How to reinstall XP in a PC that already had XP and Vista?

[Talayero]

Hi,

I have XP installed in C and Vista in D.

I need now to do a new installation of XP but I don't want to lose the Vista installation, because of this well known issue with the dual booting disappearing as soon as you install XP after Vista.

I already tried it and I couldn't get back the dual booting (and Vista either as a result), not even using programs like vistabootpro y easybcd.

The only way to recover Vista was by restoring two Norton ghost images I had from D (with Vista) and C (with the old XP I want to erase).

So, is there a way to install XP from scratch in C without losing my Vista installation? I must insist that I already tried a lot of things t and downloading special programs like the ones I mentioned above and it was impossible for me to get the old MBR.

Thank you in advance

[Blue_MiSfit]

Good luck... the proper way to do multiboot is to install the oldest operating system(s) first, and work forwards :)

Your time may be better spent figuring out a way to make all your software work on Vista. Alternatively, Paragon has a decent boot-manager last I checked - dont know if it fully supports Vista or not..

~MiSfit

[cdanddvdpublisher]

i'm unfamiliar with a way to make it work, but that doesn't mean there isn't one. my best suggestion would be to reinstall first one and then the other, but i suspect that would mean things would get lost.

[dat720]

Unless you have some old legacy software that won't work in Vista then there is really no reason currently to dual boot, unless you jus plain want to.

You should make a copy of the XP boot.ini before you make any changes so it can be restored to get back you dual boot configuration, if Vista's boot loader is controlling the startup then im sorry i am unfamiliar with the files used for dual boot.

[CWR03]

I have never worked with Vista, so I can't guarantee what the result would be, but I would think that installing Vista over itself would make no real changes to the install. I've done this numerous times with 98 and XP and didn't lose any part of the old install. Installing a new XP and then reinstalling Vista over itself might do what you want without actually altering the Vista install, but definitely use a backup if you try.

[Brazil2]

http://www.pronetworks.org/forum/about88231.html