Dual XP Pro Boot

[Kyocera]

I am trying to create a dual boot scenario with XP pro, created a 10 gig fat 32 primary partition alongside a 8 Gig XP pro already installed. Checked to make sure XP still boots all is fine. Run the XP pro CD to install on the other partition and it will only recognize the "C" partition already installed.

Can't you run two XP pro OS's on one HD?

What am I missing?

[Stargate199]

I never tried it, but it is possible. The boot.ini file of the PRIMARY MASTER hard drive needs to modify to have both installs of XP to show up on the boot option screen. I don't know how to do it, but you should be able to google it to find out. When the computer boots, it looks at the primary master for a boot.ini file and boots the OS that is listed there. Since you installed a second copy on what is the Primary Slave, the computer will not look at it since it already found a boot.ini file on the primary master. The XP install disk will do the same thing and already detect the existing C: drive. You can dual boot OS. I did it with Win 98 and 2000.

[Kyocera]

Stargate199, thanks for the reply. I have done dual boot vista/XP pro and OSX/XP pro Xandros/XP pro but had never tried two installs of XP pro on one drive. I'm trying to do this on one of our machines at work. I tested it out on my desktop at home, shrunk the existing XP partition, created a primary partition and when I started the XP pro install CD it did find the other primary partition and would allow me to install XP there if I wanted.

But with this machine at work I did the exact same procedure and it does not see the other primary partition so there is no way I can install XP there Very weird.

[ArtShapiro]

Have nothing definitive to suggest, but can personally confirm that two copies of XP will happily run on the same partition (I did it on my T30) and on separate partitions. I'd be inclined to pay very careful attention to the XP Setup's verbiage, to ensure that you're telling it that you want to keep an existing XP setup, not overwriting it, and that a separate installation in a different directory is desired.

This *should* be routine.

Art

[K0LO]

Kyocera:

What partitioning software are you using? Some (notably PartitionMagic) will automatically hide a FAT32 or NTFS primary partition when you make another partition active. I got burned by that once when I wasn't expecting it.

Check to be sure that the partition that you want to install to is not marked as hidden. You could also try deleting the new FAT32 partition and just leave it as free space and let the Windows installer do the formatting. It should find the free space and let you install to it.

[Musti]

Check to be sure that the partition that you want to install to is not marked as hidden. You could also try deleting the new FAT32 partition and just leave it as free space and let the Windows installer do the formatting. It should find the free space and let you install to it.

This was what I was to suggest. Make it NTFS if your *first XP* is on an NTFS partition. As far as I know NTFS and FAT32 don't mix well (well, they don't mix at all).

[Kyocera]

Thanks a lot guys, I have been using Partition Commander for a long time now and this is the first time anything weird like this has happened. I'll try your suggestions and report back.