Installing Windows XP media edition after x64 edition

Hi,

There are so many things that I cannot do with x64 that i now need to
set up a dual boot arrangement.

I have a spare HD as D

I know that operating systems should preferably be loaded oldest first
but am reluctant to remove x64 from C. and go through the hassle of
reinstalling it and all the programs.

Is there another way?

Could I:
copy my existing x64 system to an external drive,
then format drive C
then install Windows XP Media Center Edition on drive C,
then copy x64 from the external drive onto drive D.

Would the system then dual boot OK or is there another tweek required
for that?

 

Bad idea as all your registry settings in x64 are set to C. Simplest way
for you is to make the spare HD as your primary boot drive in boot priority,
install XP, then change the boot priority back. You can edit the boot.ini
to add your XP system manually several ways, but in system
properties/advanced/startup you can edit it and change the boot defaults the
easiest. You can also use Recovery Console bootcfg /add to add the
entry.

 

See my blog on how to fix the boot after you install the 32-bit after.

http://msmvps.com/xperts64/archive/2005/11/21/76180.aspx

 

Thanks. I will try that.

 

Your choice, but if you switch boot priority you will end up with two fully
bootable drives. Something happens to the X64 drive you switch priority and
you can boot into xp86. Don't change boot priority for the install and your
boot records are all on the x64 drive and if it has a problem, your system
is dead until you go thru the repair process.

 

One minor correction - the boot records are written to the
1st bootable drive. When I set my system up with 2 SATA
drives, I installed XP Pro (32-bit) on 1st partition of 1st
drive as Drive C:. When I installed Win x64 to the 2nd
partition (extended) on disk 1 is defaulted to E:, Optical
drive was D:. All my boot information from Win x64 is on my
C: drive, there are no system files in the root of my E:
drive, Win x64. That's the way my drives have been for
almost 2 years now and are still that way.

 

We are talking about two physical hard drives in this case so it is totally
different. In your case it would not make any difference since both systems
are on the same hard drive and if the drive goes it goes. You could save
one step in the installation by making the second partition active for the
second installation and the boot records would then be written to the second
partition, so you wouldn't have to mess with the ntldr and ntdetect.com
files, but it still doesn't provide the same utility that having boot
records on separate drives gives.

 

Hi,

Not too sure if I understand the above.

I loaded XP Media Center onto drive D.

Appears to be OK. When the PC boots up there is a choice to switch to
either.

Spent ages trying to connect to the internet until I remembered about
ethernet drivers. No sound working as yet as Media Center doesn't seen
to recognise the audio connections on the ASUS Realtek I/O back panel.

I want to have a single Documents & Settings shared between x64 &
Media Mentre on a single partition.

Do I just drag and drop the folders to do this successfully?