bonerp

Hi,
I currently run VISTA on my acer laptop and one of my test meters only has drivers for XP so need to create a dual boot to run it - it wont work on VISTA at all.

Last night I attempted to install XP but it didnt seem to want to allow me to create a new partition - the option to 'press C to create' was in the list but was unresponsive - anyway I continued and now have a nice clean copy of XP but no VISTA. ****. I dont have much technical knowledge but was 'told' it was easy to do! Yeah right. Just lost my VISTA set up now. All my files under my documents appear intact though:-)

This morning I set about reinstalling VISTA but again the option to create a new partition was shaded out so had to reinstall it on the existing c\:

Whats going on?! Can this be done or not?? Anyone know what I'm doing wrong??

Any help appreciated.
Paul

boxst

If you were doing it from scratch you need to create two partitions up front (or one that is less than the full size of your hard drive). Now you have to use something like partition magic to create another partition FIRST as you currently have the whole drive as one partition.

Why not download Microsoft Virtual Machine (it is free) and run XP in a window in Vista?

Steve

mike1210

Yup, may have mashed the install if you've overwritten it. To have a browse at

How to Dual Boot XP and Vista with XP Installed First » Raymond.CC Blog

bonerp

Hmm thats what Im thinking!

When I create a couple of partitians for each OS, how much do you think I should allocate for Vista then for XP - or will the pc figure this out??

pimmo2000

iTrader: (6)

Depends how big your drive and what you plan to use each OS for.

30GB drive wouldn't bother

150gb say 30Gb ...

I would make sure Vista has at least 100GB .. but only my opinion