Dual boot Windows xp and 7 on seperate discs

[Coaster]

Hello all,
I have win 7 (32 bit) installed on primary hard drive,

will I be ok making the drive with 7 on it the secondary hard drive, then installing another drive as the primary, installing XP on it, then edit the boot.ini?

 

[Willyeckerslike]

Hi,

I have this setup running on my PC with Windows 7 & XP running on seperate hard drives. I used Easy Bcd (freeware so google it) to set up a bootloader so that when the bios shows up I get the choice to boot to 7 or XP. If on mine I dont choose after 20 seconds it boots to windows 7. This is easily changed using Easy Bcd. It is a fair while since I did this but I seem to remember that you are best loading one operating system before the other, again google it and you will find which one and workarounds for it. Easy Bcd is very good though and may be better now than when I set mine up.

Will

 

[sclement]

I would probably do it the other way round. XP first then Windows 7, as Windows 7 will know about legacy OS's like XP, but not vice versa.

I have done this on one of my PC's

To select the boot order I would use easybcd, which is a peice of freeware. Google 'easybcd' and download a copy.

It allows you to set the boot order, and the time it takes before it boots up the default OS

 

[Richard C]

I have duel OS running on two separate discs in my new box. You can use proprietary boot menu software but Windows 7 does have its own boot menu; hit f8 at start up.

I loaded Win 7 first, formatted the secondary HDD to accept XP Pro & chose that disc to install during XP setup. After installing XP, Win 7 remains the default OS which boots automatically on time out. If I want to boot XP Pro, I hit F8 during start up which displays the disc boot menu; select the HDD with the XP install, hit return & the OS on that drive will boot.

If you want to install the duel OS on a logical partition on the primary HDD, install XP first, create the partition for Win 7 & load the OS to that partition on setup. You will then see a boot option menu automatically at start up with Win 7 as the default after time out; if you load XP first, that will become your default.

 

[Monkeh]

I have duel OS running on two separate discs in my new box. You can use proprietary boot menu software but Windows 7 does have its own boot menu; hit f8 at start up.

If I want to boot XP Pro, I hit F8 during start up which displays the disc boot menu; select the HDD with the XP install, hit return & the OS on that drive will boot.

That is not the Windows bootloader, that is your BIOS. F8 does a very different thing in the bootloader.

 

[Richard C]

That is not the Windows bootloader, that is your BIOS. F8 does a very different thing in the bootloader.

Ahh so what I’m seeing on F8 is a disc boot selector within BIOS ? I had assumed it was a feature of Win 7 as I’ve not been aware of the option on any of my previous systems; guess I should have twigged that one judging by its crude appearance. I also have Vista installed on a logical partition on the same drive as 7 but that does appear on the Windows boot menu at start up.

 

[Monkeh]

That is not the Windows bootloader, that is your BIOS. F8 does a very different thing in the bootloader.

Ahh so what I’m seeing on F8 is a disc boot selector within BIOS ? I had assumed it was a feature of Win 7 as I’ve not been aware of the option on any of my previous systems

Varies by BIOS and OEM quite wildly. Most modern machines have it.