Dual Boot Vista Ultimate/XP

i know there have been a couple of posting about this.. but the ones i found had no real answers.. so in an attempt to get a straightforward answer im posting the question again..

has anyone been able to dual boot xp onto a machine that already had vista(ultimate) preloaded without having to wipe the vista install out?

my laptop i just got is a hp hdx series.. it came with vista ultimate on it.. i bought an oem version of xp pro to put on it.. it has two harddrives.. both at 120GB.. the hard drive with the vista install has about 29GB left.. the other harddrive is completely empty as i just formatted it to the ntfs file system.. but reguardless of this every time i put the xp cd in and boot from it i get an error message that says setup did not find any harddisk drive installed in your computer....setup cannot continue. To quit press F3...

so.. would anyone know what to do to get xp to install as a dual boot on a seperate harddrive alongside a previous vista installation?

 

In 2002 I built a PC with 2 H-drives in and installed a key switch to the 2 drives and all I had to do was turn the key and boot from that either drive. I installed LINUX on one and XP on the other.

 

hmm.. an idea.. if i were to do that when i go to use the xp HDD it wont pull from the vista computer at all?

i think mostly the problem is vista doesnt seem to be designed to play nicely with XP while it(vista) is dominant... just like microsoft doesnt pley nice with companies smaller than itself... but let them come under another and they will think twice before pushing their weight around.... but if the key switch will allow for 2 completely different HDD running either one or the other with nothing pulling from either one then that would probably solve my troubles... only other thought is this is a laptop.. wouldnt the switch need to be wired inside of it? or the drives be onthe outside? if thats what its going to take ill just stick with vista alone cuz the laptop is already 15lbs by itself... dont need any extra baggage... lol

more ideas? let me know.. i want to hear them all.. xP

 

In July 2007 the magazine PCAnswers (www.pcanswers.co.uk) had an article on page 30 which states: Set up a dual-boot PC running Vista and XP.

Also: "...Windows has made it impossible to install an UPGRADE version alongside your existing copy of XP."
However: Partition the HD using {BootIt} ... available on that issues's CD, presumably you could use Paragon? Otherwise I might be able to find my copy. They suggest reading the tutorial at [www.supportpcs.co.uk/partition] to create a partition after your main boot partition. Make it at least 30,000MB for Vista, might create a 3rd partition for the files and key settings which now means you can have both OSes see them without conflict. Adding Vista to XP, it will smoothly set up on the new drive alongside XP. If you reverse the sequence (XP after Vista) you will need Vista Boot Pro. Make sure the drive you install to is the exact size of the one you created since it is possible in XP to get them mixed up. The 3rd partition comes into its own here since you will move data files and settings across to it and you can boot into your new OS and point it towards those moved items allowing email, docs sharing, etc. See wwww.supportpcs.co.uk/perfectpc for detailed guide. Let me know how this works out. william bradley