Once the new OS is installed, reboot the computer with the SC7 “Boot Utility Disk #1″ that you created when you installed SC7. Let it load, and select the SCIN Utility and diagnostic. Select the “Enable” box, exit out of the program and CTRL+ALT+DELETE to reboot. There’s your new OS menu, I hope…I had trouble at this point, and couldn’t get SC7 to boot up. I tried a few things, before I emailed V-com’s Tech Support. I emailed them the problem on a Friday morning 11:00 AM MST. V-Com’s offices are in California, so this would’ve been 10:00 AM (PST) their time. I received a response by 6:05 PM MST or 5:05 PM their time. The tech’s email is as follows:
Hello Randy,
Thank you for your request for support via e-mail. Boot your computer on Utility disk #1 and at a:\ prompt, type: checkmbr/mbr (a generic MBR will be written, do not do this if you have a drive overlay- EZBIOS or EZDRIVE * I didn’t have a drive overlay*). Now insert Restart disk #2 and at a:\ prompt, type: scstart (you will enter the Manual Partitioning screen). Here you will see your hard drive depicted as a cylinder. Click on the Windows 2000 partition, it is likely hidden. From the Advanced menu, choose to ‘unhide’. Also choose to ‘set\toggle active bootable’ this partition from this same menu. Ultimately, this partition will be marked as “Active FAT32″. Confirm this from ‘Details about Selected Partition’ on the right side of the screen. Reboot, Windows 2000 should boot up. Then go to Start/Programs/System Commander/Utility Program and choose to Enable System Commander.
System Commander should come up at next reboot with selections for Windows2000 and ME. System Commander 7 should have no problem doing what you attempted. I do not know exactly what when wrong.
Well his advice worked, with a few “amendments” by me: I used SC7 7.01 for this article, I didn’t update to 7.03. In his steps, and the manual’s steps, they both point to an option in the SC7 Utility to “Enable System Commander. I didn’t have this choice, I had three choices:
- Make Boot/Restart diskette(s)
- Disable/Uninstall System Commander
- Reinstall Master Boot Record
I chose #3, let it do it’s thing, restarted, and low and behold there it was. But in text form. So I selected ALT-S for the settings menu, scrolled to HARDWARE, selected GRAPHICS RESOLUTION and set it to 640X480 (your video card may handle a higher resolution). Once your resolution is set, hit ESCAPE, and that’s it!
If you run into a problem with SC7, it can usually be figured out. The manual is informative, and gives a great perspective on partitioning, Master Boot Records, and a whole lot more. Other OSes can be added later, but keep these limitations in mind: You can only have 4 Windows (95, 98, ME, 2000, XP any version), on any one hard drive. This is because Windows Oses’ need a primary partition in order to run. The specification for the a hard disk’s MBR sector allows only 4 primary partitions per Hard Drive. Check their website for specific OS details.
All in all, System Commander 7 is an easy to use program. The manual is chock-full of information, and it has very powerful tools included with it. If you are tired of FDISK and it’s limitations, you will love the ability to use SC7′s GUI partition manager, and you don’t even have to have SC7 installed to use it’s powerful disk tools. The price of the software is worth every penny even if you don’t want to multi-boot. The disk tools are that impressive, especially for those of us in IT. The partition manager can even “see” Linux partitions, and move them around or delete them, unlike FDISK. SC7 is about the only option you have if you want or need multiple language versions of the same OS. It also works great if you share your computer with other users, as you can password protect “your OS” and leave another copy of the same OS for the other users (works great for the family with kids who think they are smarter than they really are…no more corrupt Windows files due to overzealous, would-be “hackers”!).
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Hey, thanks for this great little guide.
I’m looking into running Vista and XP on a single computer, would that be possible? Also, what amount of space would it take up having two different OS’s? And lastly, will both OS’s use the same hardrive so I can save one type of file on XP and then access it later on Vista?
I learned this on my A+ course for which I’m studying at the moment.
