Dual boot Win10 and XP screw up

I have a play system with Win10 installed and wanted to put XP on it as well and be able to dual boot. Of course I've done it the wrong way round and wonder if there's anyway to recover from my screw up without reloading WIn10, which is not a big deal anyway, just time consuming.

Having Win10 installed already I shrank the Win10 partition (C:) and made a new one (D:) and installed XP into this. Now the machine boots directly to XP, when I'd really like to be able to choose which one to use.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Try EasyBCD from NeoSmart Technologies.

Thanks for the reply.

I found EasyBCD just a few minutes before your post and tried it. I followed the instructions in the help section and now I have a system that is totally screwed and wont boot at all.

Never, mind - just time to start all over again.

Thanks for your help

Hi there

If you can get hold of another machine create a copy of stand alone Macrium Free and boot it. Then select tools-->fix windows boot problems and then it should give you the OS'es found on the "C" drive. Choose W10 if it allows you.

Now for running XP why not do it as a Virtual machine -- use either VBOX or VMWARE player both free -- just start the VM software and follow the instructions of create virtual machine wizard. Plenty of help in setting up and running Virtual machines in that section of the Forum.

Unless you have very specific old hardware there's almost no reason in most cases to have to dual boot machines any more for normal everyday use -- OK testing new releases of Operating systems on new hardware and also for gaming on older machines -- but for typical use I'd imagine dual booting not really necessary any more. You can have both OS's running at the same time and when you've finished with XP just shut it down.

Cheers
jimbo

Thanks Jimbo..... just a little late and I guess I'm too impatient so I've already started re-installing WinXP over the top of everything. I do have a full copy of Macrium so thanks for that tip.

I have run multi OS's in VMware but it was painfully slow on this old laptop and some of the software I wanted to run just didn't.

The main reason for this is that I have some programs and hardware that are not supported on Win10, so I need to have a machine with XP on it. Also I use the same laptop to try out things under Win10 before adding them to my main workstation.

Thanks again

Sam Vimes said:

Thanks Jimbo..... just a little late and I guess I'm too impatient so I've already started re-installing WinXP over the top of everything. I do have a full copy of Macrium so thanks for that tip.

I have run multi OS's in VMware but it was painfully slow on this old laptop and some of the software I wanted to run just didn't.

The main reason for this is that I have some programs and hardware that are not supported on Win10, so I need to have a machine with XP on it. Also I use the same laptop to try out things under Win10 before adding them to my main workstation.

Thanks again

Hi there

@Sam Vimes

If you do get decent hardware XP runs just fine as a VM -- I still have some old studio vinyl disc cutting software on it that I make custom Vinyls for people --- still works an absolute treat -- To upgrade to newer studio kit would probably cost me a few thousand EUR so when the old hardware works --why not keep it. Thie hardware won't even work on W7 BTW either !!!!.

I still like the old XP themes too -- much better than the bland W10 ones.

Attachment 223593

Cheers

jimbo

All you need to do is boot with Windows 10 DVD or USB and choose Repair your computer. This will restore the functionality of Windows 10. You will be able to boot into 10 but not XP. Then you can use EasyBCD to add a boot entry to load Windows XP.

To other posters: Please do not suggest running XP (or whatever the OP tried to dual boot) in virtual machine! This is not the point! The point is to achieve dual booting natively, not in virtual. If I was asking that and you were replying to install XP in virtual machine I would be disappointed. Of course I have thought of that, but I want to dual boot, so I expect some advice of how to dual boot. It is like having some driver issue and instead of advice you suggest to format my PC! Think about it, the easiest and most obvious solution is not always the more convenient!