Dual Boot for your computer

Diy-Computer-Repair can help!

You have a computer that you want to install a second Operating System on. Say you have Windows XP installed and want to test Vista before you upgrade to the new OS.

With out buying a new computer or say VM Ware you could set up your computer to boot in to another OS. It is called a dual boot system.

How would you go about making your computer a dual boot system? Well it takes a little work but in the end you will have two operating systems on your computer.

What you need:

When you want to do a Dual Boot System you need to install the oldest OS first. The reason is that the older OS will not know about the newer OS's boot loader. If you load the newer OS then the older OS. the older OS will overwrite the boot loader for the new OS and you will have to repair the Boot Sector for the newer OS to load. Then you will have to modify the Boot Loader to see the older Operating System.

To get around this load the older OS then the newer OS, this will save you some time and work.

Space for the new OS, if it is Vista you need a minimum 20 gig on your hard drive. You could go higher, say 32 Gig. This has to be open space not already allocated as a drive because the OS needs a raw partition to create the boot sector.

If you are a VM Ware user and want to experiment with the XP / Vista dual boot start with XP then load Vista. If you have Vista loaded then load XP on another VM Drive it will over write the MBR and needs to be recovered before Vista will boot.

Like this with VM Ware:

If you have XP installed and want to install Vista to experiment then before you install Vista you need to create the virtual drive you will be using. Then with XP loaded open the Disk Manager, then select you new drive and create a partition, you don't want to format or add a drive letter, just create the partition. Vista can't see a raw partition that is a VM Ware virtual drive. I made my partition 15 Gig because I am only do the load for an experiment, it will not have any applications loaded on it.

To install Vista with an existing XP installed OS I suggest you back up your hard drive partitions. I suggest you make an image of the XP OS and any associated partitions with either Ghost, Acronis True Image, or any other drive imaging program.

With a hard drive that with out enough open space to install Vista:

Some other techs would say using some thing like Partition Magic to resize your hard drive partition's) to make room for a Vista installation. When I have use these types of programs I ran in to problems with the installations of various OS's so what I do when I need to make a partition that an OS resides on larger or smaller I make an image of the installed OS then delete the partition. Then I make the new partition the size I want it to be, using DOS or the Install CD make the new partition bootable, replace the image back on the new partition. Now you are ready to install Vista on the empty space.

Before installing Vista on the empty space start XP (you will want to do this anyway to make sure the OS image is good). Go to Drive Manager, on the drive you resized make a partition the size you need (for Vista I suggest a minimum 20 Gig or up to 32 Gig). Do not format or assign a drive letter to the partition, Vista will reformat it when you install the OS.

Installing a new hard drive for the Vista install:

Normally Vista will see the raw partition and will install with out problems but if you start the install and get to the point where you select the new drive and the installation process will not allow you to go forward. In this case I would use the same method above.

Once installed on any of the above scenario's you will see this screen when starting your computer:

Vista Boot Mangare screen #1

Vista Boot Mangare screen #2

One of the neat things about Vista boot manager is the Diagnostics

Vista Boot Mangare screen #3

So what does the Vista boot.ini look like?

You need a special program to view the contents, it is not a text file, one of these will let you view and modify the Boot Configuration Data store.

VistaBootPRO (Note: You will need .net for XP, the program will open the download page for you)

Vista screen shots:

Overview:

Screen # 1 of program to modify the Vista Boot Manager files

OS Entries, this is where you can change the startup sequence and a few options.

Note: I recommend you backup the registry before you do any modifications!

Screen # 2 of program to modify the Vista Boot Manager files

To add another OS to the above boot.ini for your OS besides Vista you have to modify the boot.ini for the original install of XP to read:

Normal Windows NT / 2000 / XP boot.ini:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

 

Notice that I have added on a Windows 2000 and a DOS partition to show you how the boot.ini would look for more than two Operating Systems.

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(2)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows 2000
C:\="MS-DOS"

If you want to have a boot menu when your OS starts you can use this for an example, this is not a dual boot but a normal boot where you can select the startup the same as pressing F8:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="XP Pro Normal" /fastdetect /noexecute=optin
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Safe Mode" /safeboot:minimal /sos /bootlog /noguiboot
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Safe Mode Networking" /safeboot:network /sos /bootlog /noguiboot
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Safe Mode CMD Prompt" /safeboot:minimal(alternateshell) /sos /bootlog /noguiboot
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="XP Pro Debug" /debug /sos /basevideo /noguiboot /bootlog
 

The menu, as you can see the different ways you can start your computer:

Sreen shot of XP boot menu.

Pressing the F8 will bring up the 'Safe Mode' menu:

Sreen shot of XP Safe Mode menu when you press F8.

As you can see it is possible to have more than one or two different Operating Systems on your computer.

I will make a recommendation:

Backup your hard drive before you make any modifications, an image of the partitions is the best way to do this.

Do It yourself Computer Repair Books and E-Books Index
Free Computer E-Courses!



Thank you for visiting my web site, and please come back again.

© www.diy-computer-repair.com '2008 Copyright Russell Enterprises All Rights Reserved

diy-computer-repair has external links for more information on repair and parts.

If you can't find it here, leave me a message and I will see if I can find it for you.





Return to previous page

Home Support   About owner   Site Map   Why I use SBI
Privacy Policy



Return to top

Copyright DIY-Computer-Repair.Com 2009

powered-by-sbi


 


Video for
DIY E-Book

Requires
the free
Flash Player
download it here

Got a story about
Your Last Computer Repair?
A Question,
Ask It!

Share It!

The Good 0r
Ask a Question?

The Bad
The UGLY
 
 
Custom Search

Subscribe
to the
Fix It!
Newsletter

Fix It! Newsletter
Email

Name

Then

Don't worry -- your e-mail address is totally secure.
I promise to use it only to send you Diy-Computer-Repair Fix It.

My Twitter! xml-rss Add to My Yahoo!
Add to My MSN Add to Google AddThis Social Bookmark Button My StumbleUpon Page Computer Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory

Page copy protected against web site content infringement by Copyscape



Lower your
cost of
Ownership

One repair will pay for three copies of this book!
There is no
secret to
computer
repair!
Only $37.95
Instant Delivery
No S&H


Index
Home Page

How To's..
Auto Conf
Cleaning a computer
Cleaning Your Keyboard
Create a bootable floppy
Create a bootable CD/DVD
Create a bootable USB device
Dual Boot for your computer
Installing a Hard Drive
Making an External Hard drive bootable
How to make a bootable USB hard drive
Build a BartPE disk
BartPE and ERD Commander
Crossover cable connection to transfer files.
Defragment your hard drive
Create an image of your hard drive
Creating a Symantec Ghost image
Restore Symantec Ghost image
Copy or Move a File?
Disaster Recovery
Connectors - What are they?
[Humor]
Installing new hardware, a how to...
Network Attached Storage NAS
Network Connection Speed
Overclocking - Processor and FSB
Partition and format a hard drive
Performance optimization
More...Performance optimization
Setup a Router
Wireless Router setup
Setup Software / Firewall
Windows Firewall Service
System Manager Tips
System Tools
Storage Manager
Services and Application
Upgrade your Motherboard
Backup for Windows XP