Double Installaion of WIN XP with each OS not seeing the other

My task is the following:

I need to have two installations of WIN XP SP2 on two different partitions with each XP not being able to see or touch the other one. Both of the XP installations should, when started up, be on the drive C:\.

A third partition for data only should be created afterwards being visible for both XP Installations.

I have tried this already with OSS and DDS but couldn't really get it to work. I have also tried some of the instructions on this board which were written for similar intentions.

My overall problem is the following: As soon as I hide my first partition with DDS and install the second XP, the first one gets lost.

Any hints are very much welcome!

 

I have exactly the same problem.
I tried the method explained in this post, but it did not ran well, as XP setup program squished the MBR (Vista setup program seems prefer trying to hook to the existing MBR if possible).

So, actually, i have a license for Disk Director, but i am unable to clone a Windows XP install and so use two copies on XP, each one on a C: drive, not seeing the other copy.

Dunno how to setup such dual install...

 

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

If you need instructions on how I did a dual XP installation with the other program, please let me know.

 

Hi VD,
yes perhaps you can write some senctence about how you did the 2 XP partitions backup with Acronis and use BOOT US as Bootmanager (i tried to do this - i have also a licence to hide the other partition REAL) - but at the moment only one XP is running. Did you burn a bootable CD with BOOT US and change then the active partition ? Thanks for your help

Calderos

 

Hi Calderos,

with Boot US (without using Acronis) I did the following:

1. Install XP on Primary Partition 1 (NTFS)
2. Install BootUS on Partition 1
3. Use BootUS to HIDE REAL Partition 1
4. Under Windows -> Create Secondary Primary partition and format NTFS
5. Set partition 2 active using BootUS
6. Install Windows XP on Primary Partition 2 (NTFS)
7. Install BootUS on Partition 2 -> Install Bootmanager using the option „AUTOMATIC REAL HIDE“
8. Restart PC -> Bootmenu should start
9. DONE

If you set passwords during the boomanager installation, it will ask you the password when selecting the desired XP Installation.

(Note to Acronis: Please note that I do not speak or think in any way against Acronis. All your tools, especially True Image and TI Server helped me a lot thorughout all those years. But only DDS makes me lose my nerves. It would have just been nice if some info came from you Acronis guys and girls, but no one answers my mails... :-(( )

 

Hi,
I did not do exactly as you, but something similar. I installed XP on C, then installed XP2 on another partition D. Then boot into each OS and use Tweak UI from MS to hide the drive of the other OS.

 

I believe Tweak UI only hide the drive/partition from file explorer and is not truly hidden.

Further more, depend on how you install XP on partition D, it may actually boots up partition C when you want to boot up partition D.