xp pro dual boot

[preet]

Hi.
Is it possible to have a dual boot of Windows xp pro sp2 with Windows xp pro sp2. That is having two copies of the same window on a PC? Was trying to do this but whenever i completed installing the first OS in the C partition and started with second installation, the PC never gave me a dual boot. It always starts with the latest windows i installed. I was thinking there might be a conflict in the master boot record.

Any comment please?

Thanks

[mjc]

The easiest way to do two of the same version of Windows in a multiboot setup, is to use separate physical drives for each install, disconnecting the 'other' drive before installing, then use a third party bootloader...

[Paul Komski]

A second HDD is one way but just having a second logical partition on the same drive should also work very simply. Then just point the second "New Installation" to the other partition. You can even initiate this from within the current installation by popping in the installation CD. That will set-up a dual boot menu and you just need to edit one line so that you can tell which one is which because intitially the boot menu lines will look just the same.

You can non-destructively resize your existing partition to make free space for a second partition using BiNG (in my sig) or a GParted CD (http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php) or PartitionMagic. Backup all important data beforehand - repartitioning can always go astray.

You can even copy the resized partition that contains an existing OS to some free space (or to a second HDD) and then edit its boot.ini appropriately so that you have an effective clone of your current installation. Then install a boot manager to choose between them. You can also do this and add a new line to the original boot.ini to have a customised dual boot menu of your own, without the need for a third-party boot manager.

[mjc]

Paul's method will work, but I have found it to be more work than just putting them on two separate drives...;)

One of the advantages that I have found with most third-party boot managers is the ability to swap drives and hide partitions...that way if you wanted, you could hide each of the installs from the other.

But when you get into multiple installs there are a number of ways of going about it, and either of these methods will achieve satisfactory results (Paul's is a bit more 'elegant').

[Paul Komski]

Yes there are always many ways of skinning cats. One can even install a second installation into the same C: drive but you must then call the new Windows folder WindowsX or whatever. Going back to the original question and the inability to get a dual boot menu for a second installation - I'm just guessing that you must have chosen "upgrade" rather than "new" installation option at the start of the reinstall.

I too prefer to use boot managers because of the flexibility it gives one when further adding other installations (both Windows and Linux for that matter) and also when going in reverse and needing to repair or reinstall systems. Using a boot manager can let you keep each installation independent.