NotebookForums.com › Forums › Notebook Manufacturers › Dell Forums › Dell Business (Vostro, Latitude, Precision) › Dual boot XPS 1330 mapping media direct button to XP?
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Dual boot XPS 1330 mapping media direct button to XP?

post #1 of 4
1/19/08 at 2:04pm
Thread Starter 
Hi


I've read a lot of forums for the past few days to find out if this is possible or not. Basically, what I want to do is keep Vista on my new 1330 and also install XP on it too. (I have a valid XP disk). I've seen forums giving general guidelines on how to dual boot XP/Vista on any random laptop, site telling how to install XP over Vista on the 1330 and also sites telling how to map the media-direct button so that it boots ubuntu.
I've also read that if I just do a normal dual boot setup with Vista/Xp and I accidentally press the media direct button then it will wipe my hard drive!

Can what I want to do (Remove media direct / install XP alongside Vista and map the media direct button to turn on/off XP) be done and done safely. I understand fairly well the issues regarding drivers for XP and where to go looking for them.

I apologise if this question has been answered before but I have searched many forums and have yet to find an exact answer to my problem

Thanking you in advance.
Reply
Reply
post #2 of 4
1/20/08 at 12:58pm
Thread Starter 
Hi again

I have a few ideas about options that I could take. Can somebody please advise me if any of these ideas are particularly bad ideas.

I have a step by step guide to install XP when vista is already installed.
http://apcmag.com/5023/dual_booting_xp_with_vista
At the end of this guide, I have to fix the MBR to load up vista and then download a seperate bootloader to allow me to boot vista.

I also have found guides which tell me how to reassaign the media direct button to load up Ubuntu.http://forum.notebookreview.com/arch.../t-180795.html



I have found a post which seems to theoretically tell me what to do. It is here
http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...4&postcount=27
Basically this post tells me to install one windows to the active partition, then hide this parition and make the other active and then install the second windows. Then unhide the partition and run the rmbr command to reassign the buttons.

So can I do the following.
1) start vista
2) delete the MD partition & enlarge it with space taken from resizing the Vista partition.
3)Make the Vista partition hidden (I'm not sure how to do this)
4)Make the new partition active
5)Install XP to the new partition
6)Unhide the hidden partition (Again don't know how to do this)
7)Run rmbr from the media-direct CD

Would this work ok? I would not have to install a seperate bootloader like EasyBcd?
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 4
1/21/08 at 5:39pm
Thread Starter 
Just to let people now, I got everything to work out fine. The above procedure works fine. I now have XP booting from the media-direct button and Vista from the normal power button. I have most of the driver issues sorted out for XP at this stage -> the only outstanding one is the problem with the "Audio Device on High Definition Audio Bus". I haven't checked the reported problems with the machine sleeping when the lid closes. I did not have to install a seperate bootloader. I used Gparted to do all the manipulation of partitions. I used a slipstreamed XP Pro disk to do the install so I had no SATA issues & I had added a lot of the drivers to the installation disk so everything worked out well.
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 4
2/11/08 at 1:32am
I'm trying to do this on a XPS M1530, but keep losing my partitions. Could you please post instructions on how you did this?
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
NotebookForums.com › Forums › Notebook Manufacturers › Dell Forums › Dell Business (Vostro, Latitude, Precision) › Dual boot XPS 1330 mapping media direct button to XP?