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[JDGill Profile]

After many convoluted and unpleasant installation attempts I've finally got VistaBusiness installed alongside XP.

I installed via custom install from the upgrade version onto a second hard disk so when I boot into Vista (drive c: ) the XP partition is still visible as Drive D: - I would feel happier if I could hide the XP partition from Vista so as to protect XP from inadvertant damage.

From Vista's Disk Management I cannot however remove the drive letter for XP as it is a "boot or system" drive.

Is it possible to copy the Vista boot files (and if so what) from the XP partition onto the Vista drive so that Vista is more "independent"?

Also I have to use the Vista Bootloader installed on the XP drive to access XP as well as Vista I'm worried that I might make XP unbootable if I'm not careful.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[Grav!ty Profile]

Having XP installed on your system drive the way you do is the best way to go about a dual boot with Vista and the boot system files for both operating systems are on the XP drive. Messing with that configuration is in my opinion looking to create problems and not recommended.

It's a good idea to backup the files that you need to boot both operating systems, to an external drive for future use in case of need:

For Windows XP:

boot.ini
ntldr
NTDETECT.COM

For Windows Vista:

bootmgr
Boot (folder and contents)

Creating a backup of the BCD store using VistaBootPRO is also a good idea. The BCD store and boot.ini backups will only be of value if you do not change your drive configuration.