IN PLAIN ENGLISH! Installing 2 WinXP Pro OS on 3 partition hard drive.

How I installed 2 WinXP Pro OS Systems on a 3 partition hard drive.

PC-P3, 933GHz, 512 RAM, 80GB Hard Drive. This is my test PC.

My objective is to have the First OS system on Drive C, Second OS System on D, and have E drive for storage, etc.

I let Windows create the 3 partitions, and formating of the hard drive.
1-Boot from WinXP Pro CD
2-Formated entire 80GB
3-Created 3 Partitions: 1-C Drive 20GB, 2-D Drive 20GB, and 3-E Drive remaining 36GB

Next, install First WinXP Pro OS on drive C from "boot from cd"-WinXP Pro CD. Install time 20 mins.

Installed WinXP SP2 from CD on drive C. Install time-16 mins. Drive C now contains 3.01GB of "Used Space". 16.5GB of "Free Space".

At desk top of freshly installed WinXP Pro on Drive C, need to format partition D and E to NTFS File System.

Go to My Computer, Highlight Drive D, Right click Format..., check off "Quick Format", click Start, click OK (erase All data, etc.). Format complete, click ok.

Do same format to NTFS for Drive E.

Drive E will be for storage and not contain an OS System. C Drive will be first WinXp Pro,and D Drive will be second WinXP Pro OS System.

PLEASE NOTE: ONLY THE OS HAS BEEN INSTALLED. No firewall, no A/V, no internet connection, etc. at this point. This is to avoid potential conflicts with DDS. Installing additional programs, drivers, etc will be the my last step of this process.

Install Acronis Disk Drive Suite v10,0,0,2117 to C Drive:

1-install Acronis Disk Director Suite
2-Next, to continue.
3-I accept this agreement.
4-Next
5-Please enter the Acronis Disk Director Suite Serial Number..XXXXX....
6-next
7-Setup Type "Complete"
8-Install for all users that share this computer
9-Next
(make sure your install is on your C Drive)
10-Proceed
11-DDS successfully installed, click "Close"
12-Confirmation window: Reboot required.
13- click, Yes to reboot

At desktop, double click DDS icon to launch the program.

-Select user Interface mode, select "Manual Mode". click ok.

At the DDS first window, you will see drives C, D, E, and 7.844MB of Unallocated. C Drive should have a "red" check mark on the icon. This indicated the Primary, Active Partiition.

Click "Disk" from this window, then "exit". Your DDS is now fully opperational.

At this time, follow instruction to create your "Bootable Media" for Acronis Disk Director Suite.

NOTE: DO NOT INSTALL ACRONIS OS SELECTOR AT THIS TIME!

Reboot, and "Boot from CD" to install the second WinXP Pro OS System on D drive.

Note: during one of the reboots of the WinX Pro install of Drive D, windows may pause and ask you which of the 2 WinXP Pro installs to continue with. You can do one of two things, 1-wait it out (1 min.) and the WinXP Pro install will continue, or select the "TOP" of the 2 listed WInXP Pro installs on your PC. This will be your D Drive.

Next, install WinXP Pro SP2 from CD to drive D.

Next, boot up to your C Drive and install OS Selector.

1-Start, Programs, Acronis, Acronis Disk Director, click on Install Acronis OS Selector.
2-Welcome to Acronis OS Selector, click next.
3-Click, I accept this agreement. Click next.
4-Select "Custom", click next.
5-Select/highlight your C Drive or C partition. Click next.
6-click on "Proceed"
7-Confirmation. Click Yes to reboot.

You will now be taken into the Acronis OS Selector Menu. Here we will make changes to the way your boot up your machine.

The window "Operating Systems" lists your partitions.

1-Highlight "Windows XP Professional (English)", right click, Properties. You are at the edit window.

2-Left side of edit window highlight "Partitions".

3-Highlight your C Drive and make sure the "active" is checked off.

4-Highlight your D and E drives and check them off as "Hidden".

5-CLich Apply, click ok.

Next go to the Operating System "Windows XP Professional (English) (2)", right click, Properties. Takes you to the edit window.

1-Highlight "Partitions"

2-Highlight your C Drive and make sure the "active" is checked off.

3-Highlight your E drive and check off as "Hidden".

4-Click Apply, click ok.

