Page 2 - Vista - Dual boot Vista and XP on Vista Preinstalled?

I hope now you know about what all I've in my laptop; now, to start with dual boot procedure, what all I've to do?

Can someone narrate the steps which an ordinary user with little knowledge about MS-Os's and no knowledge about Linux?

try google, we have told you what to do

http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_...ystep_guide.htm ive done it for you!

Because of this thread and a huge body of Vista users believing Vista is designed to take over the entire hard disk I experimented my Xp and Vista by both resizing and moving them.

There were originally each in a 100Gb partition and now each in 20Gb partition at the hard disk positions different from their installed locations.

This is the thread I wrote today to report the details. The information is enough for any Vista owner to resize the Vista partition and install Xp afterward.


-----------------------------------------multi-boots involving Grub---------------------------------------------------------------------

On the instruction to install multiple operating systems from any number of Dos, Windows, Linux, Solaris and BSD the easiest way is to have the partitions created first for the target system so that its installer will sieze upon it for the installation.

One Os that supports all the PC system is Linux so one can use it to create the necessary partition. For both XP and Vista the partition is Type 7 for NTFS. This can be created in Linux by GUI software like Gparted or terminal program cfdisk or fdisk (Linux version not Dos version).

Linux supports more than 100 partition types.


Therefore for Xp and Vista one can create two Type 7 primary partitions, hide the second one thereby making it unrecognisible by Windows, and install say XP inside. Once Xp is operational one can boot up a Linux Live CD and use it to hide the first Type 7 partition and then unhide the second Type 7 partition ( by cfdisk or fdisk program altering the partition type, see Type 7 and 17 in the above listing). Thus booting up a Vista its installer will sink its teeth into the second partition for installation and leaves the first partition alone because it thinks it is a foreign partition.

Once Vista is operating satisfcatorily one can install just the boot loader Grub in another primary partition and instruct Vista to boot up Grub.

The XP and Vista (and any number of operating systems in the PC) can then controlled by editing the Grub configuration file menu.lst.

This thread shows how two versions of the same Vista can be booted by Grub without a Linux installed.

This thread describes a triple boot of XP, Vista and a Linux. Grub is obtained from the Linux.

There are so many ways to do mutli booting. One needs to choose a boot loader and this can be Win2k/Xp's NTLDR, Vista's BCDedit, Linux's Grub, Linux's Lilo, Solaris or BSD's own boot loader or any 3rd party boot loader. Anyone of them can do the job and the choice boils down to which one needs the least work.

Grub is about 2 to 3 times easier than the next best which can be Vista's BCDedit as I have tried both of them on booting 150+ systems.

People talk about dusl boots in MS systems but in Linux the 2nd system to the next 200+ systems can be booted indentically the same way regardless the types of operating system. May be that is why some people find Linux bootloader "finiky" because it is ridiculously simple and excessively powerful. Technically speaking other system vendors made their boot loaders complicated so that it is difficult for the user to boot other operating systems. Grub just does not have this agenda so it can fit in and co-exist with any system by the most direct way.

For Grub the order of installing the operating systems, the types of operating systems and how many of them are immaterial.

Jeez, I posted a freakin' YouTube baby-step-me-through-this link. What do you want? If you bring the laptop to Warrensburg, NY, I'll do it for $25 an hour. =P xD (no offense meant, just in case)

Thanks to all of you. I've succeeded XP installation on Vista preinstalled.

Earlier when there is only Vista in my pc, I've installed AVG Antivirus ver 8. How to make it available to both Vista and XP? Do I've install again for XP too?

Thanks to all of you again.

You must install another copy on XP, so you have one copy for XP and one for Vista. Everything must be installed for both XP and Vista, and in the partition for its respective OS, and be installed by the OS that it is intended to be used by. In other words, if Vista is on drive "C:" then you must have Vista install your software to "C:\Program Files", and if XP is on "E:", then you must have XP install another copy to "E:\Program Files" ... Keep in mind that XP and Vista might not necessarily see the drive letters the same way... to help you recognize them, right-click on the partition (aka "drive") that XP is installed to, and in "Properties", label it "XP" or similar, and do the same with Vista, label it "Vista" or somesuch.

Thanks. I've done it. As I read in the thread, my XP partition is only 4 Gb and now there is very less space after installing the XP drivers. Is there anyway to allocate more space from my Vista partition where nearly 100 Gb is free.

I don't know anything about Linux and I want to learn it by putting Linux is another partition. I think, I've to start a new thread.

To Start with Linux where Vista and XP on Dual Boot

The first link I put in Post #18 is for resizing and moving Xp and Vista with help from Linux.

You can do without Linux if you are willing to pay for proprietary software.

With a Linux you can do it free and understand how it is done as the knowledge is in the public domain.

You can resize and/or moving your Xp and Vista by just booting up a Linux Live CD to carry out the tasks. The best is to get Gparted or Parted Magic from their sites as these two are invented for such purpose. Other Linux just built Gparted, most likely an older version, into their distros.

If you run Gparted, click terminal, and copy and paste here the output of terminal command

then we can advise how you should resize the partitions to make room for the Linux.

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Alternatively you can choose an easier option by installing Linux into a separate internal hard disk, an external USB hard disk or a USB flash drive of CF card, SD card, memory stick etc. That way you can leave your internal hard disk untouched.

There are ways you can install Linux and keep you two Windows untouched like a virgin.

Resizing and moving installed Xp and Vista are more demanding/challenging operation and should be attempted if you have a reasonable level of skill. I recommend you try to put Linux in a separate internal hard disk, or in an external USB or firewire hard disk or a USB memory device first. It is easier.

Google GParted LiveCD and get that, it makes moving / sizing really easy.