Dual boot Vista question "George McKinney" <george55Q[ at ]cyberwind.net> 12/8/2008 2:51:13 PM I have a PC with Vista Home Premium and have added a blank primary partition. I have 64 bit Ultimate DVD and want to install in new partition as dual boot. I cannot remember whether to boot from DVD or from Windows? Do not want to disturb current 32 bit in C:\ I cannot remember where to choice is made to select the desired partition?

Re: Dual boot Vista question "peter" <peter[ at ]nowhere.net> 12/8/2008 4:19:50 PM You are going to disturb the The boot sector of the drive. 64 bit will overwrite and create a dual boot boot sector..which will display when you start your system so that you can chose which Vista you want to boot into. Start the installation from within 32bit Vista....follow the prompts for a NEW installation and be careful when picking the location... peter -- If you find a posting or message from me offensive,inappropriate or disruptive,please ignore it. If you dont know how to ignore a posting complain to me and I will be only too happy to demonstrate :-) "George McKinney" <george55Q[ at ]cyberwind.net> wrote in message news:D77B8EE9-3927-4CEE-A9B2-1618A83DA928[ at ]microsoft.com... [Quoted Text] > I have a PC with Vista Home Premium and have added a blank primary > partition. > I have 64 bit Ultimate DVD and want to install in new partition as dual > boot. > I cannot remember whether to boot from DVD or from Windows? Do not want to > disturb current 32 bit in C:\ > I cannot remember where to choice is made to select the desired partition? >

Re: Dual boot Vista question "R. C. White" <rc[ at ]grandecom.net> 12/9/2008 6:10:47 AM Hi, George. No matter where you choose to install the bulk of Vista (or any other Windows), it will put its startup files in the System Partition. That is the Active (bootable) primary partition on the HD designated in your BIOS as the boot device. After installation, on each reboot, the system will start in that System Partition, where it will learn such basic facts as how to recognize other partitions and folders, and to find an operating system, load it, and switch control to it. Like the letter "Y", it will always stand on that single leg, but then branch to whichever OS you choose for that session. [Quoted Text] > I cannot remember whether to boot from DVD or from Windows? If you boot into your existing Vista HP desktop and run Vista's Setup from there, Setup will see the "drive" letters that your Vista HP has assigned and will respect those assignments. Your present Drive C: will remain Drive C:. Vista Setup will, of course, have to choose a not-yet-assigned letter for its own "boot volume", which is where it will install its own \Windows folder tree. If you like, you can use Disk Management from Vista HP to assign a letter (U: for Ultimate?) to the new partition that you plan to use for Vista Ultimate. If you run Setup by inserting the DVD and then rebooting from it, Setup will not know Vista HP's existing drive letter assignments. It will start from scratch and assign the letter C: to its own boot volume; then it will most likely assign the next letter to the System Partition. So when you boot into Vista Ultimate, the partition that Vista HP calls C: will probably be D: in Vista Ultimate. In either case, Setup will ask which partition on which HD you want to use for the new installation. No matter which method you use, after the installation, each OS will maintain its own letter assignments and will not know what the other OS has assigned. It will be up to you to use Disk Management in each system to keep the letters synchronized, if that's what you want. You can easily change the letters for any volumes except the System and Boot volumes. For the definition of these terms, see KB 314470: Definitions for system volume and boot volume http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314470/EN-US/ Installing a 64-bit Windows alongside a 32-bit Windows is not a problem for the computer. Neither is the situation of having different drive letters after rebooting into the other OS. And it should not be a problem for you, once you adjust your mindset to deal with a dual-booting system. RC -- R. C. White, CPA San Marcos, TX rc[ at ]grandecom.net Microsoft Windows MVP (Running Windows Live Mail 2008 0908 in Win7 x64 6801) "George McKinney" <george55Q[ at ]cyberwind.net> wrote in message news:D77B8EE9-3927-4CEE-A9B2-1618A83DA928[ at ]microsoft.com... > I have a PC with Vista Home Premium and have added a blank primary > partition. > I have 64 bit Ultimate DVD and want to install in new partition as dual > boot. > I cannot remember whether to boot from DVD or from Windows? Do not want to > disturb current 32 bit in C:\ > I cannot remember where to choice is made to select the desired partition?