Sir,
Many Thanks for the reply. Sir, you don't have to be sorry for the delay. I know it is important for me since I am very curious regarding my requirement but at the same time it is not deadly urgent.

Sir, I have followed your reply. Now my last worry is whether I can manage with the booting with my Windows Vista, Recovery DVD? In your previous reply you have mentioned regarding the same as it will work. But it will help me if the steps are mentioned since each & every step is like thundering for me.

Anxiously awaiting your reply.

Regards,

Santosh

Santosh, backup your valuable data. Install XP with SATA drivers. Follow the steps exactly as William wrote. Read that article 10 times carefully. While doing each and every step, read the corresponding line carefully. If you follow those steps exactly as he mentioned, you will succeed.

As you wrote, you reserved 6 GB for XP installation. In my experience, at least 10 GB. If you are installing XP only, then 6 GB is enough. In my first trial, I gave only 5 GB to XP. Then again I did it with 20 GB. Now I've 100 GB for vista, 20 GB for XP, 10 GB for linux, 40 plus GB for my data.

Suppose if you can't succeed your xp installation in any unlikely event, you can restore the vista MBR at anytime by inserting recovery CD, and after some time, you will be present with options like Start up recovery, system restore....Command prompt. In this take command prompt and type the following.

bootrec.exe /fixmbr

bootrec.exe /fixboot

these 2 lines will recover your vista mbr and after restarting your PC, vista will be loaded. remember, you've to remove your recovery CD before restarting PC.

While installing XP, it will ask you where you want your XP installation to go, you can see your partitions there on your screen. Select the one which you've reserved for XP. If you reserved 6 GB, you can this partition as 6 GB. It is always a good idea to give a disk label for all partitioned disks. For example, if you've Vista on C drive, label the drive as VISTA. If you've reserved xp installation in D drive, name it XP. So you can see these labels while installing XP. This will be more convenient and avoid any confusion.

Sir,
Sorry, I was buzy in the morning to reply. Yesterday as per your instructions I was successful in loading the SATA drivers and installing Windows XP. But I failed in the last step. I inserted the Vista Recovery DVD but unfortunately it didn't provide any of the above mentioned options viz. Start up recovery, system restore....Command prompt, etc. It showed me the current system as Windows Vista. Then it asked me whether I want to proceed with the recovery. When I pressed Next...to my surprise it started formatting the HDD. I was afraid and I immediately shut down the Laptop or else I would have lost all my settings and installed programs. In my opinion the Recovery CD what I have will not be usable. Later I restarted the Laptop and aghast I found the famous error "BootMGR file not found, Press ctrl+alt+del to restart".

I am stuck here and don't know what to do now. Today I made a research on the net to find a file named "Vista_Recovery_Disc.iso.torrent". The site said, I can use this at my risk. It says it is a recovery tool for Vista users who doesn't have an installation CD.

Should I proceed with this file or is there any other alternative left for me now? I was really happy last night and thought I almost succeeded but then all my happiness was converted. Really couldn't sleep last night of worries.

Sir, is there any solution left?
Regards,

Santosh

Sir,

This is to inform you that I've successfully installed dual boot on my Vista PC with Windows XP SP2. I am planning to use Vista as the main OS since I've already started being addicted to it whereas I will install the softwares in XP only which I couldn't operate through Vista.

But the tradegy on my part was, I lost all my data inspite of warnings from your end. I admit and accept it was my overconfidence, haste & negligence. Some of the data I have with me in my Office PC so I can still manage but I lost some valuable Technical data. It was my mistake to use Recovery DVD which formatted the HDD instead of Repairing it. Its my suggestion to others too, not to repeat what I had committed.

I sincerely Thank Wilson William & Team and this website for offering me this great help to overcome my hindrances. I request you people to wish good luck to me for which I have taken so much trouble for a fruitful purpose.

My final query to you would be of a dll file named msnetobj.dll which did not copy from my XP CD to the PC. There was an option to skip it and I did the same. But at the same time there was a warning if I continued my XP installation wouldn't function properly. But after installing and re-booting several times I didn't face any problems except that I am getting only ONE icon of Recycle Bin on my XP Desktop compared to Vista Desktop which is normal. If this can be ignored, I would continue as it is or do I have to once again try installing XP.

Do reply as per convenience.

Best Regards & Thanks Once Again,
Santosh

At last you made it. Congrats!!!. Yes, it is a bad luck that some of your data were lost. Never mind, try to do collect your lost data as soon as possible otherwise it may be easy to forget when time passes.

It should be a lesson those to who are all not sure about the tweaks, tricks with the pc. I have made 3 copies of recovery each containing 3 dvds because we can't predict things since all are electronics.

Regarding your missing file, try to search for this in the net or in microsoft site for this. If you can borrow a copy from your friend, try to extract this file from the CD (there are options available to extract single file unfortunately i dont remember now) or install a fresh copy of XP again. Now you are experienced in dual boot. If you are using a licensed version of XP, you will get a fresh copy by contacting the vendor.

We also thankful for your posts since many of the users can learn from other's mistakes.

We would be happy if you are continuing your support to our forums.

WE ALTOGETHER WHO MADE THESE FORUMS MEANINGFUL.