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Another dual boot question
Posted this message below earlier but no response.
Just received my DELL upgrade disk for Vista. Interested in this idea of dual boot and clean installs etc, but confused.
I have a 9200, with the raid setup for the primary disk.
If I purchase another disk and install Vista on that, clean install, then upgrade install, can I leave the XP installation alone, gradually copying my data over. How do I get the machine to boot from the Vista disk and not the XP one. Will the BIOS detect 2 boot drives and ask me to select, can I just adjust the boot sequence in the BIOS. I don't want to go the hassle of disconnecting the drive, after all I want to copy everything over, so need it.
Any information would be useful, like I say I'm a little confused at the moment, and don't know what to do for the best. Please don't say ignore Vista, I want to at least try it, and draw my own conclusions.
ManyThanks in advance
I have read a microsoft article, and it appears the above can be done, any confirmations!!. I need to keep my XP setup, so cannot install Vista, then install XP. I must do it the other way around, so hoping the second hard drive will do this.
regards
- Thanks for that rebel9.I've tried the search, lots of conflicting information there. All I want to do is install Vista on a new drive, keep my old XP one in the machine. I can then copy over docs and the like.I am not overly bothered if XP wont boot, as long as I can get the data from it. Ideally a booting XP would be good, in case Vista doesn't work out, but I guess I can't have everything.I will search again.Cheers
- Dual-boot is a bit of a misnomer. In actual fact, you can really only boot from a single hard drive. What happens is that the boot program built by the multi-OS install will display a menu allowing you to select which partition you wish to start.In the example of XP and Vista, you would have a menu which displays Vista and an OLDER OPERATING SYSTEM option.Although there are ways around this, the simplest install is XP first and Vista second.Previously, Windows allowed you to boot an upgrade CD (Vista is now a DVD) and use your instllation CD from the previous Windows for verification. You now must run the Vista upgrade CD from a running Windows previous version. You can still perform a clean install, just not boot from the CD to do it.As for copying files over, you can access all your partitions from either XP or Vista. Simply create a folder for copying the files you wish to copy. You will not be able to copy files which you stored under your Userid otherwise.
- You can install Vista to a second hard drive and dual boot. Install the second hard drive make sure you format it. Boot the machine up with the Vista cd already in machine. Pick a custom install and choose the hard drive you want vista installed on. You can change the way the machine boots in Vista not XP if you want to boot to one or the other as default. However you will still have the option to boot to either system during boot up. You will need all the drivers for the sound card ,video, etc for the Vista install after you install it. Good Luck. This works with the upgrade cd that was sent if you got one or a full purchased cd.
- You can install Vista to a second hard drive and dual boot. Install the second hard drive make sure you format it. Boot the machine up with the Vista cd already in machine. Pick a custom install and choose the hard drive you want vista installed on. You can change the way the machine boots in Vista not XP if you want to boot to one or the other as default. However you will still have the option to boot to either system during boot up. You will need all the drivers for the sound card ,video, etc for the Vista install after you install it. Good Luck. This works with the upgrade cd that was sent if you got one or a full purchased cd. I will work from the upgrade cd that Dell sent you becasue I have done it twice now.
Rebel9
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Posted March 31st, 2007 20:00