Changing primary drive for dualbooting windows 8 to my xp

[radrick01]

Hi

I HATE the way Microsoft forces me to entirely boot windows 8 before switching to windows XP! I want to make my windows XP the primary drive and tel the boot.ini to allow me to chose which operating system to start up. I know I will need to switch the primary drive with partition magic, but I don't know how to modify the boot.ini file to show my choices at boot-up.

Can someone give me a sample file to copy and paste into my Windows XP boot.ini?

Thanks for your time!

Rick

 

[noidea_77]

Something totally mixed up here. Why do you need to boot win8? Is winXP an separate installation on a separate disk or only a virtual machine? And you don't nned partition magic to switch the primary drive. That is done in bios (boot priority).

 

[radrick01]

I don't want to go into my bios every boot an select which drive to use which operating system. when you have windows xp installed on one drive and you install win 8 on an other microsoft makes win 8 the default and the other system the "old" operation system, and forces you to boot win 8 fully the select "the old operating system" and then reboots the computer to start "the old operating system".
if you cant understand, install your windows XP on one drive then win 8 after that on the other and you will know what I am talking about.

 

[kyllien]

Why dual boot. Install XP in a VM and use it that way. Hyper-V is included in Windows 8 Pro.

To dual boot the way you want to would require a third-party boot manager. The built in dual boot function with Windows is always controlled by the newest operating system.

 

[noidea_77]

There is no third party software needed and sometimes a google is helpful: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows-vista/What-happened-to-the-boot-ini-file

 

[kyllien]

There is no third party software needed and sometimes a google is helpful: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows-vista/What-happened-to-the-boot-ini-file

Ok I give, however the link you provided is for Windows Vista. Windows 8 changes the boot process again. "System Configuration" may assist in getting Windows XP to load first. However Windows 8 boot process will still load before rebooting the computer into the Windows XP boot loader. A third party boot manager can clean up that process.

Editing the boot.ini file in Windows XP can result in your Windows 8 install getting lost, preventing you from being able to boot into Windows 8. This is why the newest operating system always controls the boot process.

I still recommend installing Windows XP in a VM as you will have fewer driver compatibility problems. And if you have Windows 8 Pro Hyper-V is included and just needs to be turned on.

 

[radrick01]

kyllien wrote:

"Windows 8 changes the boot process again. "System Configuration" may assist in getting Windows XP to load first. However Windows 8 boot process will still load before rebooting the computer into the Windows XP boot loader. A third party boot manager can clean up that process."

Sorry, but that is not the case since the win 8 installation process set its drive
"multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)" to be the primary disk and uses its own internal boot loader that starts up after win 8 has completly loaded. This process is the most stupid thing I have seen a software make do as long as I can remember.

If I set the primary disk back to "multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)"<--(drive that was primary that has Windows XP) it will just boot win xp without giving a choice to load win 8, like it does not exist. This happens directly after the bios loads before any operation system loads.

I need to add a line set to the win xp boot.ini to tell that loader to stop and offer me the disk"multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)" as an option before loading win xp just like any older dual boot we used to do. I just need the line to put in the boot.ini to point to that drive and start window 8 correctly.

For example:
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN /FASTDETECT /USEPMTIMER

This is the current line for the win xp. This will not effect the win 8 because it will happen before win 8 ever starts. Once it is fixed and working correctly I will pick win 8 from the older (what I call Standard) boot menu, I will load win 8 just the way it is now and its STUPID boot loader menu will still ask me if I want to load the older version of windows but I will have already chose the win 8 by then and I will just move through that menu to the win 8. That will stop this stupid full rebooting Microsoft has us doing it use the older windows.

P.S. "Microshaft" just wants us to stop using Windows xp or anything else but its new Windows 8. They are willing to go as far as making you wait an extraordinarily long boot time if you insist on using it. They are to collectively stupid to realize is, doing things like this to people with the full intention of screwing them for continued use of the old operating system will just make everyone HATE them all the more, as I do! The Windows operating systems are still the best for running my video games, for now, but as soon as another company comes out with a system that will run my games, I will dump microshaft so fast my own head will spin!

 

[radrick01]

I figured it out!!! All I have to do in order to start win XP first instead of the win 8 boot loader is hit F8 at boot up. Then I pick the win XP drive for start up. That skips the Win 8 boot loader. Then when I want win 8 I just leave it to start normal.

YEA!!! I win best answer!!!