Dual Boot XP/Vista: How It Is Done.

Discussion in 'Acronis Disk Director Suite' started by takisis666, Apr 23, 2007.

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  1. takisis666

    takisis666 Registered Member

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    I am using a Dell Latitude D610 with a 120GB hard drive and have successfully created a dual boot drive with XP and Vista and neither OS sees the other. I am creating this post so that others may know how I did it and be able to do it themselves. This is only for Windows as I am not familiar with other OSes.

    Using Disk Director Suite v.10.0.1260

    BOTH XP AND VISTA SHOULD ONLY BE INSTALLED ON PRIMARY ACTIVE PARTITIONS IF YOU WANT THEM TO WORK PROPERLY.

    1. If you do not have XP installed go to step 4,
    2. If you have XP installed, install DDS10 including OS Selector. After DDS10 is installed create a rescue disk on CD, you will need it later.
    3. Using a good partition manager program (i.e. Disk Director, Partition Magic, etc.) create a new PRIMARY partition (preferably NTFS) to install Vista on.
    4. If you are starting with a clean drive create 2 PRIMARY partitions (preferably NTFS) to install XP and Vista on. Install XP first, then install DDS10 including OS Selector, and create a recue disk.
    5. Reboot system and OS Selector with come up with an XP icon.
    6. Insert the Vista DVD and you will get an icon that says “Windows/CD” (I will refer to this as Vista DVD).
    7. Right click on the Vista DVD icon and choose Properties.
    8. Under Properties choose the Partition option.
    9. Under Partition choose the XP partition and choose the Hidden option.
    10. Choose the partition that you want to install Vista to and choose the Active option.
    11. Click Apply and OK.
    12. Right click on the Vista DVD icon and choose boot (don’t forget to press a key!).
    13. Go through the normal Vista install. Vista will reboot and then finish installing. Once you have completed the install and are looking at the Vista desktop put the Acronis Rescue Disk into the drive and reboot the system.
    14. The Acronis Rescue Disk will boot and you will need to choose Activate OS Selector.
    15. Once OS Selector says that it has successfully activated remove rescue disk and click OK. OS Selector will now start and you will have two icons (XP and Vista).
    16. Right click on the XP icon and choose Properties.
    17. Under Properties choose the Partition option.
    18. Click on the Vista partition and choose Hidden. Click on the partition that has XP and ensure that the Active box is checked. Click Apply and OK.
    19. Right click on the Vista icon and choose Properties.
    20. Under Properties choose the Partition option.
    21. Click on the XP partition and ensure that the Hidden box is checked. Click on the Vista partition and ensure that the Active box is checked. Click Apply and OK
    22. Click on the XP icon. XP will boot. Click on My Computer and you should see only one hard drive. Reboot system.
    23. Click on the Vista icon. Vista will boot and you should not see the Vista Boot Menu. Click on My Computer and you should see only one hard drive.
    24. If you have followed these directions you will have dual boot drive that has XP and Vista and you will not see either OS in the other.

    Hope this helps everybody and saves you a lot of headaches.
     
  2. takisis666

    takisis666 Registered Member

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    Sorry guys typed the wrong version For Disk Director Suite. Should be v10.0.2160
     
  3. OngL

    OngL Registered Member

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    Are there any known issue between PGP Whole Disk Encryption / DriveCrypt Plus Pack with Acronis OSS?

    May I also ask why XP always first but not Vista?

     
  4. Maal656

    Maal656 Registered Member

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    I've installed Windows XP after Windows Vista without any problem:

    First I created a primary (active) partition and I installed Windows Vista.

    Then I created another primary partition and VERY IMPORTANT, I set it as ACTIVE, installing Windows XP on it.

    Then, I had two different OS installed, totally independent, and I had to choose the OS to be started changing the "Active" status between partitions.

    I tried the Acronis OS selector (2160) but it dosen't work: It found an "unknown system" and "Windows Vista": The unknown operating system was no bootable, and the Windows Vista gave me an error during the load the the operating system.

    Now I am using GAG ( http://gag.sourceforge.net/ ) to select the operating system to be started without any problem.
     
  5. OngL

    OngL Registered Member

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    First of all, Thanks to all who has shared their experiences and guidelines in setting this up.

    I am really keen of having dual-boot XP and Vista, which is totally independent of each other to prevent corruption. I had file system corruption issues when XP is loaded and it has access to Vista and vice versa.

    I have slightly different situation, I appreciate comments and enlightements.

    a. I have XP Pro installed with all 3rd party apps in 40GB HDD
    b. I have Vista installed with all 3rd party apps in another / different 40 GB HDD
    c. I made images from both harddisk into to different image files e.g. XP.tib and Vista.tib.
    d. Plan to have both OS into a big 160 GB hdd with the following configuration:
    Partition 1: Vista
    Partition 2: XP
    Partition 3: Data files

    How can I achieve this?

    Partition 1 (Vista) is original with bootloader, and I restored XP image just behind the XP. I'll see if the Vista bootloader can recognize this. One problem surfaced right away is that TI re-assign the drive letter from C: (XP) into G: This will certainly create some problem.

    I'll try using OSS Selector using rescue CD after this, but I'm still wondering how can I set the XP into C: again...

    Even after I get the dual-boot running. I'm planing to use PGP whole Disk encryption to encrypt the whole harddisk. My next concern is if PGP boot authentication will actually overwrite OSS in MBR.

