Safe or Normal boot, and "going forward" always brought me back to that same point.

I think that I'll have to get media (I probably can take care of that on my own) and reinstall XP. My main reason for wanting to avoid a new installation was having to go through the years of Windows updates, which already have been incorporated into the installed copy, but what can you do?

Thanks again for the help.

Cheers,
Ron

Hi Ron,
sorry that the bios change did not work, there must be other driver issues that prevent it from working. I guess I must have been lucky when it worked on mine, it did take a while to boot and a couple of goes. Did you try to boot into "safe mode"
regards
KingWhiskers

Hi. I'm trying to use Option 1, Step 2B to create a Windows 7 Pro x64 partition on an XP 32 bit system. The problem is that I have a 250GB SSD installed with a fairly basic install of XP. Windows Explorer in XP shows that I have 215GB of available space left on the disk. However, the diskpart command only shows that I have 115 GB available. I was hoping to give most of the disk to Windows 7 since I'm only keeping XP for legacy software and hardware. What gives? How can I fix this?