Adding XP to a 2000 system

Discussion in 'Acronis Disk Director Suite' started by Hotaru, Jun 10, 2008.

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  1. Hotaru

    Hotaru Registered Member

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    I now use Win2000+SP4+RU1+etc. which I plan to keep for the foreseeable future. I wanted to add XP+SP2 (the SP pre-bundled on the original CD).

    I tried making a new primary partition which the XP installer saw as F:. I made the partition using Disk Director during a normal Win2000 boot. Win2000's boot partition was seen as C: after booting the XP CD. (D: and E: are data partitions.) XP was also added to the boot menu. But next time I went back to 2000, I discovered XP had trashed it. I got an error that C:\WINNT\system32\config\system was now missing. I ended up restoring the entire hard drive from backup.

    Can 2000 be protected from the XP installer?
     
  2. MudCrab

    MudCrab Imaging Specialist

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    Most likely you just need to use DD to set the XP partition Active and Hide the Windows 2000 partition before you install XP.

    If this is done, the XP installer should see the XP partition as C: when you go to install it and it should leave Windows 2000 alone. Note: You may want to go ahead and let the XP installer reformat (quick is fine) the XP partition during the installation. Sometimes XP fails on the first reboot during the installation on a DD NTFS formatted partition.

    After this, you'd need to install a boot manager (so you can hide/unhide, set Active, etc. the OS you want to boot) or add Windows 2000 to XP's boot menu.
     
  3. Howard Kaikow

    Howard Kaikow Registered Member

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    Do not make a prinary partition.

    SAy, Win 2000 is installed on C.
    Create a LOGICAL prtyion D, and tell Win XP to do a cklkean install into D.

    The Win XP NTLDR will create a boot.ini that will allow you to choose the OS when you boot, and you can set which OS will be the default,
     
  4. Hotaru

    Hotaru Registered Member

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    This approach did not work. I got the same error as my first post, so once again I had to restore everything from backup.
     
  5. Earthling

    Earthling Registered Member

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    If you follow MudCrab's advice it will work. You don't even need to install a boot manager immediately, as you can switch OS by using DD to hide/unhide and set partitions active as required, and rebooting.

    I used that method for an XP/Vista dual boot, and went on to install Grub4DOS as a boot manager. It works perfectly and has significant advantages compared with the Microsoft method of dual booting.
     
  6. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    I agree. Follow MudCrab's advice.
     
  7. Howard Kaikow

    Howard Kaikow Registered Member

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    I suggest getting a copy of the MSFT Press book Windows XP Inside/Out.

    It describes the method I described, which is cleaner than flip-flopping alternative C drives.
     
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