How to Set Up XP - Vista Dual Boot

My apologies if this is covered elsewhere. I've seen plenty of difficulties posted and I want to avoid those by doing it right, from scratch. I have not yet installed Vista...
I have two HDs:
C: XP Pro SP2, with Disk Director, but OSS is not installed/active.
D: Empty. This is where I will install Vista.

What's the best way to proceed so I have a dual boot system with XP as default, using OSS?

Thanks!

 

If it were me, I'd do the following:

1. Don't install OSS on the XP drive.
2. Make a backup image of the XP drive (just in case).
3. Disconnect the XP drive and connect the Vista drive.
4. Install Vista. (If you don't want to mess with the Vista 2048 partition offset, create the NTFS partition on the drive using DD prior to installing Vista.)
5. Once Vista is completely installed, while in Vista, install DD (will need to reboot).
6. After reboot, while in Vista, install OSS (will need to reboot).
7. Make sure OSS detects and boots into Vista properly. (If you have problems here, post back. Don't continue until OSS is working properly with Vista.)

Now, continue to add XP:

1. Connect the XP drive.
2. Make sure the Vista drive is still the booting drive in the computer's BIOS.
3. Boot the computer.
4. The OSS menu should come up and it should find and add XP to the menu.
5. Don't boot into either OS at this time. Make sure the Properties are correct.
6. In Vista's Properties: Partitions section, make sure to set the XP partition as Hidden.
7. In XP's Properties, Partitions section, make sure to set the Vista partition as Hidden. Also, in the Disks section, make sure that the "Specify boot order manually" option is checked and that the XP drive (most likely Disk 2) is first in the list. (OSS should detect and setup this automatically, but it safer to check.)

Now you should be able to boot into either Vista or XP. Each OS will not see the other's partition.

 

Thank you very much for the detailed reply. This sounds like a reasonably cautious approach. One problem that I see however, is that since I'm using an upgrade Vista disk, it would have to "see" the XP installation, would it not? I've heard that one can get around this by installing in a trial mode (?) then upgrading that as the qualifying OS, but that would mean two installs.

One could install Vista with the XP HD in place, I'm sure. What precautions would be required with this approach?

Thanks again!

 

I haven't installed Vista from an "upgrade" DVD. Will it ask during the installation for an XP CD or does it require that XP be installed on the hard drive?

If you install Vista with your XP drive visible to Vista, Vista will take over the booting and you'll have to separate them. If you can get it installed without having to do that, it's easier.

 

It requires one or the other. If a qualifying OS is not present, it will ask for the XP cd. The trouble is, I don't have an XP cd because my HP didn't come with one. It has a restore partition instead, which I deleted long ago.

The upgrade is considerably cheaper than a full-blown installation disk.

 

capatt:

A Vista upgrade DVD requires an existing installation of XP; you can't feed it an XP CD like you could with earlier versions of Windows.

I'm not sure what the installer looks for to detect an installation of XP, but you could just copy everything on your C: drive to the D: drive (include hidden and protected operating system files) and see if that's enough to satisfy the installer.

If not, clone the XP disk to the empty disk. When the clone completes, shut down, disconnect the XP disk, (don't let Windows see two identical disks at the same time) and go to step 3 of MudCrab's instructions. Do a clean install of Vista to the disk. The installer will detect the existence of XP on the disk and will continue.