Vista/XP Sex0r?

[Trem]

Hi fellow nerdlings, I have recently got Vista Ultimate and am in the process of messing with it (f'naaar). I have 2 identical sata drives, Vista on one and XP on the other. I have one plugged into a PCI sata card and the other into my mobo.

Is there anyway I can leave both plugged in but have the option on startup to select which operating system I can choose? Getting on my tits swapping the lead over and having the side of my case off.

The drive that is in the sata card does not show in bios just the mobo connected mofo, I *could* plug the second drive into the mobo but I would rather not as......well......I dunno because it hurts my ears bending down to do that and I have to get a torch out....yes thats why, well it will do.

Any help appreciated and the winning reply will receive a signed bra from my mum.

 

[Ch3tan]

Play with your bios. Thats if you are man enough to take my advice.

Wear safety goggles this time.


Meg would put a fiver on you not knowing how to get into BIOS.

 

[Trem]

I would put a tenner on Meg not knowing how to get into a girls pants.

 

[Ch3tan]

He says thats £15 you owe him then

 

[Trem]

The prostitute showing him how to do it cost £50 so whos laughing now!

 

[Ch3tan]

Well, me.

 

[nath]

The situation you want is exactly what I've got at the moment. I discovered that if I spaz f8 on boot (before windows XP starts loading) the bios picks up on it and presents me with a boot device option, asking me what device (hdd/dvd) to boot from. I just select my vista hard drive to boot in to vista, and do nothing to go in to xp.

This is an Asus P5B board but I can't imagine it's a unique feature.

 

[Trem]

I have an Asus as well.

Pretty much the answer I wanted, cheers.

*tries*

 

[Ch3tan]

Haha, you will have to connect both drives to your mobo now and fiddle with your BIOS.

Now listening to nath will cause you pain too.

 

[Trem]

Didn't work. The Vista drive doesn't even show up the only way I can get it to show is if its plugged into the first sata on the mobo, will not show under any other sata connection either the sata card or the mobo ports.

Any other ideas luvs?

The hard drive with vista on doesn't show in my computer under XP either and the bios does not detect it.

Fuck sticks this is annoying!

 

[nath]

The bios doesn't even detect the drive in a different slot? That's me stumped.

 

[Litmus]

this is how you do it in windows XP.

right click my conputer and click properties

click the advanced tab

click settings in the "Startup & Recovery" section.

then click edit, then you'll need the boot info to write in.


next time you boot up it should ask which OS you which to boot from




not sure if you need to take the same process in vista tho

 

[Trem]

I did get to that point Litmus but I don't know or have the line to enter for Vista, any ideas on that?

Nath - I have the same mobo as you any chance you can remember which slots your HD's are in and the settings you have in bios?

Appreciated if you could have a quick look for me please.

 

[Trem]

Its ok I've sussed it. Cheers for your help guys.

 

[nath]

I haven't tinkered with the bios much at all but the way I set things up was as follows:

SATA drive in sata1 port, install xp, config blahblah.
SATA drive in ports 2 and 3, just data drives, nothing special.

Muuuch later, old spare drive goes in to sata 4 port, disconnected ports 1 2 and 3 manually when I installed Vista. Once everything was set up with Vista, took a deep breath and plugged ports 1 2 and 3 back in and hoped to god vista didn't anally violate my XP boot info. XP booted automatically as if Vista wasn't even there.

That's the situation I have now, I've got an XP machine that I can force to boot in to Vista with the Bios boot select screen (F8 before XP takes hold).

However at no point did the bios not see any of the hard drives that were plugged in. Silly question - are all the SATA ports set to automatic instead of "not installed"?



edit: gah after I typed all that! Ye shall pay trembo, mark my words!

 

[Trem]

No no that is most helpful my lovely chum, I am where you are now and the whacking F8 thing is annoying, what Litmus said will work but the boot line in Vista just says Microsoft Windows Visa and that isn't right at all, also would like to work out how to add the line in XP but I haven't messed too much or googled yet.

Basically my problem with the hard drive not showing was......erm........well......the fucking power lead wasn't right the way in, must of knocked it when messing

 

[soze]

If the vista install is new i would recommend blowing it away and starting again and rather than unplugging XP boot into xp enter your Vista disk and select new install not upgrade. Then when t has finished loading you will have one boot manager for both OS's. Then you can use bcdedit in vista to play about with how long to wait which os to boot first ect.

