Hello there. My Windows XP Pro installation is on two SATA hard drives in a RAID configuration. I have another internal drive that is IDE, that I usually use for storage.

I moved the boot sequence in my BIOS so that this IDE drive boots instead of the RAID drives, and I installed Vista RC1. I chose the partition I wanted and everything seemed to go fine. However, the first time the system rebooted (Vista says this will happen several times during installation) it would not boot into the IDE drive - and if I boot from the Windows Vista DVD again, it simply restarts the entire installation.

When I booted back into Windows XP, the drive , which has two partitions, seemed to be fine. There were lots of winows files on them and it certainly seemed like things were under way.

I have a feeling I'm missing one small thing here. Any ideas?

thanks!

Is the bootable partition active ??

"the first time the system rebooted (Vista says this will happen several times during installation) it would not boot into the IDE drive"

So what is it booting into?

Also why did you have to change the boot sequence in the BIOS. AFAIK, all you needed for the (XP/Vista) dual boot was path Windows (Vista's) install directory on the IDE HDD.

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Dosser - I thought installing windows makes the partition both bootable and active? Is there a step I need to make before this?

sabertooth - The IDE drive was just a storage drive and not a bootable or system drive, so that's why I moved the boot sequence to make it my system drive.

I did not want to put Vista on my system drive at all, as I didn't want to incur problems on my XP system. From what I read it is not possible to uninstall Vista, and since it's still technically beta, that seems risky.

Is it possible to still boot onto my RAID XP drive, but then go into Vista which will be installed onto my IDE drive? And does anyone know if that's risky for RC1?

Thanks for the help guys, I appreciate it.

-t

"sabertooth - The IDE drive was just a storage drive and not a bootable or system drive, so that's why I moved the boot sequence to make it my system drive."

In Windows (including Vista) the only partition or drive that needs be marked active for booting is the the one housing the MBR, all others do not have to regardless if the are hosting the Windows folder or not.

Your dual boot would have worked just fine had you simply prompted the installer to put Windows (Vista) directory on the storage drive.

"Your dual boot would have worked just fine had you simply prompted the installer to put Windows (Vista) directory on the storage drive."

Will I then be able to easily use only my Windows XP per usual? And will I be able to get Vista off the drive should it prove to be more trouble than its worth? That's my major concern here - I don't want to do something I cannot undo simply because I wanted to mess around with a beta OS.

Thanks again!

-t

That is how a dual boot is setup in Windows - prefarably, older OS before the newer one. This will configure an OS selection screen that is invoked at boot and you simply select the alternate (if needed) or allow the system to boot into the default OS.

And before you ask, you can setup or change the primary or default OS to boot into very easily.