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General discussion

windows 7 and windows xp dual boot!!! HELP!

Jul 2, 2010 10:39AM PDT

Hello,

I want windows 7 and windows xp installed on my computer at the same time, I had windows 7 installed before XP and I tried installing XP on "D" drive but then I couldn't get the dual boot option at system startup since thw windows XP MBR is old so... I removed windows 7 from my computer and installed windows XP on the "D" drive first and later on I installed Windows 7 on the "C" drive. Now I'm able to get the dual boot option at startup:

Earlier Version of Windows (OR)
Windows 7

But! when I click on "Earlier version of windows" my computer just freezes... I don't even get the Windows XP boot screen.

- Thank You in advance.

Discussion is locked

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There is a supported install order.
Jul 2, 2010 11:29AM PDT

Install XP first, leave unpartitioned space for 7, install 7 and you get a supported clean dual boot. There are lots of docs about other methods but here I just go with supported methods.
Bob

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i did that already
Jul 2, 2010 3:50PM PDT

i don't think you understood my problem, i already did what you told me to but the problem is when i try to go on windows xp nothing happens... i get a black screen.

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Then we treat it like a failed Windows OS.
Jul 2, 2010 8:13PM PDT

The bad news is that a failed Windows OS taxes even the best of Windows gurus. If a repair install fails then I know to start over. What I'm finding is that I am now rarely running XP. The last XP machine at the office are "pickled units". What are those? We developed some apps in 2000 (that's 10 years ago) and these machines are dedicated to hold that old system as long as the customer pays for it. No dual boot. How does this apply? We found dual boot systems to cost us more than a complete machine!
Bob

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Dual Boot
Jul 2, 2010 3:45PM PDT

If you are using one Hard disk, you have to create a partition on it so that you can install Win XP on 1 drive & Win 7 on the other drive. In that way you will have dual boot options. If you have two HDD and likes to install different OS on each (much stable) you will not have dual boot but you can still use both OS by changing the priority boot option before windows start-up. (if you want to use Win7 installed on HDD-1 make it as 1st boot priority, the same goes to WinXP installed on HDD-2).

To create partition using windows xp setup follow this link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313348

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1 hard disk
Jul 2, 2010 3:53PM PDT

Yes, I'm using 1 hard disk and yes i have partitioned it in 2 drives.

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Dual boot Windows 7 & Windows XP
Jul 2, 2010 5:01PM PDT

Another way I can suggest if the first one didn't work for you:

A) Try to log-on to any OS working on your system or other PC and burn the GParted Live CD explained below.

B) Reformat your harddisk using the GParted CD (erasing your installed OS) and merge (shrink) the drives.

C) Do a clean installation of Windows XP and run it afterwards. If your XP is running good go to the next step.

D) Partition Your Hard Drive
Before you go installing Windows 7, the first thing you need to do is create a new partition on your hard drive to hold the new installation of Windows.

To partition your hard drive in Windows XP, you'll need to download some sort of third-party partitioning software. I suggest the previously mentioned GParted live CD, a free, open source boot CD that can handle all kinds of partitioning duties. Download it from here http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php
Burn it to a CD, then reboot your computer from the newly created Gparted CD.

Procedure:
1) Resize your current OS drive to free up enough space for a Windows 7 partition (the minimum system requirements ask for 16GB you can go as high as you require but not taking too much from WinXP drive).
2) Create a new partition from the newly freed space.
3) Apply your changes.

E) Now install Windows 7 in your newly created partition.

Hope this will help. It worked perfect for me.