Dual Boot - 2 instances of XP

mag

I want to create a dual boot with 2 instances of XP. Setting myself up as another user on my current instance of XP isnt a good option - its used for my work and its bloat with loads of stuff. I want to install a pared down XP for audio work with minimal background tasks, etc...

A search hasnt revealed much, plenty about linux & different versions of windows dual boot... My guess is to format a partition & go ahead but im loath to screw my current XP.

Any advice, ideas, links? Thx.

Ri_Nollaig

wouldnt just a different user account b a better option?

TheStrandRoads

Hi Mag,

My set up is that I have two instances of XP running on my machine. The first instance is XP Service Pack 2 (my 'main' machine for most apps) and the second is XP Service Pack 1 (as my recording hardware only supports SP1).

I'm running ProTools & a Digi 001.

Like yourself, the music side of the machine has minimal apps running on it. Everything runs fine for me, but I'm sure that has a lot to do with the fact that I've a dedicated hard disk for each section. I can't really go into the details of creating a dual boot, as my friend sorted that out for me. But I'm sure there's people here that can provide decent links to sites that will show you how to dual boot.

Hope this helps.

John.

Ri_Nollaig

u could use partition magic to divide your hdd and not damage the current xp installion.

mag

Ri_Nollaig wrote:

wont just different user account b a better option?

nope. tried it & it unsuitable.

TheStrandRoads wrote:

Hi Mag,

My set up is that I have two instances of XP running on my machine. The first instance is XP Service Pack 2 (my 'main' machine for most apps) and the second is XP Service Pack 1 (as my recording hardware only supports SP1).

I'm running ProTools & a Digi 001.

Like yourself, the music side of the machine has minimal apps running on it. Everything runs fine for me, but I'm sure that has a lot to do with the fact that I've a dedicated hard disk for each section. I can't really go into the details of creating a dual boot, as my friend sorted that out for me. But I'm sure there's people here that can provide decent links to sites that will show you how to dual boot.

Hope this helps.

John.

Thx John, its a laptop with a single harddrive but putting a second one in the dvd bay would be a possibility. I dont think that should be a necessity though?

mag

Ri_Nollaig wrote:

u could use partition magic to divide your hdd and not damage the current xp installion.

yep, i intend to do that.
i vaguely know there can be issues with windows not being installed on the first 1024 sectors of the disk, etc... so thered need to be a bootloader in there. its this type of thing with a dual xp that im concerned about getting right.

vibe666

mag wrote:

yep, i intend to do that.
i vaguely know there can be issues with windows not being installed on the first 1024 sectors of the disk, etc... so thered need to be a bootloader in there. its this type of thing with a dual xp that im concerned about getting right.

that's only an issue if you have something non-windows on the first gb of the disk, and since the first copy of XP is going to be there, it's not an issue.

anyway, the process is easy, in fact it really couldn't be simpler. if you can partition a hard drive and install one copy of xp, you can do it with two just as easily. in Fact, aside from the partitioning itself, the XP installer does the whole thing for you. so much so, that as long as you have the drive space/partitions for it, you could install 10 or more copies of XP on the one machine if you really wanted to without any issues (aside from confusing yourself) at all.

you'll either need an extra hard drive or to shrink your existing boot drive to make space for the new installation before you run setup as windows can't do it on it's own.

i use partition magic, but there's free tools out there (google is your friend;)) if you don't want top spend any more money.

licencing isn't an issue as you'll only be using it on one PC and only one instance at a time, so it's all good on the legal side, you just re-activate it like you would if you'd re-installed windows.

now you have some free space, just boot off the XP CD and run setup, using your new free space/partition to install the second copy to.

when you reboot, you'll then have 2 copies of XP listed before it boots after 30 seconds to the default OS.

you can change the default OS and rename the two options for ease of identification in the boot.ini file which you can get to by going to system properties (right click my computer, properties) and then the advanced tab and then startup & recovery, settings.

in here you can change the boot timeout before it starts up one copy of windows or the other, and which one is first in the list. you can even edit the file manually if you want, there's only a couple of lines in it, and they're self explanatory if you have a basic knowledge of DOS.
[align=right]13.16.137.10[/align]

mag

exactly what i wanted vibe666. cheers

vibe666

mag wrote:

exactly what i wanted vibe666. cheers

no bother. i can be a bit of a git sometimes, so i tend to offer advice as and when i can to counteract that part of my personality.

at least i know that i do it, which is a good start.

mag

did it last night, worked a treat.
thx agian