Tom's Guide | Tom's Hardware | Tom's Games
 |
 |
 |
I recently built a computer with my son-in-law. He installed Vista Ultimate. The new OS is intriguing. Previously, I had no Vista experience.
I have a few computers with different versions of Windows XP. I’d like install Vista on a second partition of one of them and make it dual boot so that I can explore Vista.
I’ve never set up a dual boot computer before. I’d like to keep my current XP installation. How big of a partition do I need for a Vista installation? Is there a website that anyone could recommend to help me set this up?
In advance, thanks!
The most effective way IMO to do it if your BIOS supports it is install a new hard drive for Vista, and change the hard drive boot order in your BIOS when you want to change OS's.
Benefits:
A. The XP drive is not touched.
B. If either the XP or the Vista drive die, you still have the other.
C. The Vista drive will be C in Vista; the XP drive will be C in XP.
D. You can actually get improved performance this way by setting Vista to cache to the XP drive, and configure XP to cache to the Vista drive.
E. No worrying about creating a boot menu this way."Enough, enough bowing down to disillusion!
Hats off & applause to rogues & evolution!
The ripple effect is too good not to mention.
If you’re not affected, you’re not paying attention!"
0 
0 0
"A. The XP drive is not touched."
In a dual or several multi partitioned scenario & besides the boot loader that is resident on the prevailing partition - the same argument can be made since you can literally delete the secondary or other partitions without as much as a file being touched on the prevailing partition.
"B. If either the XP or the Vista drive die, you still have the other."
Not compelling enough since the content that is usually compromised in the event of a hard disk meltdown is not so much the OS but the critical data stored on the disk. So even though you still have the "other" XP or Vista installation intact - those precious & memorable digital images that you have on the disk that bit the dust is not going to be spared by having the two OS' on separate disks.
"C. The Vista drive will be C in Vista; the XP drive will be C in XP.
I have a dual boot using two partitions and this is not a problem on my system AFAICT.
D. You can actually get improved performance this way by setting Vista to cache to the XP drive, and configure XP to cache to the Vista drive.
Unless the OP has a disk that is currently painfully slow or dated. I really don't see how much of a disadvantage this is going to be with two partition on a single disk that is fast enough. On the other, if you set up your dual boot using two painfully slow disks - you will be disppointed eitherway.
E. No worrying about creating a boot menu this way
Switching boot menu is way faster than having to go into the BIOS to change boot order. IMHO, it is redundant to deploy two different disks for a simple dual boot - all things considered.
0
"In a dual or several multi partitioned scenario & besides the boot loader that is resident on the prevailing partition - the same argument can be made since you can literally delete the secondary or other partitions without as much as a file being touched on the prevailing partition."
The argument can't be made because the drive will be touched with a boot loader. And if something happens to the boot loader, both OS's can't be booted until this is repaired.
"Not compelling enough since the content that is usually compromised in the event of a hard disk meltdown is not so much the OS but the critical data stored on the disk."
A. Who says your data has to be on an OS drive?
B. There's a big difference between losing your data AND your PC being useless, and just losing your data.
C. I never said this is a substitute for offline backups.
D. You could use something like SyncTool to copy that personal data to the other drive, and provide data redundancy that way. Let's see you do that with a single hard disk."I have a dual boot using two partitions and this is not a problem on my system AFAICT."
It isn't a problem. I just like my OS drive being C. Most people do, too. Some programs hard code the default install directory to C, and if you're not paying attention, you can end up installing it on the drive you didn't intend, that kind of thing.
"Unless the OP has a disk that is currently painfully slow or dated. I really don't see how much of a disadvantage this is going to be with two partition on a single disk that is fast enough. On the other, if you set up your dual boot using two painfully slow disks - you will be disppointed eitherway."
Caching to a non-OS drive is one of THE very first things recommended by Microsoft to help speed up disk caching. It does make a difference. Would I recommend everyone rush out and buy an additional drive just for this? No, but since there are other benefits in this case, this is just yet another good thing about doing it.
And the comment about two painfully slow disks is irrelevant. If you want to go down that trail, what would run faster, your OS disk caching to the same painfully slow hard drive that the OS is running on, or a second painfully slow drive? Once again, the second solution is faster.
