xp/ windows 7 dual boot

I've read several places with xp/7 dual boot. ive got a panasonic CF-30 and it originally had vista, now has windows 7 on it. Recently i have one software at work i need to run and it only runs on XP(went back to the main people with the software and weve tried everyway possible on 7 to get it to work right and it wont ). ive got all the drivers for xp and the cf-30, ive got an iso from our IT dept at work and im just trying to go about this the easy way(if there is one lol) to doing this. the articles ive read all had XP installed first then they will do 7, but im going about this backwards i guess lol. any tips or tricks that might help would be greatly appreciated. Also is there an easy way of putting the iso on a usb drive to boot from? im finding mixed results on that

Thanks

 

Google bcdedit (native Windows command/utility). You just need to add a boot entry for XP using bcdedit and copy a few boot files from the XP CD... But before that, you need to repair so system boots back into Win 7 (as bcdedit only works under Win 7...)

Source: Done it b4 many times on different machines with Win 7 installed first...

in as far as putting XP on a USB... Tell me about it. It would make one of my dreams come true (not having to buy a laptop with an optical drive just to install XP)...

 

Hmm I see a big learning curve in the near future lol, thanks

 

I have XP/7 dualboot on one laptop (car tuning utility works only on XP). I first tried the bcdedit way, ended with a system that had no working OS and I couldn't fix it anymore I didn't lose anything, it was a new computer/install and I did Win7 first route intentionally...

So whatever you do, take backups first. Make an image of your current hdd so you can doubleback if needed.
And when everything else fails, install XP first and Win7 after that.

 

Yes i know what you mean, i have an image of my win 7 pro now, but i started tinkering between my little one going to sleep and my wife and oldest coming home, having an issue with getting the sata driver to go with XP right now...but lack of time to tinker you know how it is.


and i also know what you mean about the car stuff. im a mechanic and have all my stuff loaded on here but theres one software for the ford trans and TRW abs/trans software i need on the ford or international CF series units and it only runs on XP and i get everyone of them that shows up here.

 

Some reason(probably havent researched enough) but i can not find that sata driver to load. im trying to use nlite and get that sata driver in there when it loads(atleast most everything i read is saying to do that...especially since i dont have a floppy drive...but nlite only wants a .inf file?

 

Did the driver come in the form of an installer? Usually, for SATA drivers for XP, they come in the form of a folder with .inf, .sys, and maybe a few other files. For example, for my desktop, the motherboard manufacturer's website has downloads for "Intel SATA Preinstall driver" and "Marvell SATA preinstall driver" (I have multiple hard drive connectors, some Intel, some Marvell). I can download them, run the .exe which does nothing except extract the files it contains, and then point nLite to the .inf files in the newly-extracted folder. In my case, it looks like the Intel driver has two .inf files, and it's been a couple years since I set up my desktop so I don't remember which one I needed (possibly both). But the download also came with a readme, which probably covers that.

 

Hmm, it is the installer from Panasonics site for the cf-30, I tried running it but it didn't do anything, I'll have to re try it tomorrow...Im probably over looking something, it's been a long day



It's fun being newish at this...Sorry lol

 

I went to Toshiba's site, and downloaded drivers for the CF-30K/L/M(mk3). Apparently there are a bunchy of different CF-30 models, and I have no idea which one you have, but I went with this one since it had both 7 and XP drivers. Anyway, I searched for Storage drivers, and found:

[S-ATA HDD driver]
Notice : This software is S-ATA HDD driver.
It is necessary at the early stage of Windows Clean Install.

Clicking on it, I found a file with the very descriptive name of f6fd_8_5_0_1032_d081084.exe, which I downloaded. When I run the file, it extracts to a folder of my choosing, and in that folder there are then the .inf files, as well as a few others. There are two .inf files, like for my desktop drivers, but one of them ought to work. I'm leaning towards the AHCI one.

The page I downloaded it from also had instructions for installing from floppy, in case you happen to find a floppy disk drive. They are fairly detailed for the floppy method, if sorely lacking nLite instructions.

Which file did you end up downloading? The page I started from when searching was https://www.panasonic.com/business/toughbook/computer-support-search-downloads.asp .

 

I tried the one I found of the Panasonic site and it matches the first one but won't get inf....I'll try the one you had got here in a few...

 

Edit, I got the.inf finally....7zip was a big help..Had to undo the file about six times...got it ask done in nlite, but has a error when it was verifying the disk after burning it...wonder if it was a glitch...I dunno...I'll find out here in a bit lol

 

Ok, update it all works now, xp and Windows7...Only issue I had was with nlite, I tried"trimming" down xp like some tutorials said but it would never load the disk but xp pro a and installed sata file loaded prefect

 

Good to hear! That's surprising that unzipping it 6 times or so was necessary, but perhaps there were way too many levels of archiving and compression in the file you wound up needing.

I never did try the trimmed-down versions when I made an nLite install disc, since I didn't want to spend the time figuring out exactly what I wouldn't need and what I would when I had shiny new computer hardware in need of an OS. But the standard+SATA is the safest, more sure-fire route. And really, XP is pretty slim to begin with compared to newer versions of Windows. I did a fresh install in a VM earlier this week and had less than 80 MB of RAM in use while at idle, and just 20 processes running, with SP3 installed and without any trimming during the install. That probably would go up after installing the 150+ patches released since SP3, but these days, you aren't going to gain very much from trimming from XP. Back in 2004 or so, with a machine from 1999, the difference may indeed have been noticeable, but these days, not so much.

 

I dunno, first zip wasnt a .inf, second wasnt either...it was several lol... And as for the lite version it was just tinkering and trial and error(I'm still learning on this stuff, tired of people that can help or say they'll do it and never fallow thru...so I'm trying lol..always have back ups though). It's done all160ish updates and I tried loading some of the software on it that I need on xp and kept getting errors with a few of them, I'll have to try to play with it tomorrow at work...


Oddly enough XP flies on it(cf-30 with4gb of ram and it registers all 4gb to lol)