Vista and XP dual boot?

Question

I have a PC loaded with Windows Vista. I created a new partition (J:) and Installed Windows XP. However, when I boot the computer, it only loads XP, it does not ask me which operating system I want to boot from. If this is not possible, how do I remove XP and keep working with Vista ?

Answer 1

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

There is a lot of info on this dual boot, books, magazines, internet.

How to dual-boot Vista with XP - step-by-step guide with screenshots; http://apcmag.com/5023/dual_booting_xp_w…

Remove XP from Vista dual boot; http://www.syschat.com/remove-xp-xp-vist…

Start your research here; http://www.google.com/search?q=dual%20bo…

http://www.google.com/search?q=uninstall…

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=vis…

Make it a great day!

Answer 2

Ideally speaking you'll always want to install the newest version of an operating system last because it will Identify the old versions and give you the proper options for booting each time.

In your situation you'll have to use vista's live cd option and boot into "Vista PE". There you can use the command line to modify the boot sector and set the active partition back to the vista partition using the "diskpart" command. There are programs out there like Partition Magic that can be useful. I don't usually recommend those.

What ever you do, be sure to back up your hard drive before you make changes to partitions and boot options.

Answer 3

Install a boot manager. Smart Boot Manager is a free tool and after you install it you can dual boot.

Answer 4

at this point you need to kill the bootable files on the partion with XP or use partition magic it will remove the partition w/ XP and rejoin those partitions into one and there you go.

fdisk>enter
3 and enter to delete Partition
which Partition would you like to delete
3 and enter
then again
3>enter
2>Enter
then you re create a partition with nothing on it


easy as pie

Answer 5

In Windows XP if you want to modify the bootloader, just right-click on My Computer, select Properties, go to the Advanced Tab, and click Settings under Startup and Recovery, then click Edit. This opens a local file – boot.ini. It’s just a standard text file and you can change pretty much anything. Unfortunately it’s not that easy in Vista – you can still navigate to the Startup and Recovery settings, but all you can do is select which operating system is the default and modify the timeout settings.

To edit Vista’s boot manager you have to use the command line BCDEDIT utility. To access BCDEDIT, run the Command Window as an administrator and type in BCDEDIT.

Unfortunately BCDEDIT isn’t an easy tool to come to terms with, especially as it’s purely command line-driven. So, a great tool to use here is EasyBCD by NeoSmart Technologies. EasyBCD offers a GUI frontend to BCDEDIT, and makes life much easier.

EasyBCD 1.7
http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1

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Windows Vista no longer starts after you install an earlier version of the Windows operating system in a dual-boot configuration
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919529