Vista Upgrade Woes.....

Question

Hello, I've got a dual boot situation that's gone painfully wrong.  I just purchased Windows Vista Premium Upgrade and soon after that a Dell XPS 410 (This system would be able to support Vista).  But this system came with XP Home installed.  I had created a 40 gig partition using Partition Magic out of the installed 160 gig drive.  So then I installed Vista Upgrade, booting to the DVD and running the install from there.  Everything seemed to go without a hitch, but after it rebooted I didn't get the boot screen where it would allow me to choose Windows XP or Windows Vista.  Then I allowed it to boot into Vista and checked in System Properties/Advanced, under Startup and Recovery clicked Settings.  Then looked under Default operating system and only Microsoft Windows Vista is in the drop down list. So next I went to Computer Management, Storage, Disk Managment and on Disk 0 the 106 gig partition that XP Home should be installed on doesn't even had a drive letter assigned!  It says 'Healthy Primary Partition'.  When I right click on that partition the only option I get is 'Delete Volume'.  The option to assign a drive letter is greyed out, along with all the other options. Does the fact that I have the upgrade version have anything to do with the fact that I have no boot menu and that the XP Partition is now totally hidden? How can I get my boot menu so that I can boot back into XP?   Secondly, is there a way that I can have a drive letter assigned to my Windows XP partition without wiping it out. Currently my drives are assigned as follows: Disk 0 C:  39 gig  (Vista is installed here) 106 gig (Primary Partition) (WindowsXP is installed here) 3 gig Disk 1 D:  34 gig Disk 2 F: 1 gig E: 30 gig G: 203 gig System Specs: Dell XPS 410 2.13Ghz Pentium Core 2 Duo 1536MB RAM Phillips 16X DVD-ROM Plextor PX755SA 16x DVD Writer Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic sound card SATA Western Digital 160Gig 10,000 RPM SATA Maxtor 250 Gig 16mb cache SATA Western Digital 36 gig 10,000 RPM

proimage1 · Answer

Sounds to me like you did do an UPGRADE and NOT a clean install - if that's the case - you over wrote XP and it's gone - at least that's how it sounds to me - to do a dual boot - it would have to have been a new clean install of Vista on another hard drive or partition. Good luck

GioAguilar · Answer

What I did, was install XP first with the XP Pro CD, then from there created the two partitions, finished XP installation, and you know, all drivers and stuffs, then installed Vista Ultimate booting from the CD (it was not an upgrade DVD, not sure if will be a difference) and installed Vista. I recommend to create the partition with XP CD instead of use Partition Magic...

proimage1 · Answer

@GioAguilar wrote:

What I did, was install XP first with the XP Pro CD, then from there created the two partitions, finished XP installation, and you know, all drivers and stuffs, then installed Vista Ultimate booting from the CD (it was not an upgrade DVD, not sure if will be a difference) and installed Vista. I recommend to create the partition with XP CD instead of use Partition Magic...

And that's probably the BEST option for a dual boot with XP and Vista. Regards

ingramje30 · Answer

Actually, I had said that I installed Vista onto a different (40 gig) partition.  I can even see the partition that XP used to be installed on in Computer Manangement, but there's no way to assign a drive letter to it so it's inaccessable.  I can tell it's the XP partition based on it's size and the disk that it was installed onto.  I've got a 118 gig partition that can't be accessed, the same size as the XP partition. So, YES, I did run an upgrade install by booting to the DVD and running the install, not while Windows was running.   So what's in question is whether the upgrade DVD does this by default or not.  Which still makes no sense to me.  Why lock out access to the XP partition just because you've done an upgrade?  You can't even gain access to the partition to run the Transfer program that copies XP settings from XP to Vista.   I suppose I'll just have to call MS and wait on hold forever to get the real answer....   Thanks,   Jeff

proimage1 · Answer

From what I get from this - even though you put it on a separate partition - if you did the upgrade install --- INSTEAD of a FULL install of Vista - you have lost XP -- I may be wrong on this - I've just never heard of doing an upgrade and keeping your current OS. Good luck at any rate.

Message Edited by proimage1 on 02-28-2007 02:11 PM

proimage1 · Answer

@The WheelMan wrote:
I set up a dual boot with XP and Vista Ultimate too. You must run an upgrade disk from within XP, then choose the Advanced option when prompted. That allows you to choose a separate partition or hard drive to install Vista on. I don't know what options are given when you do it the way you did, but it sure sounds like you took a wrong turn somewhere and hosed your XP install as well as one of the partitions. Either that or you never assigned a drive letter to one of the partitions to begin with.

That's what it sounds like to me -- what you could do - not really the best option - but you could re-install XP - from there create a partition for Vista - then re-install Vista - but don't do an upgrade to Vista - or you'll be in the same situation - my thinking is you HAVE to do a full install or it's gonna overwrite XP regardless of putting it on another partition. Setting up the way posted above is the way to do the dual install keeping XP and Vista. Good luck

The WheelMan · Answer

I set up a dual boot with XP and Vista Ultimate too. You must run an upgrade disk from within XP, then choose the Advanced option when prompted. That allows you to choose a separate partition or hard drive to install Vista on. I don't know what options are given when you do it the way you did, but it sure sounds like you took a wrong turn somewhere and hosed your XP install as well as one of the partitions. Either that or you never assigned a drive letter to one of the partitions to begin with.

The WheelMan · Answer

But that's like buying two Volkswagons so you can trade one in for a Toyota. If you want a Volkswagon and a Toyota, just buy one of each outright.

If he's using an upgrade disk, he just needs to choose the right options when running the upgrade to clean install on the second partition. As I said above, I've already done exactly what he's trying to do, so I know it works. If he's using a full version disk, then again he just needs to make the right choices when installing it because he can't run it from inside XP anyway. Either way, there's no need to install XP on the second partition first.

Now maybe if he's upgrading from a Dell Express upgrade disk then things are different? My system is over two years old, so I had to buy my own upgrade disk elsewhere. So I don't know how the Express Upgrade works.

muhboy · Answer

What about installing XP on one partition and then XP again on another, and then have a dual-boot between the both. And finally you upgrade one xp to VISTA, leaving you the other XP on the other partition. VISTA will not upgrade both, right?   I haven't received the upgrade yet, but I do have a dual-boot between XP and XP. That's because I wanted to install some programs on both partitions, which I currently don't have, so therefore, when getting the Express Upgrade, I don't have to think about getting the installation discs to install the programs once more, because everything will be upgraded.

Tim_MacDonald · Answer

VistaBootPro3.1 is your friend in a case like this.    Failing that, insert your XP CD, boot from it, and run repair to get back into your XP partition.  You may have problems down the line flipping back and forth as the Vista BCD will be hosed by the XP repair and you will need to repair the BCD to get back into Vista.  I had this same issue (because my machine came preloaded with Vista which forced me to install XP second) and got fed up with it.  When I have time I will hose both installs, reinstall XP first, use Vista Boot Pro to create the proper entry in the Vista BCD, then install Vista second.   Hope this helps.

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