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single sata drive install xp first and then vista but have to change bios

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topcattroy:
Hello all, i've been working on this for a long time reading.

So here is my problem.
I used kill disk to erase my sata drive. I then installed xp pro, but in order to do this i had to change my bios from ahci to ide.
Xp installed and boots great.
Then i installed vista on the same drive but different partiontion.
I had to go into bios and change back from ide to ahci in order for it to install.
Now it comes up as a duel boot system but when i try to boot up xp it does the error to protect my system.
The only way i can get xp to boot is to load into my bios and change back from ahci, to ide, then xp will boot.
When i do this i can't get vista to boot. I have to change back in bois from ide to ahci for vista and vise versa.
This is driving me crazy.
Is there something im missing , ive even use vista boot loader but can't get that to work. Ive tried every combination.
Can someone please help. Theres got to be a way to just select the operating system and boot without going into bios.
THanks to all who help

Shades:
This is the first time I hear that you had to make adjustments in the BIOS to install XP.

And it doesn't sound any good, I might add. One thing you should do is finding out exactly what kind of hardware is in your  PC/laptop? I mean model and type numbers by that. With a bit of googling you will quickly find out if there are any solutions available. Search on the vendor sites first and if that is not sufficient, then look on those "backwater forums" for possible hacks. 

From personal experience I do know is that it is practically impossible to install XP on a certain (recent) model of ACER laptops, which are solely intended for Vista. There is no support from ACER or from the individual hardware components itself for XP. Very likely this is also the case in your PC.

What I also know from my years as "that PC-guy" is that dual-booting two different Windows versions is a gimmick from which the novelty wears off (very) quickly. Let's just say that if this kind of setup last more than one month I am impressed. You would be amazed how fast one thinks that this old stuff (XP) takes a lot of space on the hard disk that could have been used for something more useful like games, music, pr0n and that it is all more fun in the new "toy" (Vista).

In short: don't bother, it is not worth the trouble. Dual-booting two completely different Operating Systems does make sense. Mixing two lines from the same family is never a good idea (which is also true in real life as well, I might add ;) ).

f0dder:
Find chipset/sata drivers for your hardware and integrate those drivers with your XP install CD - then set bios to AHCI and reinstall XP.

Alternatively, just dump XP and get used to Vista :)

bgd77:
I had a similar problem with my Acer laptop.

It is a little complicate to enable AHCI after you installed XP. Unfortunately I did not note down the steps I followed. From what I remember this site has been helpful:

http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=444831

Try to search the internet on how to enable AHCI on XP (after installing XP) for your particular laptop model.

topcattroy:
THanks for all the help to everyone. I have Medion desktop pc. I bought at Aldi's , yes the grocery store. It is a 2.1 ghz processor, triple core. But it doesn't have
a floppy drive to install the sata drivers when asked with f6 key.
It came with vista, i erased hard drive then intalled xp then vista. Like i said i can boot both but i have to go into bios everytime. I would just like to
be able to select the operating system i want and go.
thanks again to all that posted back.

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