Dual Boot Vista & XP

[Simzter]

I currently have Vista 64X installed, I have 1 hard drive which I have 'shrunk' using Vista's in house software by right clicking on Computer/Manage/ etc. It displays my current drive (C where my Vista is installed, and now has the drive (E which is the 100GB partition I have just created.

How can I get XP to install on the E: drive and get a 'dual boot' menu so I can choose which OS I want to boot up with? The XP disc I have will only boot on startup - and creates a boot.ini which forces my computer to load XP without giving me the option. I have to 'repair' my computer with the Vista disc in to get back onto Vista.

I'm pretty computer Savvy, but this is all foreign to me LoL!

Please help

[k.jacko]

Personally i make dual boots with 2 separate hdd's, its far easier. However it may be the same here, but on reboot/bootup press F11 or F12 (or whatever it is for your bios) to get the boot options....then choose which one you want.

Hope it help some.

edit: if you dont press F11 etc, then it will auto boot into one or the other.
Generally you'd install the older os first, then the newer (for future reference?)

[remote matt]

download easy bcd to change the boot settings,
the problem is when you install xp after vista it messes the bootfile up,
easy bcd is the way forward!

[RayB]

Just to add, if you add Vista after XP, it will create the dual boot for you.

[remote matt]

yeah that's right but rather than format and reinstall 2 os's you can create the new bootfile with easy bcd