Hi,

Is there a way of installing XP on it's own drive on my Vista machine but without each OS seeing the other, to save drive letters, accidental trashing etc ?

TIA,
Peter

"barman58" <guest@xxxxxx-email.com> wrote in message
news:a80aebd3643398eb29782028c95cad01@xxxxxx-gateway.com...

>
> Hello 2pods, welcome to the vista forums,
>
> Assuming you have a working vista install on Drive 0, and a second
> drive Drive 1
>
> if you physically disconnect Drive 0 and install XP on drive 1 then
> reconnect the Drive 0
>
> you will have two OS disks that do not know about each other you can
> then setup in the bios to use either drive as primary boot, Most bios'
> will allow you to select the boot device on start-up from a key press /
> menu
>
> hope this helps
>
>
> --
> barman58
>

They will still be able to see each other. If you boot into Vista,
it will be on C: drive, and XP on D: If you boot into XP, it will
be on C:, and Vista on D:. I set up XP Pro and 64 bit Vista that
way, so that either OS is on C: drive when running.

If you want each invisible to the other, you need a third party
boot manager.

Or use a virtual machine. You can make them invisible to each other, or you can set up shared folders to pass things back and forth. There is a performance penalty, but this is a very easy way to maintain multiple environments (and run them at the same time, if you have enough memory and processor bandwidth). I maintain two XP environments on my Vista x64 box - one for important software that is still not Vista compatible and one for testing new apps. I also keep a linux environment.

Virtual PC 2007 works great for MS operating systems. Sun's Virtual Box works much better for linux environments.

Thanks for all your helpful replies

I remember doing something like this with Partition Magic and Drive Image back in the stone age (I can't even remember WHY I did it and with what).

Unfortunately, I'm completely in the dark about about Virtual PC etc.

Thinking about it, it could be handy to see each OS's disks, as there could be times when files might need to be copied ?

I already use Acronis TI 10, so I was thinking about their Disk Director for a hidden dual boot (Surely there must be a name for this ? If not I'll claim the HDBt acronym ).

So I have the drive ready, but I'm still thinking about it.

Peter

"2pods" <guest@xxxxxx-email.com> wrote in message
news:cb3c2158c713f23517ce3f122b199b31@xxxxxx-gateway.com...

>
> Hi,
>
> Is there a way of installing XP on it's own drive on my Vista machine
> but without each OS seeing the other, to save drive letters, accidental
> trashing etc ?
>
> TIA,
> Peter
>

I use removable drive kits...
that way, only one OS at a time can be used

"philo" <philo@xxxxxx> a écrit dans le message de
news:eDr$JbbJJHA.1308@xxxxxx

>
> "2pods" <guest@xxxxxx-email.com> wrote in message
> news:cb3c2158c713f23517ce3f122b199b31@xxxxxx-gateway.com...

>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Is there a way of installing XP on it's own drive on my Vista machine
>> but without each OS seeing the other, to save drive letters, accidental
>> trashing etc ?
>>
>> TIA,
>> Peter
>>

>
>
>
> I use removable drive kits...
> that way, only one OS at a time can be used
>
>

In device manager, disable the drives you do not want to be visible. First
in Xp.
Then in Vista.

"cqui3" <cqui3@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%23Nc1UtbJJHA.4996@xxxxxx

>
> "philo" <philo@xxxxxx> a écrit dans le message de
> news:eDr$JbbJJHA.1308@xxxxxx

> >
> > "2pods" <guest@xxxxxx-email.com> wrote in message
> > news:cb3c2158c713f23517ce3f122b199b31@xxxxxx-gateway.com...

> >>
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> Is there a way of installing XP on it's own drive on my Vista machine
> >> but without each OS seeing the other, to save drive letters, accidental
> >> trashing etc ?
> >>
> >> TIA,
> >> Peter
> >>

> >
> >
> >
> > I use removable drive kits...
> > that way, only one OS at a time can be used
> >
> >

>
> In device manager, disable the drives you do not want to be visible.

First

> in Xp.
> Then in Vista.
>

That is an excellent idea!!!!

I used this guide to make my dual boot and I gotta say, it was very simple to follow and I am happy with the results.

Originally Posted by AstaLaVista

I used this guide to make my dual boot and I gotta say, it was very simple to follow and I am happy with the results.

Do you mean the one from here ?
XP & Vista dual boot