Next go to"Boot from floppy A", right click, Properties, then to edit window.

1-Local Disk (#1-1) should be "Active" (C Drive)

2-Local Disk (#1-5) should be "Hidden" (D Drive)

3-Local Disk (#1-6) should be "hidden" (F Drive)

4- Click Apply, click ok.

Back to your Acronis OS Selector Main Menu.

1-Highlight Boot from Floppy A:, click on "Edit" click on "hide"

2-Hightlight Windows XP Professional (English) (2), click on "Edit" click on "hide"

You should only have one Operating System listed. Highlight Windows XP Professional (English) (C Drive), right click, "Set Default".

Click on "OS" (right of Edit), click on "Boot".

You will now boot up to your C Drive.

Launch Acronis OS Selector and we need to "activate" the program in Windows.

1-At the OS Selector Main Menu, click on "Tools". click on "Activate OS Selector" (THIS IS IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER)

2-Activation Completed. Click Ok.

3-Click on "OS", click on "Exit"

Reboot your PC. And back to the Acronis OS Selector to make C Drive bootable.

1-Click on Tools, click on OS Detection Wizard.

2-Welcome to the OS Detection Wizard, click on Next.

3-Select "Detect OS on partition", click Next.

4-Click on C Drive, and click "Bootable".

C drive Flags should now read: Pri, Act, Boot

The other 2 partitions listed should be flagged as "Hid."

5-Click on Next, click on Finish.

6-click on "OS" click on "Boot". You should only now see in Operating System window "Windows XP Professional (English)". (this is highlighted)

Reboot PC to your C Drive. Click F6 to "skip OS Selector Main Menu"

To get rid of the option to go into the OS Selector Main Menu on boot up, you need to DeActivate OS Selector in Windows.

1-Launch OS Selector in Windows, click on Tools, click on "Deactivate OS Selector", click on Next.

2-OS Deactivation Wizard Window. Hightlight "Windows XP Professional (English)" to boot after the deactivation process is complete. (C Drive)

3-Click on Next.

4-Click on Proceed.

5-COnfirmation. click on "Reboot"

On boot up, Acronis Deactivation Completed window, click "Ok"

IMPORTANT, while OS Selector is Deactivated, you will now boot to C Drive on boot up. To switch to another Operation system, you will need to "Activate" OS Selector in Windows where it is installed, which is drive C.

To switch to second WinXP Pro install (D Drive), follow the steps above to:

1-activate OS Selector in Windows. Reboot,

2-Return to OS Selector Main Menu. Run OS Selector Wizard and make the following changes: Hide C Drive, D drive unhide. IF you make D Drive "bootable". you can not get back into C Drive where OS Selector is installed. Use your DDS Bootable Media CD to get back to the OS Selector Main Window.

3-Reboot to C Drive (which is hidden) and "Deactivate OS Selector" if you want to continue booting up to D Drive.

Basically "Activate OS Selector" to switch to different Operating System. "Deactivate OS Selector" to continue a specific operating system for bootup.

Now you can go back to your 2 WinXP Pro installs and tweak, upgrade, install drivers amd programs, etc. My method was to avoid any conflicts, error messages, etc. With DDS. AS it turned out, I did not come across any problems.

Final comment. Your setup will most likely be different than what I stated above. This worked for me after reading several forum posts, and perhaps it will work for others The DDS user guide was confusing, my approach was a hands on experience in Plain English.

1:28 PM 12/10/2006

 

Since my Dec 10th post, I have now on my main pc 2 WinXP Operating Systems and all it good. In total, my main PC has 4 hard drives, and 7 partitions. I pretty much used the same method in first post. Now that I am familiar with the set up, switching between the 2 WinXP Pro Operating system is a breese. My "second" Operating system only includes my burning software, (Alcohol 120%, NERO, CloneDVD, and AnyDVD). No internet connection, no firewall, no anti virus. My objective is to have hassle free burning (DVD/CD/Images) with minimal install. I do have WinXP SP2, and that is all

Switching from C drive to second Winxp install is using Acronis OS Selector on C.

Switching from the Second WinXP install is using the Acronis Media builder CD and "activating" Acronis OS Selector to boot up to my C Drive.

These 2 methods work for me, probably an easier way, but this is quick and easy.

Feel free to ask if you have questions, if I can help, I will try