Dual bootup

[StarOdie]

My technician have installed both Win 2K Advance Server and Win XP pro in the same partition for me.Both are under C drive.But then it has separate folders for each OS.Heard that those 2 OS should be placed in a separate partition instead.So what should I do?Reformat?Anyway,if i maintain what he does,will there be problems occuring in future?

Please advice. ???

 

[bcastner]

I think your technician goofed up.

Here is from one of the earliest Microsoft documents I could find about Win2k and XP installations. The advice has not changed since:

Computers Containing Multiple Windows 2000 or Windows XP Partitions

Before installing Windows 2000 and Windows XP on the same machine, you need to prepare your system with different partitions (a process that divides a hard disk into separate sections that can be formatted for use by a file system. Partitions typically have different drive letters such as C or D).

One OS per partition
It’s important to install each operating system on a different partition and install the applications used with each operating system on the same partition as the OS. If an application is used with two different operating systems, install it on two partitions. Placing each operating system in a separate partition ensures that it will not overwrite crucial files used by the other OS.

I will summarize what has worked well for others in the past:

1. Start with a clean drive, two partitions, cleanly formatted.
2. Install Windows 2000 first in one partition.
3. Install XP last in another partition.

It is possible to do this in other ways, but installing both OS to the same partition is not one of them.

There is a ton of pages written about this. If you would use Google or any search engine and query: "microsoft xp dual boot" you will learn more than you could possibly every want to know about using multiple operating systems.

But the three points I made above is a darn good synthesis of what you must do to avoid problems.