How should I proceed setting up my WinXP dual boot?

Hi everybody,

Recently purchased True Image 8.0 and Disk Director Suite 9.0 and am so far very impressed. Nice and easy to use, and has already proved useful.

Anyway, my question is regarding the best way of achieving two Windows XP Home installations on one SATA hard disk (one for work which will be kept nice and clean, and one for play which will have driver updates and games and demos installed).

I think I would like to use the Acronis OS loader, as I have been reading up on boot managers and do not wish to use Microsoft's strange implementation (see http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/).

I need to eventually have three partitions on this physical disk;

1. WinXP Work OS
2. WinXP Play OS
3. Work documents

I currently have created one primary partition on disk 1 and installed WinXP in it (which I haven't activated yet). The space for the other two partitions is currently unallocated.

http://www.impelgd.co.uk/linked_externally/disk.jpg

What is the best way of creating two more partitions, one of which will contain the WinXP Play OS, whilst using the Acronis OS loader? Will activating both copies of WinXP work okay?

Can Acronis OS loader be set to hide whichever OS partition isn't being used, whilst keeping the third 'Work documents' partition available all the time?

I'm not too sure about the order in which I should do things.

Many thanks for any advice you can give me.

 

Have been thinking about this:

1. Create second partition
2. Install WinXP in second partition ('WinXP Play')
3. Create third partition to hold work files
4. Microsoft's boot loader will then be shown at startup?
5. Install Acronis OS Loader
6. Acronis OS Loader will then replace Microsoft's boot loader?
7. Activate both installations of WinXP separately (hope they will not conflict as the hardware will be the same)

Will this work?