Besides anyway, if you're buying a new drive, I'd hope you'd get a hard drive that's faster than the drive you've been running XP on.
"Switching boot menu is way faster than having to go into the BIOS to change boot order. IMHO, it is redundant to deploy two different disks for a simple dual boot - all things considered."
Boot loaders get corrupted all the time, whether it be a virus that damages it, or a hard drive failure as mentioned before. Switching boot orders in the BIOS is far more reliable and simpler to setup, and is obviously as I've just demonstrated more resilient to various issues.
TECH-NO-LOGICAL ROMANCE!
http://www.homestarrunner.com/tgs12.html
0
"The argument can't be made because the drive will be touched with a boot loader. And if something happens to the boot loader, both OS's can't be booted until this is repaired"
Yeah really.......and what do you have to prove this. I have been dual and multi-booting for several years now and I have yet to see any empirical evidence that suggests dual booting increases the odds of having a corrupted boot loader, I'd say the chances of a snafu rendering your OS unbootable is the same; one OS or two OSes - I just don't buy that.
"A. Who says your data has to be on an OS drive?
Well, if there's nothing critical on the so called other drive, that makes the argument all the more meaningless to setup the dual boot with the other disk so that you can have nothing valuable on it.
"B. There's a big difference between losing your data AND your PC being useless, and just losing your data."
I think I'd know that and as a matter of fact, I don't see how a boot loader corruption does render a PC useless, maybe to someone not familiar with computer, and your saying "just losing your data" goes without saying - tell that to someone that just went through data loss and see how willing they'll be to exchange the PC for the irreplacable data that they happen to have lost. So yes I know the difference and a boot loader corruption rendering a PC useless (if that is even valid correllation) is no way near the agony from a critical data loss.
"D. You could use something like SyncTool to copy that personal data to the other drive, and provide data redundancy that way. Let's see you do that with a single hard disk."
And people have been creating simple shadow copies for years using the single disk approach albeit with multiple partitions so backing up whatever a user wants to backup (OS or data) can be achieved without any complications.
"Caching to a non-OS drive is one of THE very first things recommended by Microsoft to help speed up disk caching. It does make a difference. Would I recommend everyone rush out and buy an additional drive just for this? No,"
I like this one......pretty much self addressed.
"And the comment about two painfully slow disks is irrelevant. If you want to go down that trail, what would run faster, your OS disk caching to the same painfully slow hard drive that the OS is running on, or a second painfully slow drive? Once again, the second solution is faster."
I am still waiting on someone to show me some hard data that show the performance difference between a single disk & a comparison (identical) two disk scenario and I am not talking measly performance difference either, until then.......not going to waste my money just for that.
"Boot loaders get corrupted all the time, whether it be a virus that damages it, or a hard drive failure as mentioned before......."
No they don't - and for someone so careless as to be highly vulnerable to this, two disks is no solution for such a user. And if it is as a result of a disk failure - unless you know the minute your disk is going to die, you are still vulnerable with more than physical disk in the same PC.
"Switching boot orders in the BIOS is far more reliable and simpler to setup, and is obviously as I've just demonstrated more resilient to various issues."
No!, it is not FAR more reliable nor is it simpler to setup and as far as resilience goes - the argument (for two separate disks) in order to run a dual boot is not strong enough.
I think I'm done ;-)
0
FYI
Most of my computers already have an extra HDD that I can power up or down. Once a week I clone the primary HDD to this drive then I power it down.
Per heropsycho2177 & XpUser's suggestions above, I'll probably power up this drive and install Vista to it on one of the computers.
0
"Yeah really.......and what do you have to prove this."
Try corrupting the boot loader and boot any OS in a single drive environment. That proves it.
"I have yet to see any empirical evidence that suggests dual booting increases the odds of having a corrupted boot loader"
I didn't say it was increased magically from a boot loader. I said that the chances of BOTH drives suffering from this issue at the same time is slim to none. Are you saying that it's unheard of for a hard drive to get physically damaged? Are you saying there are no viruses that can damage a boot loader?
