Windows XP/Windows 7 Multi Boot

Hi guys any help would be greatly appreciated.

Installed Windows 7 today onto a seperate hard drive to XP Pro, in the hope of being able to multiboot the two OS's.

However i have a problem in that Windows 7 has taken over and i cant figure out any way of getting to XP.

When installing windows 7 i chose the full installation onto the other hard drive in my system, leaving the XP untouched or so i thourght.

However i ran this installation from within Windows XP so i am worried that it may have overwritten my xp files...

Within windows 7 in the boot settings, windows 7 is the only OS i can choose to boot.

So i think i may have shafted myself here :|

Any ideas ?

Thanks a lot

 

AFAIK, that has happened.

Why didn't you just boot from the DVD and install from there?

 

Ahhh.. i dont know......

Stupid mistake !

Ah well, time to cut my losses.

Thanks for the reply mate

 

I don't know man, you may have indeed shafted yourself. But if the installations are on separate disks, you might be able to run a repair from the windows xp installation cd, which'll correct the boot sector info, and allow you to boot into xp. Although there may be complications, especially if SATA hard drives are involved. And you may need to do the same thing with the windows 7 cd afterwards.

All this is assuming both installations are still there. You got anymore info that could give people more of an idea as to what's occurred? Can see the hard drive windows xp is on from windows 7, and if so, are the XP files still there?

Good luck dude...

 

hey man

Within Windows 7 I can still open and view the files on the XP partition... so they are still there...

Something i noticed... not as up to date as i used to be..

Within XP the XP hard drive was C:

Now within Windows 7 the XP hard drive is D:
With 7 being C:

Not sure if that matters at all.

Very lucky i backup all of my documents and stuff onto another hard drive.... and then external hard drive

Will try to get some snaps once ive got some software installed

 

@DrewBear11 that is because you did not do it properly. This is the good way:
1- Defrag your HDD
2- Create a partition for Win7
3- Within XP, run Win7 setup and perform a clean install on the new partition.

This will make Win7 setup detect that you have another windows, get all the latest updates before the installing itself and install, update and configure the boot system for you.

 

Eh? He installed Win7 on another HDD. That should be at least as good as creating another partition to install Win7 onto. Defragging the HDD, while a good thing in itself, won't really help you with this process. I'd concur with other posters that running the installer from XP was probably THE bad idea in this process. XP might still be salvagable by running a repair session from the XP CD.

First thing I'd try would be to run the repair console from the CD. It's the same thing *everyone* should install right after installing WinXP (and probably higher) by running winnt32.exe /cmdcons from the i386 folder on the Windows CD.

If that doesn't fix the problem, do a complete repair (also accessible from the CD). If THAT also fails, you might be shafted...

 

How to Dual-Boot XP and Vista (with XP installed first)

I know this is 7 and not Vista, but given the similarities in the underlying architecture, the process is probably quite similar.

- Diosjenin -

 

It was just an example. Yes you can do it on a different HDD. Just select the correct HDD in Win7 setup.

It is always recommanded to defrag an HDD before repartition it. And if our dear user used Windows Disk Manager to partition teh HDD, it will consider the last data from the HDD to the end as free space to manage, as it won't move your data. Defraging your HDD groups files together and allows more free space to create a new partition for windows tools.

Running Win7 from XP would have prevented this issue. We are not talking about updating XP to Win7 (you can't do that either way), we just want it to detect, and on your way download all the latest win7 update for you to get the setup a little more smooth.

 

I did the install from Xp onto another HDD and it works fine.I have a choice after post of which to boot to,do you have the F12 option to select which drive to boot from?

 

interested in topic

Hello,

I'd like to get contact to people who already run WinXP and Win 7 in multiboot.
I think to do the same step but I'm not sure to do it yet.

