Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and XP

Brink said:

You may need to run this from within Windows XP instead since it was installed first and will have the boot file. Plus XP is now hidden from Windows 7, so this may be why it's not finding it.

That was the problem! Everything working just as I'd like, now - many thanks for all your help

Hello,
I am new to this forum and have been reading this thread with great interest.
I am going to try to dual boot with xp. I have a new pc with win7ex 64bit installed.
I have been through this thread and I think I will give it a go. I am very nervous!!

I have windows 7 ultimate 64bit. I am going to try to dual boot with xp but I am wondering if it will matter that my xp is only 32 bit?
If it does matter then I will have to get a 64bit version of xp.

Thanks

Hi Arty,

You will fine to dual boot XP 32 bit and 7 64 bit.

Hi there,

I have recently bought a new pc with windows 7 pre-installed. Everything works fine. I then decided to have a dual OS system and followed your excellent tutorial and initiated the installation of XP onto a separate hard drive "D" up until step 6. When this step finishes the pc restarts but instead of booting into XP it gives me the following message -

"Disk error press ctl / alt / del to restart" ............. and thats it - nothing from then on in.

I had to use the Windows 7 DVD to "repair" the OS and then get it back on.

So for some reason I can not create a dual boot from within this OS.

Do you have any idea how to boot into XP using drive "D" so that I can continue the tutorial from Step 7.

Many Thanks:)

This guide was exactly what I needed. Now if only I could boot both OS's at the same time.

Okay!...

This is the easiest tutorial I've found so far. However, I'm encountering a problem during XP installation.

Most likely because I'm not using my CD drive as it is busted. I've made a bootable USB flash drive with a copy of my XP.iso on it. It boots fine, almost identical to the CD.

Here's the problem:

1. My computer doesn't like booting from USB drives unless either
A) In the BIOS, in disk priorities, you move USB-HDD first in line.
B) Target HD is set to first, but it completely blank.

The problem with A is if I move USB-HDD to first in the boot HD priorities list, none of my other hard drives are detected during the XP installation. (I also had this problem installing windows 7 from usb). I don't think the system bothers loading them.

The problem with B is if I keep my target HD as priority 1 in HD boot list, and select my USB-HDD as #1 in the normal boot section, the computer just loads up my windows 7 install as usual. Unless the Target HD is completely blank and set as boot first, the bootable usb drive won't load.

This may sound confusing, but my bios has two "boot" sections.

There's hard drive boot priority, and the normal section where you get to choose which device boots first, second, third, etc.


I must be missing something painfully obvious, as I am sure nobody else has this happen to them. It's not just this time, either. Whenever I want to install another OS, I've got to erase the previous HD completely just so it'll load up during PC boot...




Just in case that explanation didn't make sense, I'll try to explain again....lol..

I can't boot from USB unless I disable my hard drive and move usb-hdd to boot first in bios. Since i have to disable my HD just for the usb to boot, when the step for Windows XP Target Hard Drive comes (the part where it asks what HD you want to install XP on), no hard drives are listed. And this is because I have to disable them in order for the USB to boot.