DV9000t Dual boot Vista/XP

My girlfriend has a new DV9000t with dual hard drives. Vista pre-installed, which won't run her video editing package. We would like to install XP on the second drive and set up for a dual boot.

I've found various instructions but don't want to dive into this until I'm sure it will even work.

PROBLEM ONE: The machine won't boot from a CD or DVD. Yes the BIOS is set right, but it refuses to boot from a known good CD or DVD in the DVD drive.

QUESTION ONE: The guide below looks good but refers to reinstalling XP, not adding it as a dual boot. Any advice?
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=82523

QUESTION TWO: The Guide below tells how to set up a Vista/XP dual boot. Any reason not to trust it with this machine?
http://www.syschat.com/dual-boot-vista-xp-vista-already-1946.html

QUESTION THREE: The guide above requires a Vista disc that will be used to "repair" the boot record and allow dual boot. Will the HP Recovery discs (extracted from the hard drive recovery partition) do the trick?

Of course I am leaving town today and trying to do this at the last minute! Thanks!

 

no, the HP recovery disks will not work.

it sounds like you have an intel based laptop. the first link you gave shows the process for the AMD based laptop. its mostly the same, but the AMD process has extra steps that are not applicable to an intel laptop. also, some drivers are different. also its for a dv2000z, which is even more different than the dv9000t (vs dv9000z)

the second link should work. but you'll need an original Vista disk, along with a slipstreamed XP disk with appropriate drivers

 

Thanks - on the model number, I may have been off. It's an AMD 64 bit machine. There are instructions for both Intel and AMD machines on this board and I likely pasted in the wrong link.

Re: on the need for a "real" Vista disc, that's very good to know. And at short notice pretty much makes this unlikely to happen.

None of this explains why I can't boot from a CD or DVD.

As is often the case I find myself saying "This should be easy!"

 

yeah the actual slipstream and windows installation process is not that bad. but your boot problem, i dont know... does the hp recovery DVD boot? (dont actually restore your system, just try to see if it will boot)