    Any idea?

    EDIT: To make things worse, the DD 10.2610 did not recognize my drive in Lenovo Thinkpad T60 Ultra bay...
     
  6. OngL

    OngL Registered Member

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    Ok, I restored the XP partition now just after the Vista. Strangely, it boots up automatically to XP. Installed OSS to Vista, and it works, but it only detect XP, no icon for Vista.

    How do I add Vista to OSS? This would solve the problem prior to PGP Disk encryption. Thanks

    EDIT: After 20 hours, I gave up without any further support. It seems that following you instruction exactly the above didn't help me. What I have done differently is instaead of installing vista again, I just restore it from TrueImage. It should have achieved the same goal but it didn't. Step 15 is differet, no Vista Icon.

    I also tried putting ntloader, boot.ini and nddetect with no avail.
     
    Last edited: May 1, 2007
  7. takisis666

    takisis666 Registered Member

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    Ongl:

    I don't know if you can install the OSes using images. I installed everything from scratch. By installing everything from scratch I had no problems. As far as using the PGP I don't know because I don't use it. As far as the installation order, by installing XP first it just makes it easier to work with.
     
  8. takisis666

    takisis666 Registered Member

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    Maal656:

    The reason you got an unknown operating system is you didn't hide the partitions. If Vista sees the other partition and it has XP on it, it will overwrite the start up files for XP (Just another way for Microsoft to force you to go to using Vista). In order to have completely separate OSes you have to hide the partitions for each OS.
     
  9. OngL

    OngL Registered Member

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    I hid the XP partition and OSS did not detect the OS. I even start from the scratch where only Vista is available and OSS still does not detect Vista.

    I finally gave up with the crappy OSS Vista support and ended up with only Vista and Data partition with PGP whole disk encryption. This mean no dual booting..

    Why would I need XP and Vista together anyway, I have to make decision sooner later either XP or Vista.
     
  10. Maal656

    Maal656 Registered Member

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    Hello takisis666:

    Please note that I installed Windows Vista first, and secondly Windows XP. I did it following the information of the following page:

    http://www.multibooters.co.uk/

    According to that page "When installing Vista to the boot hard drive then all that is required to prevent the configuration of the Windows bootmanager is to make the target partition for the install the Activepartition on the hard drive."

    At the end of the proccess I get both Vista and XP independly installed, with no Windows bootmanager (I had to select the OS to be started changing the Active partition with the Acronis rescue CD. Starting XP, the XP partition was C: and starting Vista, the vista partition was also C:

    When I tried to use the Acronis OS Selector (HD with following partitions: first partition (100Mb) (primary FAT32) used to install Acronis OS Selector files; second partition (150Gb) (primary NTFS) used to install Vista; third partition (150 Gb) (primary NTFS) used to install XP) It found an "unknown operating system" and "Vista". The unknown OS was no bootable, and trying to boot Vista gave me an error message which caused a reboot of the computer.

    Currently I am deleted the first partition (now is 100 Mb EXT3) and I'm using the GAG bootmanater to boot Vista and XP without any problem. Also, this bootmanager enables to hide partitions, so currently XP doen't see the Vista partition and viceversa (which confirms that both systems are independent).

    Anyway, I would like to know why OS Selector failed, although my computer now works without any problem...
     
  11. takisis666

    takisis666 Registered Member

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    Maal656:

    From my experience with Vista, unless the partitons are hidden in OSS it will not work properly. In my instructions I had installed XP first then after XP is installed I rebooted in to OSS put in the Vista DVD, right clicked on the Vista DVD icon and hide the XP partition and made the partition that Vista was going to be installed on the active partition. After Vista was installed I used the Acronis Boot CD to activate OSS then right clicked on the XP icon and hid the Vista partition and made sure that the XP partition was saying active. I then checked the Vista icon to make sure that the XP partition was hidden and that the Vista partition was active.

    What version of DSS/OSS were you using?
     
  12. Maal656

    Maal656 Registered Member

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    I was using version 2160... Maybe the problem was that I installed the OSS files in the first primary partition (100Mb Fat32), which was located before the Vista and XP partitions... (I didn't want to install OSS files in a partition with a Operating System installed, to be able to delete the OS without losing the OSS).

    Please note that currently I have both XP and Vista installed independly, and that when I boot one windows, the partition corresponding to the other is hidden (Following other installation process, but I think I'm in the same situation you explain).

    Maybe I should try again the OSS, but installing it in a logical partition at the end of the disk, but having all Operating Systems installed, activated and correctly working I'm afraid of "damage" something...
     
  13. takisis666

    takisis666 Registered Member

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    Maal656:

    You can install OSS in a primary partition. On another machine I created a 2GB primary NTFS partition and then split the remaining space in to 2 partitions for XP and Vista. In the 2GB partition I installed the OSS and then installed everything per the instructions that I posted here and everything worked fine. If you have everything working and you are happy with it then don't change it. I will try another maching and install Vista first to see what happens.
     
  14. DVI47

    DVI47 Registered Member

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    hi,

    i have a little issue where after i install the OSS, it reboots and then comes up with an acronis screen saying "Processing, please wait...", it just hangs there.

    i've installed xp, just a clean install with no drivers, and created a second primary partition for vista, then installed DSS/OSS, then i get up to that screen,

    any one have any ideas wat i did wrong?
     
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