How to Dual Boot Windows XP and Vista if you don?t have a installation disc

Before attempting, let's assume you have read (and understand) all the instructions below about dual booting on a home computer. It will also be assumed that you have backed up all your important data as well. Ok, done with the disclaimer.

So you buy a new Vista computer and you get back home and open the box and come to the startling realization you were not given a Windows Vista installation disc . And so you spend a minute or two screaming out vengeance at Microsoft or your computer retailer.

Calling up your computer retailer may get you somewhere, but often it only leads to an offer to provide you a recovery disc that is not quite suitable for this task. If you’re fine losing all personal data on your Vista installation, fine, it can restore the Vista boot loader too, but it’ll just take a whole lot longer!

If you have XP installed first, and you want Vista, you most likely will go out and purchase an installation disc with a license. The Vista installation is smart enough to usually include your XP boot-loader into its Master Boot Record (MBR). From there you just you can use EZBCD at http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1 to edit the MBR to include Windows XP ntldr bootloader in the boot menu.

But if you have Vista installed first, and are wishing to install XP, the water can get a little choppy. The first problem I encountered was that my HP DV 9500 had the SATA hard drive feature and had a BIOS that was unable to turn off that feature. So, I had to slipstream the SATA drivers into my XP Installation disc using Nlite at http://www.nliteos.com/. Slipstreaming the SATA driver allows XP Installation disc when booting to load the driver allowing your hard drives to be visible to the XP installation. This can be explained in depth at http://www.nogodforme.com/HPDV6500T.htm.

The only things that may change are the versions of Nlite you may use or the type of driver that is required for your SATA hard drive. Of course, if you don’t have a SATA hard drive, good for you—then it’s just one less flaming hoop for you to jump through.

Prior to XP installation you may want to collect all necessary drivers that are required for your computer’s components and back up any vital information. You can search up the names of the devices individually or if your computer retailer is friendly enough to provide the drivers on their website under the name of your computer model collect them there. Also, if your computer contains the same type of device as an older computer model that is supported by suitable XP drivers, you may want to search for those drivers under older computer model information (for example, HP doesn’t include the programmable quick play IR remote driver for the DV 9500, but does include it under older laptop models) .

What happens when you install XP is, because it’s an older version, it cannot detect its younger brother Vista to include it in its boot loader; instead it rudely overwrites any previous boot loader. Even if it could include Vista, it couldn’t boot Vista’s advanced boot loader. So, after XP installs you must fix or reestablish the Vista boot loader.

So, start by installing XP on your Vista machine on a different partition or hard drive than Vista is on. Once you’re finished with Set Up you may want to continue to install the necessary drivers or continue fixing your Vista boot loader.

Now XP should place its boot files on your first active drive or partition, usually where Vista is installed, right where “WINDOWS” and “Program Files” is; if not, find them. So to make thing easier for you, use EasyBCD. Cut and paste these files listed below from your first active partition to the partition with the XP installed. Though only the “ntldr” and “boot.ini” are necessary. You may want to wait to do this after you have successfully executed the prompt stage below if you are unsure of the working condition of your boot disk mentioned later on. They are hidden, so to unhide them, go to start, my computer, press Alt, go to Tools, Folder Options, under view tab go and select “Show hidden files and folders”.

hiberfil.sys
sqmdata00.sqm
sqmnoopt00.sqm
AUTOEXEC.BAT
boot.ini
CONFIG.SYS
IO.SYS
MSDOS.SYS
NTDETECT.COM
ntldr
pagefile.sys

If you do have Windows Vista Installation disc available that would save you having to download and burn a Vista Utility ISO, but if you don’t, that’s quite all right ; you’ll have to download the Vista_Recovery_Disc ISO. One location is at http://neosmart.net/downloads/guides/Vista_Repair/Vista_Recovery_Disc.iso . This is just the “Repair your computer” part, not whole the installation disk. This is one of my favorite finds. Once you’ve downloaded it, burn it to a CD as an ISO. If you don’t know how to do that, google “how to burn ISO”. Careful, if you try to boot the CD and you get the missing operating system error, be aware that some software just won’t do it right , so look around for another ISO writer. I recommend using CD-RW, as I had to burn with a newer version of Nero several times before I had any success.

Now, once that you’ve booted from the Vista_Recovery_Disc ISO, select your language, time and currency format, and key board input method, then click “Next”, then click “Repair your computer”. Now, if selecting your Vista installation and then clicking “Next” on the “System Recovery Options” window works for you, then good for you, you have avoided victim-hood from Microsoft’s odd little glitch. If you get the error:

“This version of System Recovery Options is not compatible with the version of Windows you are trying to repair. Try using a recovery disc that is compatible with this version of Windows.”

Then don’t panic, your still ok. Just unselect your Vista installation by clicking the blank space below, then click “Next”. This has been acknowledged by Microsoft and is explained at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925762 … about time

Now you could continue to click “Startup Repair” and follow others’ examples, but if you’re smart and you don’t care to wait that long, or if you get the error:

“Windows cannot repair this computer automatically”

after trying “Startup Repair”.:wink: Do it the better way, click “Command Prompt” in the “System Recovery Options” window, and type
bootrec

You can see your choices listed after you’ve typed in the prompt:
/fixmbr
/fixboot
/scanos
/rebuildbcd

Type
bootrec /fixboot

This fixes the boot loader for Vista.

(Note- there is a space between “bootrec” and the “/”

Then type
boorec /fixmbr

This includes your Vista installation in the MBR.

This is all explained at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392

(Note- you could then type
boorec /rebuildbcd

and fix your duel boot configuration right there, but when it scanned my computer for any Microsoft OSs, nothing came up… figures )

Now close the Command Prompt window, eject the disk and take it out (no need to accidently boot from the disk again) and click “Restart” and boot into Vista. If you haven’t already installed EasyBCD, do it. Then run EasyBCD, go to “Add/Remove Entries”, under “Add an Entry” choose the “Windows” tab, under “Type” choose “Windows NT/2k/XP/2k3”, name it what you want it to display in the boot menu like “XP”, then select the drive or partition that you’ve pasted the files I told you to move earlier, now click “Add Entry”. You can choose the order you want them listed in the boot menu with the editor just above named “Manage Existing Entries”. Remember to click “Save”. So, you can now restart and try it out.

Thank you for reading this, leave your questions, and try to help out some others by answering theirs too.
RXW

 

Great post, but a little complicated for beginners. There's probably an easier way to do it.

 

Actually beginners probably aren't going to be doing it anyway. That being said, I have seen these guides for dual booting all over the place already. But I suppose another can't hurt.

 

wow, i wouldn't wish this walkthru on my worst enemy

 

Yes! thank you. All the post I’ve read on this subject before just talk about using you installation disk. Well, what about if we weren’t given one! I went to great lengths to barrow someone else’s vista install disk but I ran into the same problem you talk about. Had to return the thing before I got the chance to find what the problem was. I finally have my dual boot configuration, now it’s time to go driver fishing.