Another problem version of Dual Boot XP and Vista

[ronstephens]

I've been trying to CREATE a dual boot situation, but have not been able to.

1. I first installed Vista on a clean 100 Gb disk with 1 primary partition. Then I backed up the disk image using TI 10.0 Build 4,942.

2. Then I deleted the partition, and installed XP Pro in a 80 Gb primary partition.

3. I then installed Disk Director 10.0 Build 2,160. I then activated OS Selector.

-all works ok so far-

4. I used TI to then place the Vista partition image into the 20Gb 2nd primary partition.

NOW -- trying both from OS Selector from within XP, and from a clean boot, I cannot get OS Selector to "see" Windows Vista. What's going on here? XP is the only OS that appears in the OS Selector window, even trying to use the OS Detection Wizard!

I even tried to "restore" only the MBR, so see if I could "hook up" the MBR to the 2nd partition, to no avail.

I don't know where my misunderstanding is. Doesn't OS Selector detect the Boot Record located in the partition?

Disk organization looks like this:
Partition Table
80Gb primary partition - XP Pro
20Gb primary partition - Windows Vista
-end of disk-

Thanks...
(one other question -- can windows XP read/write directly SAFELY on a "seen" windows vista partition, or will it corrupt it? Is windows vista file system compatible with the NTFS of windows xp? Likewise, can vista read/write an XP partition? Both versions of windows are brand new off the shelf. XP Pro is SP2B)

[MudCrab]

OSS is still very fussy with detecting Vista.

I always do the first installs manually. I setup the partition with DD and then install (or in the case of a first install, just do the whole thing from the OS install cd/dvd).

If you install Vista first and then install OSS (from Vista). It should detect Vista okay. Then use Vista's disk management to shrink the drive partition down to make room for XP. Then reboot using the rescue cd and use DD to create a primary partition for XP in the unallocated space. Make the partition active. Then hide the Vista partition. Then boot from the XP cd and install XP to the new partition.

You should be able to then either reactivate OSS from the rescue cd or by installing DD/OSS in XP and doing it from there. Setup the menu item properties so that the Vista partition is hidden from XP and the XP partition is hidden from Vista. This keeps them isolated.

I have been around this in so many ways doing various tests and setting up my computer that I don't even remember all the things that worked or didn't work. I know the above procedure worked, though. And you should be able to do the reverse and install XP and then Vista.

If you want to try and fix what you currently have, you might try booting from the Vista dvd and doing a repair. Before doing this, make sure you've booted into DD and hidden the XP partition, otherwise Vista will install it's bootload and you'll get that mix into the OSS equation (and it's hard to untangle). The repair should make your vista system boot. Once in Vista, install DD/OSS (if not already installed) and reactivate/install OSS.

Like I said in the other post, OSS doesn't let you "manually" add/edit OS items. It does everything automatically and 5+ times out of 10 it gets it wrong.

To answer your NTFS question: As far as I know Vista doesn't have a problem working the XP partitions and XP shouldn't have a problem working with Vista created partitions. I think just the partition creation part changed in Vista and the basic structure is still the same. If you hide the OS partitions from each other then they won't see the other partition.

[K0LO]

Ron:

To emphasize a point in MudCrab's excellent advice, you probably do not want to have Vista and XP see each other's files for the following reason. When you boot into XP, if the Vista partition is visible to XP, all of your system restore points in Vista will be deleted. The only way to prevent this is to make sure that you have the Vista partition hidden when running XP. More info here (http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/2007/04/16/dual-boot-xp-and-vista-fix-system-restore-to-keep-restore-points-in-vista).

If you need to exchange files between the two operating systems then you should consider creating another partition for this purpose. If you're only going to run Vista and XP then you should format this shared partition as NTFS.

[ronstephens]

Holy Crap Batman ...

Ya gotta be kidding! Microsoft Idiots Again.
So, if I want to share data, I have to not let them see each other!

Forget it. I'm eliminating Vista. What a piece of crap.
Unfortunately, when I bought my Dell, I was forced to pay for the piece of s**t, and it doesn't work with my hardware (all brand new - even the laptop - no less) without tremendous hardware conflicts.

I wasn't able to get my eSata controller to work, PERIOD, under Vista, without clobbering other devices, like my wireless.

The only reason I was putting Vista on here was to occasionally fire it up and update it to see if they fixed all the hardware problems...nothing else. I was figuring that in maybe a year, things might start working...

Vista SUCKS.
Microsoft can go to hell...