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http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl Rad Community Technical Discussion Boards (Computer Hardware + PC Software) >> Norton Ghost 2003, Ghost v8.x + Ghost Solution Suite (GSS) Discussion Board >> Dual Boot XP (XP & XP)? http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1167332765 Message started by silverjim on Dec 28^th, 2006 at 1:06pm

Title: Dual Boot XP (XP & XP)?
Post by silverjim on Dec 28^th, 2006 at 1:06pm

This is possible, right?

I'd like to do this so I can run resource-hungry games (like Oblivion and Civ4) without having to individually disable my firewall, anti-virus, anti-spyware, etc, etc. every time I want to run one of the above games. The 'games' copy of XP would just have the absolute minimum of services and start-up programs, saving the 'main' copy of XP for all of my browsing, writing, and general duties.

I'd probably use the old "Blackviper" page to decide which services to keep.

Is this feasible, or is there a better, more efficient way to do this? I only have an 80gb drive to work with (I"ve a Dell 9200 laptop).

-silverjim-

Title: Re: Dual Boot XP (XP & XP)?
Post by Brian on Dec 28^th, 2006 at 2:23pm

silverjim,

Easy. Dan's site is excellent.

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/index.htm

PS I use a "barebones" WinXP partition for testing. No anti-virus prog, no internet, etc. Every few weeks I restore its image to start afresh.

Title: Re: Dual Boot XP (XP & XP)?
Post by silverjim on Dec 30^th, 2006 at 1:56pm

Brian, how big of a partition do you use for the XP?

Title: Re: Dual Boot XP (XP & XP)?
Post by Brian on Dec 30^th, 2006 at 2:28pm

silverjim, the partition is 3 GB. After I restore an image I have 1.3 GB of free space. That's all I need. It's WinXP SP2 with no Windows updates at all. The page file is 400 MB minimum, 1000 MB maximum.

If I need to test a large game (few GB) then I install the game program files to a logical partition which is visible to both OS but obviously these program files aren't used by my main OS.