DDS10 - XP/Vista complete isolated dual boot - how I did it

I just bought DDS10/2160 today. After some struggle, I finally gotten my system to dual boot between XP and Vista with the two completely isolated; XP cannot see Vista and vise versa.

What I have:
- ASUS M2NPV-VM with AMD Athlon64 x2 4200+
- One 40GB PATA hard drive, with XP Pro installed
- One 250GB SATA hard drive, newly added and completely empty; I want to create a 30 GB partition to install Vista 32bit on it

What I did:
1. Under XP, Install DDS10 as usual, including OS Selector
2. Reboot PC, which will bring up the OS Selector boot screen
3. Put in the Vista CD (I used Vista Enterprise); the OS Selector will have a new icon "Windows" with a CD symbol on it (I'll refer this icon as Windows/CD)in addition to the XP icon already there.
4. Highlight the Windows/CD icon and edit its Properties
5. Under Partitions, click on the partition that has XP installed, click Hide
6. Under Advanced, click on Force hiding partitions
7. Save everything, shutdown and turn computer back on
8. System will boot up to the OS Selector screen (don't boot from Vista DVD just yet), click the Windows/CD icon, then click Boot; the system will boot from the Vista DVD (don't forget to press a key!)
9. Go through the Vista setup, create a 30GB partition on the new disk and install Vista on it; system will reboot after Vista files get copied to hard drive
10. System reboots to OS Selector, with a new icon Windows Vista; click this Windows Vista icon and edit Properties
11. Repeat Step #5 to #7.
12. System will boot up to the OS Manager screen; select Windows Vista icon
13. Finish up the Vista install; after everything is settled, reboot PC
14. System reboots to OS Selector; click Windows XP icon and edit Properties
15. Under Partitions, click on the partition that has Vista installed, click Hide
16. Under Advanced, click on Force hiding partitions
17. Save everything, shutdown and turn computer back on
18. Verify everything - booting into XP and Vista using OS Selector, open Windows Explorer making sure XP doesn't see Vista and vise versa
19. Done!

My next task would be to split another 30GB or 40GB partition from the hard drive and put Vista 64bit on it (that's something for next week.)

 

I was also trying to get this to work yesterday without success as OSS does not recognise my SATA DVD drive to boot Vista from.
My only option was to boot from the Vista DVD direct but this does not work with an XP partition already there. I've tried hiding it, deactivating OSS etc. but no luck so far. My last option I'll try today is to deactivate OSS, backup XP with True Image and wipe the XP partition, then install Vista and reverse the process.
If that all fails I guess I could plug in an IDE DVD drive for the install. It is annoying though that the latest release does not seem to support SATA drives as these are getting quite common now.

 

I have not had any problems with OSS (build 2,117 or build 2,160) recognizing my SATA drives.

Vista is kind of a pain because it trys to attach itself to XP. I did what you say you might try and backed up my XP partitions (I was dual-booting), removed the partitions, installed Vista, then restored the XP partitions and reinstalled OSS.

 

I followed the method described in the excellent article on multibooters.co.uk.
This article gives a very clear explanation on how to install XP and Vista so that they are independent.

I purchased the OSL2000 Bootmanager which enables me to independently select either XP or Vista.

I have three partitions on my C drive. One each for XP and Vista. I use the third partition as a shared data partition for the two OS's. With this arrangement I can do three smaller backup images and only have to restore the partition with the problem.

Derek

 

Do you mean disk, DVD or both? I still can't get OSS to recognise my SATA DVD drive (e.g. with Vista disk inserted).

This worked for me though I did leave a blank unformatted partition where XP was so to keep the partition numbering correct.

 

800ster:

I mean the actual SATA-II hard drives. I have two in a RAID 0 and two as single drives. OSS sees them all and boots to my OS's spread out on them. I don't have a SATA DVD drive so I don't know if that would work. I've read that a lot of people had problems with them and they're still way more expensive so I just use a regular IDE DVD drive.

OSS (build 2,160) still doesn't find the DVD drive so I can't install anything using the "New OS on CD" wizard. I suppose this is because it hasn't been updated to support the P965 chipset. (My board is an ASUS P5B-Deluxe/WiFi.)

As for Vista, I installed it to the first primary partition on my RAID array and then used TI to restore my XP boots as the 2nd and 3rd partitions. A little editing of the boot.ini files and it was setup. My Linux boots (on the 2nd and 3rd hard disks) were left undisturbed.

 

Similar to me, I've a SATA DVD hanging off a P965 and also cannot use the "New OS on CD" wizard - I guess Acronis need another new version with support for the later chipsets.
Anyway with a bit of fiddling I'm setup OK with OSS booting Vista/XP/Linux.

 

Dear mtrump,

I tried your instructions but used two installations of Windows XP instead of XP and Vista and it doesn't seem to work. The problem starts at point 10 of your instruction list. The system won't reboot to the OSS but continues with the XP installation directly. After the installation is done and I reinstall the OSS on the second XP installation, only the second installation can be found in the OSS and the first one seems to be lost.

I am using a DELL Latitude D610 for installation. The first installation was done using network installation with Symantec LiveState Delivery. The second installation was done in two attempts: First with a generic Windows XP Corp. Installation CD, the second with the original DELL Recovery CD. Both attempts didn't work.

Would you have an idea, what the problem with my configuration could be?

Any hints or further instructions are very welcome.

 

Same problem than VahlefeldD.

 

Hi to all,
I found a solution to my problem described above: Get rid of Acronis and look for other more simple BootManagers (i.e. Boot-US etc.). The problem with Acronis is that it wont allow two active partitions at the same time, which then somehow makes the MBR of the first XP installation go weird leaving the first unbootable. I have made excessive tests with the other Bootmanager (I used BootUS) which I will buy and give back the Acronis licenses. That will even be a lot cheaper.

Regards,
VD

 

VahlefeldD,

I got same problem, after installed Vista I lost my XP partition, can't access that partition.
Did you able recover your lost partition?

I really appreciate for your help.

 

Good morning,

no I wasnt't able to restore that lost. It was neither possible to recover it using Acronis Tools nor using Windows thingys like fixboot and fixmbr. I got rid of Acronis and am now using a more cheaper but working bootmanager.

Regards from Germany...

 

How did you get rid of OS Selector ?

 

How do mean how I got rid of it? - Open the dust bin, throw it in...

Well, I reinstalled Windows again... and didn't install Acronis again.