[mustangkurt]

"And now you should be able to dual boot between Vista and a previous OS. "

You mean "the new OS" (I think.) Mine already has Vista and I want to add XP.

The previous OS would be Vista. Just making sure.

Thanks, Kurt

[strikegun]

bump*

[skylerzx]

Hi people,
I also have Vista op sys and would like to install Xp back and remove Vista. Not concerned about having both op sys's, only need Xp. What am I up against? or is there anything you think I should know before I attempt this. Any help would be appreciated.
Skyler

[Gswiss]

Just make sure that the drivers for XP corresponding to your pc are available on the manufacturer's site. Before installing XP, get a hold of the driver for your Network Interface Card. You'll need it to connect to the Web.

[Gswiss]

Also, check with your dealer that you don't lose your warranty if you delete Vista. Some manufacturers use that dirty trick. That's the reason why I intend to keep Vista alongside XP till the warranty runs out.

[skylerzx]

Thank-you for the info...

[drsleep]

Gswiss --

Just when I think the Interent is full of jerks who know the answers but won't give them, or the beligerent Linux boys who say they know the answers but are too-busy playing with the one or two programs that actually run on their machines to stop and enlighten you -- and then you come along.

Sorry if I've cast any aspersions, but I've been searching for two days for a simple explanation of how to dual boot VISTA and XP after VISTA has already been installed. Even the Miscrosoft guys say I have to reformat my hard drive and start over, since conventional wisdom says VISTA must be loaded first.

Thank you for putting a stake through that boogie-man's heart once and for all. Your step-by-step guide, with its clear and cogent explanation is so simple and elegant, I have to figure other people knew about it but didn't find it complicated enough for them to waste their time trying to confuse newbies.

(I'd like to meet these amazing people who were born like Paul Atreides' sister Alia, with all the universe's mysteries of UNIX, LINUX, and Ubuntu fully formed in their heads at birth, along with a phrophecy fortelling the return of the Commodore 64.)

Best to you, and thanks again.

-Dr Sleep
Uniontown, PA USA

[Support the Brights]

[Gswiss]

Since I found help on several forums in instances when I was in trouble, I considered it was my turn to allow other people to benefit from my experience. I did have to synthesize all the information I found on the Web and go through the process myself in order to make sure it worked properly.

The only case I heard of (but I never checked it out) concerning a disk required to be totally formatted is when you go through an upgrade of XP to Vista.

Another interesting point is the case where I had an XP installed on C: and I wanted to add Vista in order to have a dual-boot system, just out of curiosity. Well, the Vista Installer put Vista in C: at the root of the disk, after having moved the already installed XP and having assigned D: to it. Everything worked fine. As you probably know, changing the drive letter for XP bluntly yourself can get you into trouble.

Good luck in your endeavor.

[ThreeDollaBills]

Alright, as much as I hate asking people for help, I finally talked myself into looking at this forum. I'm a gamer, and I build computers quite often. The thing is that I have never put two OS's on the same hard drive. I've been using two 160's IDE for sometime now. I currently decided to upgrade to a 750gb HD SATA. I'm going to start with a new copy of Vista x64 and also a new copy of XP Pro x64. What is the best way to approach this situation? Vista first? XP first? Anybody have a good way of doing this so I don't end up having to format this huge HD more than once? lol. I'm wanting to put three partitions. 250GBX3 one for both vista and xp. The other for storage.

[Gswiss]

Install XP and Vista in separate partitions. Install XP first.

[Marty McFly]

Nice instructions. Shame you need the Vista Install disc to repair vista so it boots up. I, like many others, are stuck with some preinstalled crap.

[Gswiss]

Just ignore the preinstalled crap and install XP as explained in message #12 above

[krangseph]

hey guys i was wondering if anyone could help me with my vista to xp quest
so, i have a toshiba satellite a100 note book and it came with vista which i cant use my apllications with and im trying to put Xp on to er. so i found a little program call dariks boot and nuke, and used it to wipe the system (took four days! no joke) and the thing is blank now i even checked with cute partion manager to see. i also got all the drivers needed for Xp from the toshiba site and put them on a cd. but now, i put in the Xp pro corperate edition Cd and boot it from start up and windows set up loads files to a certain point and then BAM!

a problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer
*** stop: 0x0000000007e

*** pci.sys - address f76459......... and so on

it offers that i might need to disable a driver if appearing in stop massage and that i'll need to disable BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing. it says to press f8 at start up to change advanced settings but that dont do a thing...good god

this is the first time i've ever tried to wipe a system and install an OS so any advice would help

[Gswiss]

I had no problem at all installing XP alongside a pre-installed Vista on my HP nc6320 laptop. On the other hand, I get stuck right from the start, when I try to do the same thing on a friend's Dell Inspiron 6400.

When I reach the point where XP installer asks where the XP partition should be located and I select an unallocated area (same problem appears even if I create and format an empty partition beforehand and select it), I get the following error message : “To install Windows XP on the selected partition, installation program must copy certain boot files on Disk 0 with ID 0 on bus 0 on atapi [MBR]. However, this disk does not contain a partition compatible with Windows XP”.

I don’t know whether this has to do with the SATA disk. On the HP, I disabled SATA Native Support in the BIOS and everything went fine. In the Dell Bios, I found no equivalent option.

How can I create a “compatible partition” ?

[kb85]

"yup, heres a pic of the drivers screen

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b1...shi13/sata.jpg"

I have a HP DV6000 with Intel Duo and seem to be experiencing the same issue and now i'm stuck.

Strikegun, have you found an answer to this yet? I am also finding no "Sata Native Support" option in my BIOS and am unable to install Win XP because of this.

Anyhelp would be much appreciated if there is a way around this..