Dual XP installation with parition hiding

V

vojtab

New Member
Hi,

I have been looking for a solution that would enable me install XP on two partitions of the same drive and hide the partition of the XP installation that I'm not currently using. Before I dive into EasyBCD I wonder whether this is even possible. Simple steps would be appreciated.


Thanks!
 
Hi vojtab, welcome to NST.
EasyBCD is a GUI editor for the Vista/W7 BCD.
You must own a legitimate copy of either to be able to control the XP boot and we can tell you how to do that. It won't help you in hiding one system from another though. That's not a feature of the BCD.
You can try using a simple registry hack from MS to make one partition offline to the other. (it's provided here in the context of protecting Vista from XP, but the same logic applies in hiding two XPs from each other). Just make the hack on one system the mirror of that on the other and they should be mutually inaccessible.
Unfortunately this hack is not always effective. (We've never worked out exactly why it works for some and not others), but you could install Grub as a boot manager and use its hide commands to make one partition invisible as you boot the other.
 
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