"your saying "just losing your data" goes without saying - tell that to someone that just went through data loss and see how willing they'll be to exchange the PC for the irreplacable data that they happen to have lost."
Umm, please tell me how in the world your single drive solution addresses data loss! Oh, that's right, IT DOESN'T! In fact, as I mentioned, you would have the option to copy that critical data to the second drive in my solution, so if one of the hard drives die, you wouldn't lose the data. Once again, please tell me how you could do that with a single drive. Oh, that's right, YOU CAN'T!
"Well, if there's nothing critical on the so called other drive, that makes the argument all the more meaningless to setup the dual boot with the other disk so that you can have nothing valuable on it."
Except that if something happens to one of the drives, you have another drive with a separate independent OS through and through, and your PC can still function.
"I like this one......pretty much self addressed."
I like how you quoted me, yet leaving off that I said I wouldn't buy a drive just for caching, but this is still a benefit from it.
"I am still waiting on someone to show me some hard data that show the performance difference between a single disk & a comparison (identical) two disk scenario and I am not talking measly performance difference either, until then.......not going to waste my money just for that."
Umm, the catalyst for this was to dual boot vista. This is a secondary benefit for the third time.
"No they don't - and for someone so careless as to be highly vulnerable to this, two disks is no solution for such a user."
I've had a boot loader get killed from updating chipset drivers. There are plenty of people who would have stumbled and needed to research this on the net to figure out how to fix it. Not everyone is an MCSE or technically inclined enough to know what to run to fix it off the top of their heads. If your PC is still functioning with another OS, you could still get on the net and research how to fix it.
And btw, sometimes people can get hit with viruses, or their hard drive could die, and they did everything reasonable to prevent such an event.
"And if it is as a result of a disk failure - unless you know the minute your disk is going to die, you are still vulnerable with more than physical disk in the same PC."
You're not vulnerable to a complete loss of service of your PC if you followed my solution.
"No!, it is not FAR more reliable nor is it simpler to setup and as far as resilience goes - the argument (for two separate disks) in order to run a dual boot is not strong enough."
And the OP said...
"Per heropsycho2177 & XpUser's suggestions above, I'll probably power up this drive and install Vista to it on one of the computers."
Yep, you ARE done! :-)
TECH-NO-LOGICAL ROMANCE!
http://www.homestarrunner.com/tgs12.html
0
Notwithstanding the so-called issues of boot loader in dual boot, there is a way to prevent the disappearance of System Restore points. HERE is the tricks (I haven't tried it)
i_XpUser
0
You guys have been playing too many violent computer games! I am going to try the two-hdd thing myself with vista/xp and change the boot sequence in the CMOS. The dual-boot idea is fraught with problems and headaches.
0
"You guys have been playing too many violent computer games!"
Heheheheheheheheh!
"The dual-boot idea is fraught with problems and headaches."
I like my solution, but I wouldn't necessarily rule out a single solution either.
"Enough, enough bowing down to disillusion!
Hats off & applause to rogues & evolution!
The ripple effect is too good not to mention.
If you’re not affected, you’re not paying attention!"
0
Heropsycho2177...
Thanks for the two-drive BIOS/CMOS idea for running Vista/XP on one machine. I had no problems getting it working this way. (The single-drive dual-boot method would be nice but it sure doesn't sound a no-brainer solution.)
Does anyone know if an old (legacy) PCI card can work in a new PCI express slot?
0
"Does anyone know if an old (legacy) PCI card can work in a new PCI express slot?"
Nope.
"Enough, enough bowing down to disillusion!
Hats off & applause to rogues & evolution!
The ripple effect is too good not to mention.
If you’re not affected, you’re not paying attention!"
0
I installed Vista Ultimate on a 200GB HDD on this computer. It already had XP ME on another HDD. The installation went well.
heropsycho2177 & XpUser, thank you for your advice!!!!!!!!!!!
0
Well, shucks! :-)
Seriously, glad we could help.
TECH-NO-LOGICAL ROMANCE!
http://www.homestarrunner.com/tgs12.html
0  |
 |
 |
This post is quite old and has been locked from receiving new replies. Please create a new posting instead.
| Ads by Google |
