Hi,

I have a question about my system. I currently have WinXP installed on partition 1 and WinVista installed on partittion 2 of the same physical hard drive.

I would like to format my WinXP partiton and reinstall XP on that same partition. I was wondering what sort of of thing would happen if I were to do this. I am mainly worried about something happening with the bootloader (if you call it that) that Vista installed that allows you to pick Vista or "an earlier version of Windows"

Can anyone offer some advice?

Also, I would be open to the idea of just formatting BOTH partitions to install XP and then the newer build (5728) of Vista that was released recently. What effect would this have? I am just pretty lost on how exactly that vista bootloader is installed.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thank you!

wordup48

There shouldn't be a problem as a partitioned drive is treated as seperate drives. Changes on one partition wont affect the other partition. However, should you NOT have access anymore to Vista, just open up boot.ini, which is in your root drive, and edit it to add vista. Just copy the partition(n) part, changing the number in the parenthesis, which is an n in the example, to a 2. This is obviously on the new line.

Edited September 25, 200619 yr by CptMurphy

Thank you for your reply CptMurphy.

I just opened up my boot.ini (on my XP drive) and it this is it in its entirety:

;
;Warning: Boot.ini is used on Windows XP and earlier operating systems.
;Warning: Use BCDEDIT.exe to modify Windows Vista boot options.
;
[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" /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN /FASTDETECT

With this in mind, if I am not able to get back into Vista, do I need to do something with BCDEDIT.exe? I am unsure. It does not look like Vista is in my boot.ini.

Thanks

Yes, you need to use BCDEDIT now rather than boot.ini

The best way would be to format both drives, install XP first and Vista second - but if you don't want to do that, you can get the Vista bootloader back. If you install XP and then find you cannot boot Vista, boot from the Vista DVD and chose "Repair" (it's in there somewhere). It will then automatically detect the problem and rewrite the bootloader. (I used this method on 5308, but it should still be in there really).

hey i have the same problem

i have idea that might help

my xp is on another drive then vista

so i could disconnect it and install it on xp without changing the bootsector of vista ?

is that gonna work ?

gonna try it on vmware soon

Edited January 31, 200818 yr by aviv00

2 - part series:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lfC8xKgv_Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJEwoYN5Asc

Edited July 1, 200818 yr by jr2