I have microsoft windows xp professional 64bit edition and I want to put a home version of xp on to my second hard drive because a lot of stuff is incompatible with the 64bit version. I have one question though will I be able to access the programs and data on the first hard drive while I use the second one? Thanks.
Dual Boot System
- Thread starter MKB
- Start date
you can have 2 partitions on the same hard drive. like a 120gig split to 60/60 then you could install 2 diff windows OS on one hard drive. youd have to have a dual boot screen to which you would choose which windows version you wanted though. say like beta vista and xp.. it can be done using norton partition magic.
You only need a boot loader if more than one operating system is on single hard drive. Since you are using a seperate physical drive you just need to Change your booting order in bios to which ever drive you want to use. If you did create a partioion on your current hd for your 32 bit Windows and installed it on there , Windows built in boot loader will give you the option to select. I think the route you are going on a seperate physical disk is your safest route.
Thanks for all the help. I finally figured out how to get the boot.ini to work right so taht it will ask me which os to load but I had an error in XP home. I think it was because of the crack I used so I did a reformat and I am reinstalling Windows on to the second hard drive. If anyone knows of a good crack to stop the 30 day thing on the new windows that would be great.