Dual Boot Possible for Vista 64 OEM and add XP

[Hahaiah]

Hello, I've been reading through the threads and can't find exactly what I"m looking for:

I have a laptop with Vista 64 Ultimate OEM and want to install XP for dual boot.

I've noticed when using True Image, I always get a "Partition Error" that seems to be exclusive to Vista 64. It warns that changing the partition size may cause an error when restoring. Because of this I can't risk fooling with the disk size because I CANT afford to lose this working OS. Despite the error, I have no problems so far restoring and backing up.

I have a copy of XP that is not OEM, I have installed it successfully onto the partition after formating and now use TI to restore between the two images ... I did this to test it out, but obviously it's too time consuming to continue.

Is it possible to restore 2 images to the same partition for Dual boot ?
Is the Vista 64 partition error message accurate or has anyone successfully changed the partition and stil had it work ?

I'm using True Image Workstation v9.1.3887 and Disk Director v10.2160. My drives are two 100gb SATA drives.

My whole purpose of attempting this is Vista 64 has proven to be more trouble than it's worth for me

Thanks again

[MudCrab]

-{ Quote: "I have a laptop with Vista 64 Ultimate OEM and want to install XP for dual boot." }-
Is that a Microsoft OEM Vista or a "Brand" (Dell, Compaq, HP, etc.) OEM Vista installation?

-{ Quote: "I've noticed when using True Image, I always get a "Partition Error" that seems to be exclusive to Vista 64. It warns that changing the partition size may cause an error when restoring." }-
I don't use TIW, so I don't know exactly what this might refer to. It might just be that you may need to do a repair after you change the partition size.

-{ Quote: "Because of this I can't risk fooling with the disk size because I CANT afford to lose this working OS. Despite the error, I have no problems so far restoring and backing up." }-
Why is it a risk to try and resize? You say you can restore okay and you've been switching between Vista and XP by doing this. If something goes wrong, you should be able to restore your disk image and be right back where you are now.

-{ Quote: "I have a copy of XP that is not OEM, I have installed it successfully onto the partition after formating and now use TI to restore between the two images ... I did this to test it out, but obviously it's too time consuming to continue." }-
Understood. This is not an optimal dual-booting system.

-{ Quote: "Is it possible to restore 2 images to the same partition for Dual boot ?" }-
Not the same partition, but the same drive. You just need to resize the partitions during the restore process so they both fit. You can then use DD to set the OS partition you want to boot Active and Hide the other OS partition.

-{ Quote: "My drives are two 100gb SATA drives." }-
If you use both drives as OS drives, you could have Vista on one and XP on the other. Then you could just change the booting drive in the computer's BIOS to boot the OS you want.

Right now, OSS has some serious problems detecting non-Microsoft OEM Vista installations. As a result, OSS may not be an option for you. You could always install OSS and see if it detected your Vista installation. Otherwise, you'll have to use another boot manager or, if you don't mind using Vista's bootloader, you could do it that way, though the OS's won't be isolated.