I used Partition magic to partition 50G of my 165G hard drive, then booted from an XP install disk and installed it on the new partition. I then rebooted with my Vista recovery disk in my DVD Rom and run the Repair function to repair boot up. I removed Vista disk and let my machine boot up Vista, then I downloaded and installed Easy BCD which allowed me to add my new operating system to the boot order.
Now when I turn on my machine I get the choice to boot up in Vista or XP. Am now trying to sort out a couple of devices that as yet are not working on XP, but hey its all part of learning!
I have the same problem with XP not working properly on a machine built for Vista. I have figured out that the sound card won’t install on XP and the video card doesnt work properly. The window leaves a trail behind it when moved and the pages wont scroll down smoothly. I don’t want to download and install the driver because i am scared that doing that will ruin the audio for Vista which all of my files are on, all of my music, and i use alot more than i would with XP. Also some other things like the controller BUS wont install correctly. I was also missing tons of dll files. But the thing is, is that I’m not running XP and Vista on the same HD. I’m running them on seperate HD’s. What do you think i should do? Thanks.
I want to install two OS’s, XP2 and Solaris, what is the way?
Best Regards,
Petre
I’d like to install both Windows Vista OS (Microsoft), and OS-X (Apple) on my laptop. I already have Windows Vista. I know you need to “partition” the hard drive. No idea how that’s done. Ive seen people mention installing Windows 98, and XP in one computer…. or XP with Vista….. or Vista with 98, or 95 etc. etc, but I don’t need any of that.
How do I get Windows Vista and OS-X installed on one laptop? It would be helpfull because some programmes run only on OS-X, and not in any Windows, such as “Logic Studio 9″ in particular. Id rather just partition my hard drive and all that, than spend something like £1000 on a new laptop again.
Thanks
dude thats so easy.I have XP and Fedora 8 on one HDD. just DOWNLOAD a software called partition magic and then partition your hard drive. install the second OS in another partition. After the restart you have OS CHOICES menu to choose from. Good LUCK
hi I hav a apple lap top someone put a pc os on my computer now my computer does’nt work how can i fix it
hi ..thanx for the great tutorial.. could anyone help me with the information i would like to ask …that is … could i use Windows Vista 32bit edition and 64 bit edition in the same hard drive of my laptop without partitioning it?? what sort of problems would i face? i have a 32 bit vista installed in my laptop… could i install another 64 bit edition windows XP also?
Hi. I recently bought a computer and installed windows XP Professional SP3 on it. Now i also want to install windows 7. i partitioned my 500GB WD Caviar Blue into two volumes each approx 250G. How would i go about installing windows 7 on the 2nd volume? do i just boot it up like i did with the XP? or do i need to do something extra? because i tried booting the windows 7 disk and errors keep on occurring. i also enable virtual machine on my BIOS.
For cautions’ sake make another 3rd partition. Install the second OS in that partition. Restart the comp. Then you have OS choices menu to choose which os to boot from. then u r home and try. Enjoy
I installed Windows Xp on my second partition after installing Windows 7 on Drive C (1st part)
I get the os boot menu with options for Win 7 or XP. Win 7 boots fine. XP will not boot says that a file is missing
/ntldr How do I get the system to see it?
Would it be okay to install the Mac OS on my 2nd hard drive in my laptop? and also how many gb will the OS require?
Lol this is piece of cake for me.1 terra hard drive,no sweat.
I recently forgot my password for my user logon, stupidly i installed vista again on my hard drive which is insanely low. Ive remembered my password for my first vista and want to delete the other vista, how do i go about that?
hi, im running windows 7 now, and i want to put a second os on my computer. can i have both windows 7 and linux Ubuntu 9.04 on my computer?
its possible just have enough disk space and memory to run the 2 operating systems as well partition the harddisk.
I have win 7 on my laptop have my old HD as an exterrnal HD, I want to install win XP on it so I can restore my old data off my other external HD with back up. Back up was done in Perfect Image and can only be restored in original OS (XP pro) My old laptop motherboard crashed. HD was not able to reboot so it was reformatted. now if I load xp on old HD and restore it I will use it as a 2nd HD and OS. ???????