Dual boot win 7 and XP

[keithg]

Can anybody help,

I am trying to put a dual boot system on my computer.

I have partitioned a 160G hard drive into nearly equal parts and installed Windows 7 on partition 1 but when I try to install Win XP Pro on partition 2 ,setting BIOS to read from CD ROM first, it just goes into Windows 7 and runs that ignoring the XP CD.

Also when I explore the CD in "My Computer" the install section is greyed out

What am I doing wrong?

Keithg

[rojash]

Some BIOSs have an extra option "Boot from other devices" which needs to be enabled in addition to setting the boot order.

Having said that - I would have installed Win XP first and followed it up with Win 7 (in fact I did).
Having said that - unless you have some really esoteric software or some really ancient hardware, I really wouldn't bother with a dual-boot - just install 7 and be done with it.

[keithg]

Thanks for quick reply.
Checked BIOS no option "Boot from other devices"
Got to do all again to install XP first do you think that is the problem?
Thanks
KeithG

[LeMarchand]

Couldn't you run XP as a Virtual Machine in W7 instead?

[rojash]

"Got to do all again to install XP first do you think that is the problem?"
Well at the boot point, the computer has no idea what operating systems are available, so the fact that Windows 7 is on the hard disk shouldn't affect the ability to boot with a CD.
Is it an original XP CD? If not, maybe it's just not a bootable CD. After all, presumably you booted with the 7 disk in order to install that.

[keithg]

Sorted thanks Rojash

I was using a backup copy that I had made of my original XP disk when I put the original disk, booted up no problem. Out of interest any ideas why the backup disk would not boot?
Thanks again.
Keithg

[rojash]

"any ideas why the backup disk would not boot? " Nope, but it was a good guess wasn't it?

The reason I suggested installing XP first, is that (obviously) XP knows nothing of Win 7, whereas Win 7 knows what XP is. I figure that when installing Win 7, if it detects an XP partition it will know exactly what to do about creating a boot menu. XP may or may not...

[keithg]

Help needed again.

Now have Win 7 on "C" and XP on "D" but it boots up to XP how to get it to give a choice on boot up?

Thanks
Keithg

[rojash]

I'm not one to say "I told you so" but...

[keithg]

Rojash

Are you saying that if I put XP on 1st and Win7 on 2nd, an automatic boot menu will be created,if thats the case I will do it.

Thanks
Keithg

[rojash]

Well it's what happened when I did it - and pretty logical if you think about it.

[keithg]

Rojash

Thanks for your help

It will take a few days to get to install, I'll let you know the outcome.

Thanks again

Keithg