Dual boot Vista and XP, How to do it?

[jungleexplorer]

I just bought a brand new Lenovo 3000 Y410 laptop. It came with Vista Premium installed. I am not ready to start using vista because I use a lot of very expensive older software that is not compatible with vista. Normally I would just wipe the hard drive and install XP, but this laptop has some weird configuration issues that I know that I will not be able to duplicate if I ever decided to upgrade to Vista (when Microsoft stops supporting XP). This is why I want to create a dual boot system and leave the OEM customized partitions in place.

Here is a list of the 3 partitions listed under Disk Management (NOTE: The first drive listed does not have a letter or a name and does not say what the file system is.)

Drive 1 -(No Name) Simple Basic (No File System) Healthy (EISA Configuration) 13.81 GB, 100% free

Drive 2 -C: Simple Basic, NTFS, Healthy (System, Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump, Primary Partition), 29.39 GB, 41% Free

Drive 3 -Lenovo D: Simple Basic, NTFS, Healthy (Logical Drive). 106 GB, 100% Free

Here is what I have already tried.

I have tried to install XP with Vista Loaded. Vista says that it cannot install the OS because it is older then the current.

I have tried to install XP by booting off the XP disk. When I reach the drive selection screen it just shows a single partition C: of 131 GB. I assume that installing XP on the primary partition will wipe out my Vista installation which is not what I want to do.

I used Vista's Disk Management utility to Shrink the D: partition and create a new 20GB NTFS partition called, XP. I then booted from the XP disk and it still shows only a single 131GB partition C:

I reversed the previous step and booted off of my Vista Installation disk. When I reached the drive selection page, I pressed SHIFT+F10 to open the command prompt utility. Using the DISKPART command, I shrank partition D: by 50% and create 53GB of unpartitioned space. I then booted from the XP disk. XP setup still shows a single partition Cf 131GB.

Just to make it clear, Vista can see the partitions I created, but the XP setup cannot.

Any Ideas or help of any kind would be greatly appreciated.

 

[kimsland]

Couple of links that may help

http://apcmag.com/5485/dualbooting_vista_and_xp
http://apcmag.com/5023/dual_booting_xp_with_vista

 

[jungleexplorer]

I followed the instructions on the sites you suggested before I posted my question. If you would just read my problem you would see that I have already done what these site say. The problem is that when I try to boot off of the XP disk, the XP Setup Utility does not see the partition that I created for the XP installation. It just show one single partition, the primary partition. If I install XP on the primary partition it will over write my Vista installation.

What I need to know is how to make XP Setup see the other partitions that I have created to install XP. Or why it is not seeing them in the first place. According to all the tutorials I have read, it should see it, no problem. So my guess is that the problem lies with the strange Lenovo drive configuration. That is why I gave a detailed listing of the Partitions that the came on the laptop from the factory.

Either way, there is a way to do this, and someone out there know it. I just have to find them. Thanks.

 

[kimsland]

I was a bit quick -you picked that up well.

Well, when you first installed - woops nearly, I just read it again!

Here we go,

Download Gparted bootable CD (ISO) Then create the Disc, and boot from it.

What does Gparted see? Can you try to repair the empty partitions ? Please confirm all the settings on each partition, and modify accordingly.

Try the Windows Xp setup again. (Don't wipe the drive -as you know)
Report back.