Newbie Questions on Dual boot XP/2003

[captnsvo23t]

Greetings, first let me say thanks for havining such a great forum. I've been browsing around and it looks like there is some really great stuff here.

I'm going to be rebuilding my lap top after a HD went dead on me and I'd like to dual boot Xp pro and 2003. I recently purchased a book on 2003 and want to have something to play with as far as setting it up etc while I'm still learning the in's and outs.

I know that I will need to have multiple partitions, but can anyone one recomend a good free until that will do what I need. I'm going to have 20g to play with and will be using NTFS on all partitions so I was thinking of 2 6g's one for each os and a third 8g for file sharing between the two etc.

As this is the fist time I've built a dual boot system any help is greatly appreciated.

I have search on this site and on the web but really haven't found any solid intructions for dual booting these specific OS's.

Thanks in advance
The Captn.

 

[SNGX1275]

Thats a good idea with 6 for each and then 8 shared. If you had more to work with I'd suggest a 4th partition for dls and such, but its not essential.

What you should do is install XP first. This part is pretty important (essential according to most people, but I'm thinking of taking this challenge on and posting my results sometime soon).

When you are installing XP, it gives you the option on where to install. You will want to delete all the partitions you see. That will leave you with 1 massive unpartitioned space.

For the XP create 1 6 gig partition (based on your prefs I chose 6).

Leave the rest untouched for now.

Finish the XP install.

Once XP is going great, insert the 2003 disk (in xp is best, but it doesn't matter if its bootable).

The 2003 install will recognise the XP and you will be able to create another partition of your size preference. Make it 6 gigs and install 2003 to that.

Now you will be able to dual boot.

But you have hd space left.

Boot into either xp or 2003, go to ctrl panel -> comp management -> disk management -> from there you will see your unpartitioned space.

create a partition there, format it.

Done.