Install Vista without boot loader

  • Thread starter Thread starter Angel Massa
  • Start date Start date
A

Angel Massa

I want to install Vista on a slave HD but I don't want to write or modify
the boot of my master XP partition.

I want to unplug my master HD and I make a clean install of Vista on the
slave HD. Then plug my XP HD back again and choose the boot HD through my
BIOS boot options.

Will this works without touching my XP partition?

Regards,
Angel.
 
Angel Massa said:
I want to install Vista on a slave HD but I don't want to write or modify
the boot of my master XP partition.

I want to unplug my master HD and I make a clean install of Vista on the
slave HD. Then plug my XP HD back again and choose the boot HD through my
BIOS boot options.

Will this works without touching my XP partition?

Regards,
Angel.


When you boot up Vista make sure your XP drive is unplugged or Vista will modify your MBR, I have issues with that as we speak
Click to expand...
Rootkit revealer shows evidence of rootkits on both of my drives , Just
remember to unplug your XP drive whenever you want to boot Vista
 
Rootkit revealer shows evidence of rootkits on both of my drives , Just
remember to unplug your XP drive whenever you want to boot Vista
Click to expand...

This is not an option. I need to boot on one or the other partition without
opening and pluggin in/out cables from my computer.

I have now two HD with different OS and I can boot to onyone of them only
selection from the BIOS boot selector pressing F8. What I need to know if it
will work the same with two XP / Vista HD.

Regards,
Angel.
 
Hi,

Short answer is yes. If unplugged during setup, nothing (obviously) will be
written to the drive. The downside is having to use the BIOS to choose the
boot device. There are many software bootloaders (I use BootIT NG) that will
also keep the boot files and installations completely separate.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
 
Thanks for your answer Rick.

I prefer to use the BIOS to select boot drive. It's as easy as press F8
during boot and choose what drive to boot. This way I will keep my XP
production drive as master so it will boot normally if F8 is not pressed and
will not touch his contents.

What I was afraid is that when booting with Vista drive it makes some weird
things to my XP drive. But I suppost it will only appears on My Computer as
a slave drive when running Vista.

Regards,
Angel.
 
Correct and the only problem you should have this way is the Vista restore
points will be erased each time you boot into xp
 
Good to know.

Anyway, as Vista will be on my slave disk just for testing and my real work
will be done on my XP master drive not having restore points on Vista will
not be an issue. My priority is to have the XP partition untouched.

Regards,
Angel.
 
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