Dual Boot - Win2000/WinXP

Hi,

I have just upgraded my laptop hard drive to a 20gb...and wanted to partition it with 15gb - Win2000 and 5gb - Win Xp.
So I loaded Win2000 frist on a 15 gb partition...loaded and works fine.
Then tried to boot form the Win Xp cd to load Win XP...but it does not boot from the cd...so I went into Win 2000 and ran the Win XP cd to do a new installation and pointed it to the 5gb partition...so that it would format the 5gb and load Win XP on it.
It took a while to load and when finally finished...I have the option to boot between Win2000 and Winxp.....
I tried booting to either one to test out and both work fine...but what I've noticed is that both are loaded on the 15gb partition and the 5gb is now the E:\...with all the system files.

Does this sound right....I was under the impression that When I booted to Win 2000 I would have a C:\ that was 15 gb and when I booted to Win XP I would have a C:\ that would be 5gb....at least that way I wanted it.
Would this affect the installatiom/performance, or should I just start over again and load Win Xp first and then try Win 2000.
I just think that it is now a waste of 5gb.

Any ideas...

Thanks,

 

WinXP has placed its boot manager on the Win2k partition, which gives you the option of choosing between WinXP and Win2k.
If the two partitions you have created(15 and 5 gb) are both primary partitions, then you *might* be able to use the Disk Management in WinXP and reassign the drive letters, so in WinXP the 5 gb get the driveletter C:.

 

Hi,

Thanks for that,

I have never used Disk Management on Win XP, infact the reason for installing Win Xp was to get familiar with it, So should I just have a look through the contents of the Win XP disk and find disk management.
Would partition magic work on this or should I try to start again from sctrach and install Win Xp first and then Win 2000.

The other thing is if I leave it as it is would it be a problem, or would it just be a loss of space.i.e the 5gb.
And can Win Xp be loaded by booting from the C.D or is there any other way....start up disks e.t.c.

Thanks,

 

What you will find that XP is set to use D: as it's default drive. When you save files/downloads etc, they should go onto D: if saved in XP. Its just that for the purposes of disk management, XP sets itself to the next available drive letter. This is because 95/98/98SE/ME cannot run from any other drive letter than C: so XP will not try to override this factor, otherwise your other OS would go FUBAR on you. The fact that you are using 2000 as the other OS is not the norm for XP (XP is the logical upgrade of 2000) so XP does not usually accomodate the change of drive letter.

You may, as suggested, be able to use the disk management feature to re-assign drive letters, but I am not sure how that would function with some programs installations. I was under the impression the drive letter assignment was done pre-OS boot by the MBR (Master Boot Record) and as such was set by the choices you make during install. Changing MAY be dangerous.

Personally I would leave the system as it is. Anything you install through XP will default save to D: drive anyway, and will be saved in the 5Gb partition. It's just that it will show the path as D:/Program Files instead of C:/Program Files.
The only bugger is that some (not many) programs automatically default save to C: without deviation. All that will happen is that those system files will save to C: and be referenced in the registry by XP and not 2000. Bit of junk in the 15Gb partition, but fully stable OS!!!

As for your suggestion of installing XP first, all that will occur is that XP will set to C: and 2000 will take the D: path. Same problem, other way round. And I do not believe Partition Magic would be of any use for this. If you try to re-assign drive letters, it will automatically update one OS to C and the other to D whatever way you tried it.

And the XP CD should be bootable. Have you checked that the BIOS is set to boot from CD? If so, it may be (NO allegations being made here) that you have a pirated copy of XP which was not burned as ISO and as such will not boot. If so, you must run the setup from within a windows environment. If your copy is legal, it may be a corrupted disk.

Hope this helps.

Enjoy XP. Its a lot of fun when you get to know it.

 

Hi,

Thanks alot for that,
Well...that seems about right....the Win Xp main drive letter is C:\ but it seems to have sefaulted files to E:\.
Win 2000's main drive letter is C:\ and it has also seems to have loaded some system files on E:\.
It is set to boot from the cd forst....origional copy.....but could be damaged.
I think I will leave it as it is as long as the 5gb is not wasted and most of the Win Xp programs/applications/downloads use up the 5gb.......then that should be no problem.
As it stands both OS are running with no problems....so I think I will leave ti as it is....

Thanks again for the info,

 

Here is some booting info for the future .

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q278104&

"This Program Cannot Be Run in DOS Mode" Running Windows XP Setup
The information in this article applies to:
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Microsoft Windows XP Professional