When I installed windows Vista, I went out and bought a new Hard drive to install it on, just to be safe so that I would not lose anything I had on the old drive. The Old drive had windows XP installed on it.

I was wondering if this tool would allow me to reconnect the old HD and make it dual boot to my old install of windows XP.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. And Thanks in advance

Brian

Hi bwientjes and welcome to PROnetworks. This thread covers what you need to do to achieve what you want.

For future reference it's worth noting that if both drives are connected at the time of installing Vista, Vista will automatically setup a dual boot with any earlier version of Windows on the system.

Unplugged XP Drive for Vista Setup: Can't Dual Boot to XP

Ok I followed those instructions. But it does not seem to work. It does not show the windows Vista information at all and when I try to add new operating system entry it adds nothing.

I am running the RTM version of Windows Vista that I downloaded via MSDN if that means anything

Is there a specific location that I should copy the Boot Folder and that other file to? Also where exactly do I get that other file(i forget the name, but I noticed it in the boot folder). And also I am supposed to copy the whole boot folder correct? Because that is what I did.

Make sure your XP drive is set to be your boot drive in the BIOS and then follow the instructions. Your XP drive needs to be your system drive as seen from Disk Management. I guess your system is set to boot from the Vista drive and that is why it does not work.

The folder Boot and the file bootmgr need to be placed on the root of the XP drive and not in any folder.

You may need to set folder options to see hidden files and folders and not to hide hidden operating system files in folder options if you haven't already to see what is going on, on the root of the drive.