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Old 04-28-2011, 04:17 AM
rabcnesbit rabcnesbit is offline
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Default Dual boot Vista with XP problem


Hello,

I have a laptop (Dell Inpirion 1525) with Vista already installed. I wanted to also install XP as a dual boot, so I tried to follow the guide below:

http://www.syschat.com/dual-boot-vis...eady-1946.html

In order to make my problem clearer, I have outlined below what I have done so far:

1. I followed the steps in the guide in the link above. Got as far as where i need to "Shrink Volume" of my C: drive (where Vista is installed). My drive is about 100 gb, with just about 50gb used, however, in the "Shrink C" dialogue box, it was only allowing me a max volume of about 4.5 gb to shrink. As I wanted more space for my XP, i decided to find a way to shrink more volume out of the C: drive.

2. I used Easeus Partition Master to resizing/move partition of the C: drive and got 39.07 gb of unallocated space from the C: drive, and left with 60.13 gb Vista. Now, the one issue is that the 39.07 gb unallocated space shows as a logical drive when displayed by Easeus Partition Manager, and it won't allow me to convert this to a primary drive. However, in the Vista disk management window, the 39.07 gb shows as unallocated with the black tab.

3. When I right-click on the 39.07 gb unallocated drive in the Vista disk management window, and select "New Simple Volume", the "New Simple Volume Wizard" pops-up. When I click next, it shows me maximum disk space in mb as 40007, and minimum disk space in mb as 8. When I click next until I get to where I enter Volume label (as XP), and tick Perform a quick format, and then click next and finish, it keeps coming up as error: "There is not enough space available on the disk(s) to complete this operation"

Any advice/assistance please? Many thanks



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Old 05-02-2011, 07:09 PM
rabcnesbit rabcnesbit is offline
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Anybody at all to help? Thanks



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Old 05-09-2011, 03:41 AM
rabcnesbit rabcnesbit is offline
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Ok, may be I will be able to get some help with this. After not having much luck with my problem above, I decided to just start from the beginning with a clean install. I reformatted my drive, created two partitions of equal sizes, installed XP first, and then installed Vista. Everything seems to be working fine now. The only issue I have got is this:

1. When I boot into XP, I see two drives. XP seems to be on E: drive, and Vista on C: drive, as I can see files on E: drive when I click on it, but files etc on C: drive come up as hidden. When I try to install programs while in XP, the programs' installation folders automatically default to C: drive. I have to manually change this to E: drive every time.

2. When I boot into Vista, I see two drives - C: and D: drives, no E: drive. Vista seems to be on D: drive, and XP seems to be on C: drive. To make matter confusing, when I try to install a program in Vista, the program's folder defaults to C: drive. Also more confusing, is when I use a disc image creator like Macrium Reflect to make an image copy of my drives as back-ups, in Vista, it shows D: drive as active (with 12:22GB used), and C: drive as logical (with 26.03 GB used). In XP, it shows C: drive as active (with 12.22GB used), and E: drive as logical (with 25.63GB used).

My questions are:
1. For the purpose of backing up a disc image of my drives, which of the drives is actually XP to back up, and which is Vista, or which drives should I back-up as disc image for that matter?

2. When installing programs, do I need to change the default drive (C: drive), or does it not matter?

3. In XP, I can't actually seem to be able to navigate to desk top via windows explorer. For example, when I created a folder on my desk top in XP to use as default folder for downloads from Firefox. When I opened Firefox to set my default folder for downloads, I could not navigate to the desk top to select the download folder I have created.

Many thanks



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Old 05-10-2011, 02:30 PM
DominicD DominicD is offline
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hi, my experience with disk cloning programs is that the default settings would try to detect your root directory and then ask if you indeed want to clone that drive. i suggest you try the cloning program and choose to store the cloned image files to dvds. and then test restoring the image on a new hard disk (if you have a spare hd). afterwards try to restore the dvd images.

this way, you'll be sure to know that the cloning and restoration works correctly. its indeed a weird case that your drive letters seem different and even interchanging depending on the active os.

i myself do not like the idea of dual/multi boot OS on the same hard drive. i prefer to manually set the boot option in the bios everytime i choose to boot from a different drive.

goodluck



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