Dual Boot Vista Ultimate / XP Pro without Vista Ultimate DVD

I have followed all of the threads that discuss this and still haven't found a clear way of accomplishing this without doing a "clean install" ( I don't have Vista Ultimate DVD )

Can someone please point me in the right direction ?


Thanks in advance !

Lee

 

What???????

A little more information please.................

Current OS, type laptop, do you have the xp disk, etc.

thnks

 

I have a T61p with Vista Ultimate with XP disk.

 

I've done this. It's really easy! Here's what I did.

With Vista as the first system and the installation of XP as the second system, we all know that the XP installation is going to over write the boot block.

So install xp, but before you do - on your vista boot partition save this for installation on XP. Once you can log onto XP, this will give you the option of selecting you native boot partition. It's been a year and I'm not toally sure this was the one I used, but I think it is.

 

Does anybody understand this?

 

Install XP first. During the installation, create a partition for XP and Vista and leave the Vista partition unformatted.

Once XP is installed, install Vista on the other partition.

 

Thanks for the input but I need more clarification.

Arkit3kt: I would love to do a "clean install" but I don't have the Vista DVD to do that.

Update: I was able to "shrink" the Vista drive and repartition the unallocated space and install XP Pro using the D: drive letter. XP rebooted fine and I have been trying to use a program called VistaBootPRO and can't get it to work.

Furthermore, I am assuming that XP installed the following files into the C: drive ( Vista )

\ntldr, \ntdetect.com,\boot.ini

Any suggestions ?

 

If you have $5 to spare, you can use stallen's guide to do a clean install of Vista. Here's the link: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=144783

XP installs its files where you selected it to go during the installation process.

 

Thanks !! I read Stallen's guide 56453453 times and never caught that I could buy the "anytime upgrade disk" with Vista Ultimate on it. For some reason I thought it was for people having trouble with Vista and wanted to roll back to XP Pro. ( I promise I'm not blonde ! )

I just ordered the "upgrade disk" from Comp USA and will do this the right way once I recieve it. ( hopefully it won't take long to receive )

Thanks again !

 

So there is NO possible way to dual boot xp/vista if Vista is installed first?

 

My guide is the one for the downgrade/clean install of XP.

You're welcome.

I'm sure there's a way but I don't know of one. I've only read recommendations to install XP before Vista because XP is a boot file hog or something. Anyways, I'm sure someone one this forum can enlighten us about a post-XP installation?

 

Currently I have Vista Ultimate on my C: Drive and XP Pro on my D: Drive. I used VistaBootPRO to let Vista boot first ( which it currently does ) I just can figure out how to choose which OS to boot from. VistaBootPRO was installed on XP Pro so I don't have it installed on Vista .... I'm sure that it's a simple fix .... I just can't figure it out. And quite frankly I am a little nervous to start moving files around.

I am also REALLY worried that when I do a "clean install" that I will have a really tough time getting all of the drivers installed. < fingers crossed >

 

Oh ... and to not confuse anyone I started out with Vista Ultimate and used the "shrink drive" tool to rename and reformat the newly aquired unallocated space and named it D: Drive

 

Installing drivers is not as hard as it's claimed to be. My guide will provide a complete device manager without any unknown devices and I'm sure stallen's guide will also do the same. Mine is for XP drivers and his is for Vista's.

 

Thanks !! I needed the words of encouragement.

 

"So there is NO possible way to dual boot xp/vista if Vista is installed first?"

Yes, what I described does all Vista to installed first After installing XP, XP was the primary bootable system. In order to fix that, you can use Vista Boot pro to make vista be the primary system.

 

And, does vista boot pro inluded in any Vista?

 

Use the Vista DVD to shrink the Vista partition, then install XP on the free space, get your storage drivers for SATA set up, then use the Vista DVD to "Repair" Vista, boot in to it, download and use EasyBCD to configure the Vista Bootloader to boot XP. I just did this and it worked perfectly, using this guide:

http://apcmag.com/5485/dualbooting_vista_and_xp

 

Just because I'm curious, why would you want to dual boot XP/Vista?

I tend to use VM's for other OS's, but I'm just not ready to give up my XP..

gravie

 

The Microsoft VM does not have USB support which is hard to believe where VM ware does. After having used VMs, my preference would be to have two bootable system's.

 

No ... you can find it here. http://www.vistabootpro.org

 

There are "ways", but it is not recommended from personal experience and multiple other posts I've read.

 

I've only done it once but it worked absolutely fine on a lenovo 3000

 

I have one more question. Once I do a clean install can I have 3 partitions ?

1) XP Pro
2) Vista Ultimate
3) Shared Drive for media, etc. ?