XP Dual Boot hiding partitions

scottmatthews

New Member
I'm trying to figure out if this is even possible: I need to create two XP installs on the same hard drive (which is easy). However, I need to ensure that the partition for one install is not visible from the other install (and vice versa). In other words, I'd like each XP install to have it's own "C:\" drive. Is this possible? I was hoping this could be accomplished with NeoGrub but have no clue how I'd configure it to do that. Thanks for any help!
 
Hi Scott, welcome to NST.
If you install each XP from the booted installation CD to a pre-defined partition, they will each think of themselves as C:\ and the other as notC:\. (If you try to run setup for the 2nd XP from a booted 1st XP, then the second version can't be C:\ because the running system already is.)
You can then run this MS registry hack on each system, so that the other is not visible. (It's actually provided to stop XP seeing Vista, but if it's invisible, it's irrelevant what the OS on it happens to be, so you can use it to hide another XP)
There's no actual need to hide one system from the other if they're both C:\. Neither will interfere with the other unless you specifically do something yourself.
If the registry hack doesn't work. (It doesn't for everyone, me for example) then post back and we'll advise on how to use grub to boot both systems and hide them from each other, if you have a good reason why you should.
 
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