The other option would be to boot Vista open bcdedit from the command rompt and try to scan for the xp OS im not sure if that is possible as i have naver had this situation before.

 

[Ch3tan]

Basically my problem with the hard drive not showing was......erm........well......the fucking power lead wasn't right the way in, must of knocked it when messing

Well its a step up from knocking it into your eye.

 

[Litmus]

Trem, for the info you need to boot Vista up try this. Boot it up in Vista, goto that "edit" screen which brings up the boot info and copy that down. Then back into XP and copy it in.

 

[Trem]

The boot info just said Microsoft Windowns Vista and that doesn't feel right to me....or is it?

Going to do a clean Vista install tomorrow and then try it from there, on booting Vista it does give the option to start either Vista or an earlier windows, maybe I need to mess with that as well.

I do not want to do a fresh install of XP, the point of having both running is so I can still get to my things on XP, formatting that OS would make me cry.

Thanks for your help Litmus.

FO Ch3t!

 

[Lazarus]

doesnt F10 / F11 provide you with the option of bootup device?

 

[Jonty]

Hi guys

Just a flying visit, so please forgive me if I'm stating the obvious or overlooking something, but I think there are various step-by-step guides on the internet which detail how to dual-boot Windows XP and Windows Vista. For example, WinSuperSite etc. Good luck!

Kind regards

 

[soze]

The boot info just said Microsoft Windowns Vista and that doesn't feel right to me....or is it?

Going to do a clean Vista install tomorrow and then try it from there, on booting Vista it does give the option to start either Vista or an earlier windows, maybe I need to mess with that as well.

I do not want to do a fresh install of XP, the point of having both running is so I can still get to my things on XP, formatting that OS would make me cry.

Thanks for your help Litmus.

FO Ch3t!

I would not try to add Vista into the xp boot manager that has blown up on me for dual boots try using the vista one bcdedit /? from the command prompt and see if it has a search or scan XP will just show up as eralier version of Windows.

 

[Trem]

Cheers for your help as well Soze/Jonty.

Ch3t - FO!

 

[Trem]

Nathz0r -

I bought the 64 bit version of Vista Ultimate yesterday and installed it as before, just the normal boot from cd install and put it on my second sata drive.

I obviously left XP alone and untouched on the first sata HD.

Now when it boots I get an option screen which is from Vista and it gives me the choice of booting from Vista or an earlier version of windows, choosing the earlier version loads XP. I had that option before but the earlier version option didn't work.

 

[dysfunction]

Everything works fine with the 64bit Vista version Trem?

 

[Ch3tan]

Yeah I am considering getting vista 64 ultimate as well Trem, would like to know if you had any issues

 

[Trem]

It is seriously good. Had 1 driver issue, didn't even have to use the mobo disc to install stuff for that.

Had 1 driver that didn't install and that was for the PCI Sata card I had, it was an obscure one off Ebay and it cost me less than a fiver so I ain't arsed about that.

I had 40 ping on CSS on XP now I have less than 10 just by being on Vista, granted I could have an issue with XP but even so it impressed me.

I wouldn't of bought it if it didn't impress me, trust me on that.

Its a breath of fresh air after the ballache that we all had when XP first came out, can't believe I'm saying this but maybe this time Microsoft have got it right.

I did turn off all the fancy stuff and used the windows classic theme though, like I did with XP, I just prefer the cleaner feel of it.

 

[soze]

It is seriously good. Had 1 driver issue, didn't even have to use the mobo disc to install stuff for that.

Had 1 driver that didn't install and that was for the PCI Sata card I had, it was an obscure one off Ebay and it cost me less than a fiver so I ain't arsed about that.

I had 40 ping on CSS on XP now I have less than 10 just by being on Vista, granted I could have an issue with XP but even so it impressed me.

I wouldn't of bought it if it didn't impress me, trust me on that.

Its a breath of fresh air after the ballache that we all had when XP first came out, can't believe I'm saying this but maybe this time Microsoft have got it right.

I did turn off all the fancy stuff and used the windows classic theme though, like I did with XP, I just prefer the cleaner feel of it.

You should turn aero back on it looks so nice and it dose not take long to get used to using it. I just think the Windows Classic theme on Vista looked kinda ugly

 

[MYstIC G]

Get a fucking boot manager tbfh?