Dual Boot Preinstall Vista System with Windows XP

Hello,

I can across a project where I had to setup a Vista preinstall Laptop. The person was having a lot of trouble running some of his programs from work. They had asked me if I can load Windows XP as a dual boot. Well I thought this might be an easy thing to do? So I took the project but come to find out it took me a couple of hours to figure it out.

[1.] One of the first things I did was partition the hard drive which was easy and had no trouble doing this with Vista. The process was very easy! One of the first things you need to do is Click on “start” then go too “Computer” and right click on “computer” you should see a tab for “Mange” Click on this tab.

Once you click on the tab you should be in Computer Management just like the window below.

[2.] In the Computer Management Window right click on the “C” drive if this is the partition drive you wanted to partition? Most likely this is the drive! Once you right click on the “C” drive you should see a tab for Shrink Volume. Click on “Shrink Volume” This is the amount of space you will used to put Windows XP. I will suggest on making the space at least 4GB or more? Depending on how much things you are going to load on Windows XP?

[3.] In the Shrink Window enter the size of the partition you wish to use for Windows XP?

This is just example of what you might see when you are using the Shrink Window. Enter the amount you wanted to used then click on “Shrink” Once you click on Shrink you should see the volume under Computer Management with the amount that you shrink.

[4.] The next step is to configure the unallocated space, so we will right click on the unallocated space and then you will see a tab saying “New Simple Volume”

Once you click on the “New Simple Volume” tab this should start off the Wizard which will configure the unallocated space.

[5.] The next steps are very easy! You will need to setup the size for the partition of the OS you wanted to used again? Or just leave it alone. Click on Next

[6.] This step you will need to assign the drive letter for the drive and then click on Next.

[7.] In this step we will need to format the partition drive and setup the File system. Under the Volume Label: Please put “Windows XP” so we can tell what partition this is and please check the “Perform a quick Format”. Click on Next

[8.] The last final step will show you the partition information and that is it for this part.

Here is an ideal on how the partition might look under “Computer Management”

[9.] The next step is loading Windows XP into the hard drive but PLEASE MAKE SURE THAT YOU DISABLE SATA SETTING IN THE BIOS BECAUSE THE WINDOWS XP INSTALLATION CD WILL NOT RECOGNIZE A SATA DRIVE. This is very important because Windows XP will not load on your hard drive until you disable this feature. So go ahead into your BIOS and make sure that this is disable! Once you did this load the Windows XP CD into the CD-ROM drive and reboot the computer with the CD inside.

[10.] Once you boot up the computer you should see a screen like this one.

[11.] After all the files have been loaded, go ahead and put the OS on the partition drive you made early in this tutorial.

[12.] After all the file got install onto the Partition Hard drive, Windows XP should reboot and you should see the beautiful Windows XP logo flash in front of you!

[13.] We are not finish yet! If you notice when you boot up the computer you will only see Windows XP being load but not Windows Vista. The next step requires you to have your Vista installation CD so we can boot off the CD to make the final changes so we can boot to either OS system. The problem is that Vista and Windows XP used a different boot loader so we will need to fix this so Vista will recognize Windows XP. Put your Vista CD into the CD-ROM and reboot your computer.

[14.] Now when you are booting the computer you will see that Vista is loading the file into the hard drive just like the picture below.

At this point all the necessary files are being load into the hard drive so Vista will go to the process of loading the GUI files.

[15.] Once Vista is loaded it will prompt you to choose the regional and language options, as shown in the picture below. As you can see, the default settings are for U.S. and English and if that’s you, you can just click Next to move on.

[16.] Now in this step we will need to click on “Repair your Computer”

This step will help us in the process of getting the computer to see the Windows XP installation.

[17.] The next prompt will search for the OS system on your hard drive and asked us which OS system should we repair? Don’t worry about this if you only see Vista in the Window.

When it is done search just click on Windows Vista and then click on “Next”

[18.] In this step there will be a lot of option to choose from but we will need to pick the “Command Prompt” option because I know this will work for sure. I do realize that there is a “Startup Repair” but every time I try this it will never work for me right.

So please click on the “Command Prompt” so we can get start on setting up the Dual boot process.

[19.] Once we choose the Command prompt we will need to type in same commands. Please make sure that you type these command just like I put them here. These are two commands so please make sure that you hit enter after the first command and the second command.

Bootrec.exe /fixMBR Then hit enter

Bootrec.exe /fixBoot Then hit enter

After you enter both commands close the window and hit restart so we can boot up the computer again but please make sure that you take out the Windows Vista CD from the CD-ROM before you boot up the computer again.

[20.] After the Computer boot up again you will only see Vista being load but this is alright! We will need to load up Vista to make the final changes so we can pick which OS to boot up too. So let Vista load up and will need to go back too the Command Prompt. Once Vista loaded go too the start menu and find the Command prompt and “Right” click and choose “Run as Administrator” this is very important that you choose Administrator because if you don’t the next steps will not work at all.

[21.] These last steps are very important so please type in the command right! Or this will not work at all. Once the Command Window opens up and you are under Administrator rights you will need to type in a couple of commands so please make sure you type this right. The first command we need to type is:

bcdedit /create {ntldr} /d "Microsoft Windows XP"

This will make the directory where XP is at, the next commands you should type is:

bcdedit –set {ntldr} device partition=C:

bcdedit –set {ntldr} path \ntldr

bcdedit –displayorder {ntldr} –addlast

bcdedit -set {ntldr} description "Microsoft Windows XP"

Please make sure that the first command is where Vista is loaded, mostly it is the “C” partition!

After you type in the commands and everything loaded in right, you should be able to type “bcdedit” at the command prompt and it should return something like this picture below.

If you are getting all of this? Then you are ready to boot into Windows XP or Windows Vista! All you have to do is close out the command prompt and reboot your computer! When you boot up your computer again you should see a prompt like the picture below.

That is all you have to do! Is picking which OS you wanted to boot into. I hope this helps you out like it help me out.