Windows 7 dual booting

[deanie44]

Hi everyone. I am trying to configure the Inspiron 560 for dual booting. Windows 7 is installed first. I would like to install Windows XP as second OS. There is a tutorial saying that you can dual boot with Windows 7 as the first OS installed. Is that true? I have tried to installed Windows XP, but I received the BSOD after the files are loaded. I do not understand why this is happening. Any help would be a appreciated in solving this matter. deanie44


Inspiron 560MT
Windows 7 64 bit
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E7500 (2.93GHz,3M,1066MHz,FSB)
Piano Black
16X DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capability
Thermal Module Heatsink,65W
4 GB DDR3 NON-ECC SDRAM 1066MHz (2 DIMMs)
1 TB SATA II Hard Drive (7200RPM)

 

[Saltgrass]

One reason you might get a BSOD during such an install is if the drive controller is set to use AHCI. Since XP does not normally recognize this controller, it has problems loading with it. You can check your BIOS to see if your drive is set up this way.

I would strongly suggest if you continue to load XP that you make backups of your present system in case of problems.

 

[Serbsniper]

I have a dual boot Vista 32 and Win 7 64 bit. But I have 2 separate HDDs. If you purchased WIN 7 you can call Micro Support and they will walk you through it.
They did for me. I know I had to go into msconfig in the boot setup and make sure both OS are recognized. There you set the priority. I believe if you partition your single hard drive
and give it a separate letter and then load the OS onto it, then go into boot and set it up. You also have to use the WIN 7 CD and do a repair to recognize it.