Vista - help with install of xp on second drive please

Hi all

ive tried to browse the site but i can't see what i need so hopefully someone can point me to a thread thats already covered this.

I run Vista on my PC & Laptop but they both have 2 drives so i have reformatted both drives and i am hoping to instal XP Pro to the second drives as a fresh instal,
Whats the easiest and most reliable way of doing this, and once done can i choose to switch OS in vista or will i have to reboot ?

The reason i have to do this is a lot of my software, including my sony camcorder wont work under vista but i dont want to bin vista as i love it

Thanks In Advance.

please visit this link. It may help

How to dual boot Vista and XP (with Vista installed first) -- the step-by-step guide with screenshots

thanks for the reply, i have see this link but i want to install on different drives not on the same drive thats been partitioned.
would it be the case of just installing it via booting from the cd on to drive D (the seperate drive number) or not ?

You have to install XP first then Vista. Backup your data to an external source. Disconnect it. Install XP first to the first drive. Don't partition the second drive. Do all the service packs and patches. Once done. Insert the Vista DVD. Create the partition on the second drive. Install Vista. It will update the boot partition for the boot loader.

oh no why is it never straight foward. so if installed xp to the clean drive would neither vista or xp work then ? i am getting a little fed up of buying windows cds, in the last 3 weeks i bought vista ultimate 64bit (no software works with it) then vista premium 32bit (lots more works than 64bit but still not enough) and know ive just bought xp pro to try and get the rest of my software to work, each one requiring a clean install, sometimes i do hate windows and there inherent impossibility to work with each other. Oh well. Thanks for the reply

I run Vista x64 Ultimate. My games and software works. I don't have old software. I do tend to keep it up to date. Why not post your problems and see if someone can help. You do have compatibility modes. You can't run 16 bit apps in 64-bit. You never could do this.

You always had to install dual boots in legacy order.

The other option you have is disconnecting the Vista hard drive and doing a clean install of XP on the other drive.
After all drivers are installed and apps and you have it running the way you want simply re-connect the Vista hard drive and use the BIOS to select which drive you want to boot to.
The advantages to this are nothing gets written from one OS to the other; making backup images is simpler and you can access files and folders across both drives.

fantastic !!! thanks for this, which drive do i use as primary and which as slave ? and once installed which do i boot to or doesnt it matter ? i would rather use vista daily and use XP occasionaly but i dont mind if i have to boot to xp and select vista from there, thanks for this advice, i'm much happier know

I would not do it that way. To properly dual boot, follow my method. Otherwise, you run into issues on the boot manager and can make it more difficult to repair either OS.

There is no boot manager involved in the method above...The BIOS determines which drive boots.
The master/slave designation won't matter either.
NOTE: Whichever drive you currently boot to will be shown as C: and the other D: unless there are other partitions involved so good file management is a plus.
I've ran this type of setup on many different machines with zero issues with all different flavors of Windows.
Repairs are actually easier as only one OS is involved at any time...the one you select to boot to.