Temporary dual boot xp home

  • Thread starter Thread starter miskairal
  • Start date Start date
M

miskairal

I've been trying to do this for ages but each time I have a hiccup and
leave it alone for months.

Because of problems I had read about with the sp2 update
I decided to reinstall xp on my 2nd physical, partitioned hard drive and
then to install sp2 so that if I had problems I had time to work them
out. I did this by unplugging my 1st hard drive so that I could make no
errors and making the 2nd hard drive master - I really did think all
would go well and this is the way I would have left the setup except to
plug in the first hard drive as slave.

So I did the installation and added sp2 and my pc barely worked. Took
forever to boot up and then about a minute to move the mouse a couple of
centimetres across the screen. I installed all the drivers that came
with the pc. I have since found newer drivers for my motherboard and
other stuff and a friend with braodband downloaded them for me - I'm
assuming these will correct the slowness? However,
I can't install any of this stuff with the pc working so slow.

I am currently back on the sp1 installation with the hard drive set to
master again and 2nd drive to slave. Of course I have no boot menu b/c
of the way I installed.

What I want to accomplish is a temporary multiboot setup, clean
installing the xp and sp2 again so that I can more easily go back to the
sp2 installation when time is available and try to get it all working.

I have just spent 2 hours trying to find out why I'm not getting this
option and came across this article
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=305873
but I don't understand what I am meant to do.

Doug Knox kindly gave me this bit of info
"If you want to create a dual boot, run Setup from within XP and choose
a custom installation."
which I assumed meant for me to insert the XP CD whilst I was already
booted into my first XP but I think I have got that wrong as I never got
an option for a custom installation.

I get
* Windows will gather info

* I choose New Installation from the drop down box (not repair)

* I accept the licence agreement

* Type in my key

* I then get a Setup Options box where I can click on an "Advanced"
button which brings up another box where I can check mark an option "I
want to choose the install drive letter and partition during setup".

*I choose to skip the getting of updated setup files

I can't remember exactly what happens after this apart from the computer
rebooting and soon after I hit F3 to Quit setup because I am scared I
still won't be given the a chance to choose the place to install. At
that screen the options are somethign like
* To repair an installation press R
* To continue, press Esc
and there is no obvious recognition of my current installation.

This is all VERY different to what appears on this page
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sg_clean.asp (which is
more like I remember from months ago)

and is more like what appears here
http://www.windowsreinstall.com/winxppro/installxpwindowsparallel/indexfullpage.htm
(but is XP Pro)

Can anyone tell me EXACTLY what I should be doing or direct me to a site
with VERY detailed info please? If I continue along with what I was
doing, will I eventually get asked where I want to install the 2nd copy
of XP (which will become my only copy once I get it working)?

Thanks for your time.
Robyn
 
Oohps, I deleted too much of my first post and have left it a bit
unexplained.
I've been trying to do this for ages but each time I have a hiccup and
leave it alone for months.

Because of problems I had read about with the sp2 update
I decided to reinstall xp on my 2nd physical, partitioned hard drive and
then to install sp2 so that if I had problems I had time to work them
out. I did this by unplugging my 1st hard drive so that I could make no
errors and making the 2nd hard drive master - I really did think all
would go well and this is the way I would have left the setup except to
plug in the first hard drive as slave.

So I did the installation and added sp2 and my pc barely worked. Took
forever to boot up and then about a minute to move the mouse a couple of
centimetres across the screen. I installed all the drivers that came
with the pc. I have since found newer drivers for my motherboard and
other stuff and a friend with braodband downloaded them for me - I'm
assuming these will correct the slowness? However,
I can't install any of this stuff with the pc working so slow.

I am currently back on the sp1 installation with the hard drive set to
master again and 2nd drive to slave. Of course I have no boot menu b/c
of the way I installed.

What I want to accomplish is a temporary multiboot setup, clean
installing the xp with sp2 again so that I can more easily go back to the
sp2 installation when time is available and try to get it all working.

I have just spent 2 hours trying to find out why I'm not getting this
option and came across this article

(The option I was referring to is where I want to install the 2nd
version of xpHome)
 
Robyn, don't be scared continue the Install the way you were doing it.
You will get an option to choose the partition XP
installs to as long as your second drive is recognized, but in either
case you can still back out from there. If it goes well XP
install will see the other XP OS and add it to the boot.ini file which
will give you a option to select from at bootup. Go for it.
 
Thankyou for replying, I really appreciate it. I will give it a go in a
couple of days as we have visitors arriving shortly.
 
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