I have already read various thread but still don't have a clear idea about the best solution. It seems the best and safest way to go is to get an official ISO instead of already activated copies and then activate it manually. Is this right? Right now I have one disk with XP on the first partition, and Vista on the first partition of a different disk. If I turn on the PC and do nothing, XP boots. When I press F8 for the bios boot menu I can select the second disk and then Vista boots. What I'd like to do is to wipe Vista and replace it with windows 7, and keep the configuration exactly as it is without the risk of messing my XP install. My fear is that using a loader I mess the boot sector and XP won't start anymore, and I want this to be safe. I don't want to risk to have to reinstall XP. So what's the best procedure? I download the ISO, then install on the Vista partition without using any codes. This will likely overwrite the boot sector on the first disk, so next reboot I get into 7 but can't get anymore into XP. What should I do next to put XP on back as default and start working to activate 7? I'm also reading that if I use the loader some parts of 7 won't work like the XP emulation, is this true?
hello dlfade dual booting can be done from same H.D.D on different partition also, you dont need to install different OS's on different H.D.D,. As by the rules, New Windows OS can be install on older Os, to get Dual Booting menu, from which you can select to which OS you want to boot. But EasyBCD have changed Installation standards. now actually you can install Windows XP after installing Windows 7 & by using EasyBcd you can add menu into bcd in win 7 for dual booting menu,. Just Install Window 7 use removeWat or 7loader it will not harm any changes in dual booting or corrupt OS's or reduce any functionallty,. when you install Windows 7 from booting into Windows XP, after bypass of BIOS you will get a dualbooting menu, you will then be able to select from a menu, which OS's would you like to boot to,.. btw EasyBCD 2.0 is designed to work with Windows 7,. and its still a beta edition, still works perfectly. Regards, EverWin
The reason to have a SO on different disk is that both are independent now and I can pull out one and the other would work. In any case I'm going to install 7 on the second disk, meaning that it will overwrite the boot sector on the first disk. I guess that using easybcd I can put there a boot menu so that I can pick one of the two, but aren't activation programs writing on the boot sector so that 7 can load? I think that when I activated Vista the boot sector was rewritten. Is 7loader a better choice than the Daz loader I read about? And once done should I still not install that KB971033 update?
My ways: Install each version of Windows into each HDD separately attached to system. After all, attach booth HDDs into system and choose the version you want to start with BIOS boot post menu.
yes, i understand wht you mean,. alrite, thr is one tool avaliable to write bootsector for windows XP, Vista & Win 7,. which is included in Vista & Win7 Bootable DvD,. bootsect.exe in order to boot into windows XP you can use this command frm command prompt,. >> bootsect /nt52 C: /mbr << This will write bootsect require to boot winXP. same as >> bootsect /nt60 C: /mbr << This should boot system into Windows Vista as well as Windows 7. so no Activation as nothing to do with bootsect,. bootsect are only require to boot system to Operating systems. wht you might have heared is Grub4dos,. which is used by many Activation method to boot OS,. Which is used to load certain file like BIOS emulator,. to fake OS to think,... anyway, Best of luck