Help Dual boot OS

[Helmutt]

I have a mate who would like to load XP on the same machine as he has ME running. Does anyone have experience and if so any tips or tricks I can pass on?

[johnfromliverpool]

good question m8 lets see who is first to answer:icon7:

[ALG]

LOL

dont install from within ME as it will be classed as an upgrade.

boot from the XP CD and when asked select 'create a partition in the free space'
now the next bit depends on whether you want easy access to your XP OS from ME or not, so easy is... after selecting 'create a partition in the free space' select format partition using FAT32, if you want the 'best' :biggrin out of XP, then select format using the NTFS system, doing this means that you will not be able to access the XP part of the hard drive from within ME untill you install a third party program on the ME install.

Install will go ok ( well might not.... thats XP for ya!! ) after install it will reboot, if you have the latest XP you will see a menu with a choice of with system to boot,
Microsoft Windows ME
Microsoft Windows XP

and you just select, however if this does not happen it will boot to XP and you will have a heart attack thinking your ME is lost forever :biggrin
dont despair, start XP and then right click my computer, select the advanced tab, then settings/startup and recovery, change the 'time to display operating systems' to 10 seconds and click apply then reboot PC, this time you should see the menu with choice of boot OS.

I think thats about it, if I have missed anything out please feel free to add any comments.

AL

[SKUNK1111]

partion the hard drive into what ever you want, ie (ive got a 80 gig hard drive partioned into 10 gig and 70 gig,ive got windows xp on the 10 gig partion and windows media center on the 70 gig partion ,also you can keep all games and downloads on the 70 gig partion so if the windows on the 10 gig ever fails u can reboot onto the 70 gig partion and either fix the broken windows instalation or format and reinstall the broken windows on the 10 gig partion without loseing anything on the 70 gig partion.thats just an exsample so u can split the drive in half or what ever u choose to do.
hope thats claer enough!
you can partion a drive with norton disk doctor or a 98 boot disk
then goto bios install windows by booting from cd in bios and choose which partion you would like each instaltion on.
This is good for back up if you only have 1 drive

[stevenpc]

dual boot is good if you also have older hardware etc that you use ie i used to run a cam & tv card /scanner that wouldnt run on xp so as not to have to bin them i ran ME/XP worked great .

[Helmutt]

Thanks to ALG, Skunk1111 and stevenpc. Sorry I haven't worked out how to use the proper thanks function. I'm supposed to see a button or something but all I see is a blue box with quote on it and the quick reply button next to it.