Changing Boot (2 Win XPs) to (Win 7 and XP)

Hey guys,

My dad's laptop has a HDD which has 2 partitions. Both are WinXP which correctly shows on boot. My question is can I remove the first XP and install Windows 7 RTM instead without messing up the boot. Thanks in advance.

oreo

yes . win 7 will create a boot menu on install

Okay,

Just to be sure, The XP I'm going to remove is the first one which was installed on that laptop. Will it retain the second installation?

Thanks.

Why the first one ? ?
For a dual-boot setup to run cleanly and efficiently the first OS should reside on the C: partition...

The other option would be to put 7 on another drive.
Post back for instructions if this is an option.

NOTE: In this scenario you would be using the BIOS at startup to determine which OS to boot to but all data etc. will be available from both HDD's...

Hey,

Delayed reply, been busy the past couple of days.

I'm sorry, I guess I didn't state the issue as clearly as possible.

Here's the deal, I can't add another HD so this is how it was done. First, we wiped the entire hard drive then partitioned it in to 2 equal parts. Installed the first XP (the one I'm planning on replacing with Win7) on the first NTFS partition (we left the other half as raw). The the second installation was done again by booting to the CD then formatting the second partition and installing there. So the setup now is basically a dual boot system which are both Windows XP. My question is, could I replace the first XP with Win7 RTM (boot to cd, reformat that partition, install operating system) while still retaining the capability to dual boot (Windows 7 and XP) ?

Sorry for making it confusing, I should know better lol

Installing 7 onto what is the current System partition ( sounds like it is the first one) will overwrite the XP bootfiles.

Easily fixed - just Go to folder options , make sure Hidden files are showing, and copy ntldr, ntdetect.com and boot.ini from The first Xp partition onto the second one.

Now install Win7 on first partition.

Copy those 3 files back onto the System partition. Add an entry for XP with Easybcd.

Download EasyBCD 1.7.2 - NeoSmart Technologies

Will have to try this on my virtual machine first, don't want to go messing around until i'm 100% sure, it's not my lappie anyway. lol.

Thanks for the help. will post back with the results.