Dual boot Vista with XP

 Some additional info:This is my old rig,(about two years old)which had Ultimate on it but came with Home Basic.  When the XP install failed Jim put Home Basic back on it by way of the recovery discs I made. Therefore it was back to "as new " condition with all original drivers,software,etc. It has never had XP installed on it before. Somehow the XP install is borking the Vista boot record during install then neither OS is usable and the CD drive will no longer read discs to be able to repair Vista.

I had a similar issue when I installed Win 7... my Vista install disappeared from the boot menu.   Dunno if/how you can do this with neither OS behaving, but I used VistaBoot Pro to enter the path to where the missing OS was located... and once found you can assign default to which ever OS you like, uninstall VistaBoot Pro, and both OSes should show up in the boot menu at next start.

Thing is, older OSes should be installed first, so perhaps you need to start at the beginning. If Vista is on a separate physical drive you can disable/unplug it while you reinstall XP on its own drive/partition... then, once XP is established, reconnect the Vista drive and restore it using your recovery disc.  This should reset the boot manager to recognise both OSes

It's not that the CD/DVD drive no longer reads the disc, but rather that the boot record is missing (possibly due to the older OS being installed after and messing things up?) and the BIOS/boot manager can not see Vista is there (also, the Vista disc "repair option" does not recognise or manage XP or earlier versions... just Vista/Win 7). However, once Vista is re-established the repair option should reappear (well it did with mine) and you'll be able to use it for future repairs, etc

Best of luck, Wiz, and I hope this is of help to you,

Thanks, Starkers. I even went as far as putting the hard drive in another rig, formatting it, so I had a blank drive. I tried to install XP and when the install comes to the first reboot, it no longer installs, it just cycles through trying to install, giving an error, reboots, and does it all again. So I can't even get XP to install on this thing at all, not even with a blank drive and a reset bios.

The way I had to do it on my last computer was to install Vista first, then install XP. At that point it will only boot to XP and Vista won't show up in the boot menu.

I booted from the Vista disc and it shows an option to repair startup problems. Did that and both showed up on the boot menu. As far as installing XP first, I had the same problem as you.

Vista & win 7 no longer use the old boot.ini file,i can't explain it all i know is if you want xp to boot you need command line experiance as it's done from the command prompt now,there is no .ini file to modify in vista or win 7,what pissed me off win 7 didn't auto detect xp on the slave drive,like wtf..lol.. never did find out why it didn't auto detect but did learrn that i need more practice at the command prompt now as if i didn't have enough trouble using the linux command thingy

Was this when Vista was still installed, its drive/partition still active?  The reason I ask is because I had the same issue with my first XP - Vista dual boot... the XP install would not progress past the first installation reboot. It has to do with the OSes having different boot processes (Vista Bootloader and Legacy (XP and prior) Bootloader).. and if Vista is installed first/takes precedence it will cause the Legacy Bootloader to malfunction.

Can't remember now who advised me (yrag or someone else?), but I was told to unplug the Vista drive and reboot prior to the XP installation> complete the XP installation> reconnect the Vista drive and reboot... the BIOS then reads the two physical drives. However, you have to run the Vista disc 'repair option> select the "startup repair" option and reboot, Vista will then show up in the boot menu.

This method was successful for me, both OSes appeared on a refreshed boot menu and all was well.  What's more, I didn't have to rewrite Vista as well, just restore it.

Best of luck with it.

That would be good, Starkers, only I just have the one drive and 2 partitions, so unplugging the Vista drive won't work. Funny thing is, I have done this on my laptop with no problem. And Vista ultimate and Windows 7 on my main rig. I have been dual booting XP and Vista since Vista Beta 1. Never had this problem.

Hey people! What about Virtual PC?  The "dual boot" is very ancient way that seems is not optimal.

IMO, dual boot works great.  Virtual PC requires RAM.  Essentially, you are running two OS's at the same time, consuming RAM with both OS's.  Unless you have a high amount of RAM, this really isn't an end all option, especially if you are using an intensive program in the virtual pc OS.  I tried virtual PC with 4 gigs of RAM trying to run XP on the normal and Windows 7 in the virtual.  Ultra slow.  At least that was my experience.  And my rig is pretty damn fast under normal circumstances, even running big graphics progs like Photoshop and 3ds Max at the same time.

Oddly enough, I run a triple boot system - XP 32-bit, Vista Ultimate and Windows 7 Ultimate RC 64-bit with no problems whatsoever.  From my understanding, you must install the oldest OS first, then the next oldest and so on.  I did this on a clean system and did all Windows Updates only after installing all  OS's.  Each OS was installed on a separate hard drive or partition.  You cannot install two OS's to the same partition.  After I installed the last OS, it wanted to be the primary boot partition so I then used VistaBootPro v3.3 to manage my boot entries because I wanted XP to be the default boot OS.

Bugger.. the best laid plans of mice and men, eh!!

Ok, then, you have the Vista backup image/installed proggies on DVD???  If so, could you not reformat the Vista partition, install XP on the other, then restore the Vista backup to its original partition?  

Better still, if you can, get hold of another HDD and install XP on that drive, while Vista remains on the other.... that way you could go with the original idea of unplugging the Vista drive while installing XP, then reconnect the Vista drive when done.. would be quicker and you'd only have to do a Vista startup repair to reinstate the Vista boot manager.

Again, all the best with it.

It's very strange... I'm working on Windows-7 Ultimate (installed as an update from Vista Ultimate). About 1 month ago I found a problem with DesktopX - it doesn't compatible with Win-7.  So I was forced to use Window XP for export some of my DX projects as a gadgets. Now Windows XP SP3 works on my Win-7 in a separated window like any other applications without any problems and very quickly...

More over! I've installed also WindowBlinds on XP (because I hate Windows XP standard styles...) and it works fine too together with SKS.

So I can't understand your problem. My PC is IBM Laptop with 2Ghz CPU and 4 Gb RAM. System - 32 bit.

Seems after all  this time and effort, I can't install XP on a SATA drive without a floppy. So, if I want XP on this rig, I will need to install an IDE drive. Seems the xp disc has no SATA drivers, hence the reboot ends installation.  Where is YRAG when you need him? 

Weird, I installed it no problem on my last 2 computers with SATA drives, but doing a bit of research, for most motherboards you are right. I have a Dell PC, maybe I'm lucky as far as that goes.

There are lots of hits on Google on how to do it, the "least complicated" being to download nLite, a free utility that allows you to burn a new WinXP install disc that includes the SATA drivers onto the disc so that they are there when you install.

Check this link out: Install Windows XP on SATA without a Floppy (F6) - No Floppy...no Windows on SATA? Wrong! - Softpedia

I installed an IDE DVD Drive and I now have XP on my rig!!!!!!!

Thanks for the input, guys!!!