XP and 7 dual boot

**gtrman79** · 01-14-2009

I am trying to do a dual boot with XP and 7. I did get it to work. But had to remove and reinstall 7 twice due to an error with hard-drive.

Everything was going along fine. I was installing apps and doing basic testing. It happened when I got to testing Steam. I was trying to play HL2 but the game would not start.

I then got an error at the bottom that said something about a hard-drive error. I restarted and it ran chkdsk. It did a LOTof deleting of entries. Then booted backup with no internet. So I just booted to XP. Well the internet wouldn't work on XP either.

So...my question is....would a driver/hardware issue in 7 affect hardware in XP?

Also, I have music and media in a seperate partition. Can XP and 7 both access and edit these files with no issue?

Thanks!!

**iroken22** · 01-14-2009

The Hardware should not be a problem as long as the drivers support both windows 7 and XP. And sharing music and other media between problems will be no problem. You have to give admin permission the first time you try and gett in the folder but Windows 7 will remember it from their on out. Hope this helps

**gtrman79** · 01-14-2009

Well I know I have a piece of audio recording harware that might take a different driver between XP and 7.

But that doesn't matter, right? Depending on what I boot to, each OS uses it's own driver. I will still mess with it.

Now, what if I try XP-32 and 7-64 bit? Is that not recommended?

**Ron_Knights** · 01-14-2009

I installed Windows 7 in a Dual Boot setup purely by accident.

I have 2 hard drives on my home-built computer running Windows XP.

I installed Windows 7, and it asked where I wanted to install it. I ended up choosing the second hard drive.

Now every time the computer comes on, I have the choice of booting to XP or "7."

So far I'm still fiddling around, but everything works just fine.

I'm using a 22" LCD TV in VGA mode as a monitor. So I turn off the computer when I want to watch TV.

My main computer is a Macintosh. But I still like to fiddle in the Windows world.

**gtrman79** · 01-14-2009

Well, I just made a backup and did a clean install single boot to 7. No dual. Most is working fine. I tried 64 but my audio device only is 32. No drivers. The only piece of hardware holding me back. Oh well. Anyone have problems with Firefox not downloading files? That's my next question. I know it should probably be in a new thread. When i click on save file, it does nothing.

**bochiman** · 01-15-2009

This article,Dual Boot Windows 7 And XP Easily: Windows 7 Installation Directly From XP Without A LiveDVD shows you how to install Windows 7 directly from a previous version of Windows, without burn a DVD. The applications installed in the previous Windows version does not need to be reinstalled: they also work in Windows 7 , just create shortcuts. You will be able to dual boot both operating systems and you will not loose any data.

**gtrman79** · 01-15-2009

Cool. I will definitely check that out. Thanks.

**cygnus333** · 03-03-2009

My desktop has 1 sata 500 gb hard drive partitioned at 250 gb each. I want to set up a dual boot with XP on the d: drive. Win7 64-bit is on the c: drive. I would think that just installing the XP on d: would be all I need to do. Does this sound like the best way to accomplish this?

**Radenight** · 03-03-2009

Originally Posted by cygnus333

My desktop has 1 sata 500 gb hard drive partitioned at 250 gb each. I want to set up a dual boot with XP on the d: drive. Win7 64-bit is on the c: drive. I would think that just installing the XP on d: would be all I need to do. Does this sound like the best way to accomplish this?

Unfortunately no...

Since you've already installed Windows 7 you'll have to install both OS's again.. This is because Windows 7 and Vista use a different boot manager than Windows XP.. so if you were to install Windows XP now it wouldn't allow you to choose which OS you want to boot into.. You have to install from old to new.. so Windows XP first than Windows 7.. If you do it that way the boot manager will configure itself and you'll be presented with the choice of which OS you want to boot into each time you start up your pc..

You could just install Windows XP now but you'd have to use a program like easyBCD to configure the boot manager but it's not a gaurantee that it'll work out the way you want it to and it's more hassle than it's worth that way.. So for all the time it takes to install either of these OS's I would go with my suggestion of starting fresh and installing XP first than Windows 7.. Everything will configure itself as far as the boot manager goes and you'll have a nice dual boot setup up and running in no time..

**cygnus333** · 03-03-2009

Thanks so much for the info. This is my 1st experience with a dual boot system. Let me run this by you to make sure I understand.
With the system as is, Win7 on c: and nothing on d:. I will boot off XP cd and install it to d:. Reboot the system and come up with XP, booted off d:. Then install Win7 on c:, overwritting current installation. On next reboot I should then be presented with boot options.
My only questions are: 1. Will the data, not pgms., currently residing in the libraries on c: be lost? 2. Will the programs installed under Win7 need to be re-installed?

Thanks again, I will begin this undertaking as soon as I hear back from you.

Chris.