Duel Booting Question

hi im looking to dual boot my pc when my windows 7 arrives i have saved 250gb on my hd to install it on when i get it, i have xp installed on the other partition, my question is im going to update my bios and im going to be downloading the xp 32bit version of the bios from the asus site as im running xp32bit but when i install windows 7 on my new partition will the be any confilct as i will have a xp 32bit bios installed?

BIOS isn't related to the O/S; you pick the right one for your board, and it won't have O/S stipulations. For your chipset drivers, you'll need 32bit AND 64bit; one for each O/S, and you'll install the appropriate driver in each O/S.

The only thing that matters about OS version when updating BIOS is if your using planning to install the BIOS from within the OS. So if your currently on windows xp, you'll want a version of the BIOS INSTALLER that is compatible with wxp. The bios itself is not specific t a certain OS or release however.

Why bother dual booting? Windows 7 can run anything XP can, I've never had any conflicts whatsoever.

give it time you'll find some

Niku-Sama said:

give it time you'll find some

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Nah, I only use Windows to run my games, I use Linux for everything else.

That's a proper dual boot

i just always like to have xp as backup cos its so simple and reliable.

I take it then the only thing i will need to install when i dual boot into windows 7 is 64 bit drivers for my graphics card and other components, will 32bit apps still work ok on a 64bit system i.e antivirus, firewall etc?

Yea, most of your 32bit apps should work. I'm not sure about the firewall, I've used Windows FW for years now, but I'm thinking it should.

Sydney said:

Why bother dual booting? Windows 7 can run anything XP can, I've never had any conflicts whatsoever.

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Except HP printing software. They screw around with it to make them specific-OS compatible only. Trying compatibility mode results in some interesting bugs. Thankfully Win7 Pro, Enterprise & Ultimate have XP Mode, which works just fine, if a bit slow.

Now, to the OP: Are you wanting to dual boot with a bootloader menu to select between XP and Win7 or do you want to use your BIOS to choose the HDD you want to boot to?

If you want the boot loader, you don't really have to do much. Leave it as though it would boot into XP on startup. Put the Win7 DVD in and choose custom installation, telling it the proper HDD to put Win7 on.

If you want to choose the OS based on HDD from your BIOS, you'll need to change a setting. Prior to installing the OS, set the empty HDD as the boot HDD via the HDD priority menu in BIOS. If you leave the DVD out of the drive, this should result in a no-boot situation (b/c there's no OS on the HDD you're trying to boot to). Put the DVD in and install it to that drive. Win7 will then boot without the bootloader. Then you can change the HDD order in BIOS or hit whichever F-key at boot (depending on your board) to change to the other OS.

i want to dual boot off 1 hd its a 500gb hd, when i installed xp i did it on a partition of around 240gb so there is still half of my hd empty, want i want to do is put win 7 on the empty partition of my hd, to do that i guess i just boot up with the cd in a choose that partition to install onto right?

craney said:

i want to dual boot off 1 hd its a 500gb hd, when i installed xp i did it on a partition of around 240gb so there is still half of my hd empty, want i want to do is put win 7 on the empty partition of my hd, to do that i guess i just boot up with the cd in a choose that partition to install onto right?

Click to expand...

Yep, Windows 7 will overwrite the MBR on the drive and set up a boot loader where you can select whether to load Win7 or XP.