Who likes, just answer me in instant messengers!

best wishes from Germany

 

Super easy method:
> Create 2 partitions (bigger one for Win7 as it consumes more space)
> Install XP
> Then install Windows 7 64-bit on the other partition. Windows 7 setup will detect your XP, and configure the boot manager for you, so that you switch between the 2 OS's when you restart your computer.

But, why do you want XP? Windows 7 64-bit support about all software. In fact, the only software it doesn't support, are like 16-bit applications, in other words DOS applications.
If you don't have THAT old software, your software will perform the same under Win7, is not faster, due Windows 7 new (well since Vista) memory management system.

 

If you do have some very old software that needs XP, it would almost certainly run fine on a VM ('XP mode' or just installing XP in vmware/virtualbox), which is a lot more convenient.

 

+1 to VM

unless your running really old programs i.e. 16-bit and a few funny 32-bit ones there is no need to have XP at all

 

I still have both, but I'm using XP less and less. I found that if you install XP first, then 7, you should get options at the boot menu to either boot into 7 or other operating systems without any problems.

 

use easybcd to set up dual boot http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1

 

Hello,
I changed my thinking: I've an successful running win xp and I'm quite happy with it.

Is there an option to install and run Win 7 in a virtualbox on xp?
There is a slogan "never change a running system" and I don't want to reinstall all applications (I've running on xp) in Win 7 again.

The reason, why Win7 is second choice: I already installed it on my system and I didn't like it. It's the future but only second choice for me.

If I downloaded the virtualbox and installed it, is it possible to install and run Win 7 + further applications?

I hate reinstalling all applications again and again

Thanks in advance for answering

Best wishes from Germany

 

Yup... and if that was life.. you, and everyone here would still be a microbe in water, and not be living creatures as we are today, some applies for all living things on this planet.

Ignoring life itself, you would still be surfing the web via a phone based modem, with every page being green on black, due to your monochrome display.. why change what works?

To answer your question:
1- You have NO IDEA what you are missing
2- XP is a horrible OS since day 1, you just got used to it, as you where forced to it due that it was the only Windows options. You will notice this once you downgrade your Windows or upgrade to Win7.
3- Yes you need to re-install all your programs, even under a virtual PC environment.
4- Yes your experience will be crappy under a virtual PC environment unless you have serious computational power, which a bit part if it you have it locked down due to your 32-bit XP.
5- I provide 0 supports to XP users. So don't expect me to reply to any of your problem. Sorry for being mean like this, but XP is too awful, and has too many security issues to be considered, in my book, as a valid OS to use everyday. Yes I do know why companies still use XP, and it's not because XP is good... it's mainly because the switch cost too much (training, new software, possibly down time again custom software bug, testing, hardware upgrade or buying new PC's, and so on). In addition, companies uses extreme limited accounts for it's users, and backup with some serious firewall hardware... so they don't really need to worry too much about OS security. But for HOME purposes... XP got to go.

 

OK, OK, calm it!

Yes. But it will suck. It will be horribly slow - it's sharing your RAM, for example, with your already-running XP system - and you won't be able to do most of its useful tricks (like Aero Snap) because it's running in a VM. This should be the other way around - either dual boot, or run XP in a VM in 7.

I can have a 7 system up and running, from disc, with the correct drivers for all my hardware, Office, Chrome, Skype, TrueCrypt, iTunes, Steam, VLC etc in less than an hour. This is something you should only have to do once, and believe us, it's worth it.

How many applications do you have?! Win7 is almost a decade's worth of development ahead of XP, but it feels more. Trust us on this - you might as well get used to it now because the world is never going back to XP.

 

Sorry, but that's patently wrong. It all depends on which kind of virtualizer you use. I'm running Windows 7 64 bit in VMware Workstation 7.1 under Windows XP 32 bit.

The lowest rating is 5.5, which I find pretty good for an emulated OS, especially one that runs in a different processor state than the host OS. Oh, and I've got full Aero 3D support as well.

I've got a screenie, but I don't know where to post it.