Does anyone have any experience setting up a dual boot ? Windows 2003 is installed in a "C" drive. Longhorn is to be installed on a physically separate "E" drive. We previously had problems trying to dual boot Windows 2003 Server and Vista in a test setup. Vista, which was installed second, wrote into some operating system areas of Windows 2003 Server's "C" drive in spite of the fact that Vista was theoretically being installed on a separate hard drive. The dual boot switched correctly between the OS, but some portions of the "C" drive were corrupted due to conflicting storage of elements of both 2003 Server and Vista. I hope that the combination of Windows 2003 Server and Longhorn will not have similar problems.

hello Robbiex I installed windows longhorn with windows server 2003 and there is no problems, maybe it's diff. with vista but it's okay with longhorn

Hi Sherif, Thank you very much for the information. We will be trying the dual boot as soon as we receive an additional hard drive.

I installed Windows 2003 into c:\win2003 and then installed Vista as default settings. So they are in the same partition. Is it possible to make a dual boot in this case? Thanks.

I have just installed Longhorn in a dual boot with winxp. I am sure it would be similar with win2k3. I have some questions but I will share what I have seen so far. I read the information where it suggested that you not boot to the dvd but rather run setup and then install clean to a fresh volume. Here is where I run into questions. Currently I am solid in the install but it would not install until I went back and reverted my disks or at least one disk to basic to install it on. I dont know that it would have worked if I reverted only the install disk because I reverted them all except the one with the winxp volume on it. I get a warning when I am booted into longhorn and I try and convert it to a dynamic disk that if I do then no other operating system will be bootable from dynamic disks...... It is plural. I have 4 physical drives on this machine. Right now two of them are unpartitioned and reverted to basic disks. One has winxp on it and is dynamic and the fourth has Longhorn installed on a basic NTFS primary partition. I am a striving student and yes sometimes my method could be questionable but if you dont experiment then how do you develop a solid method? I have not taken the plunge yet . It was a warning ... vague maybe .. maybe not. I used alt tab during installation to bring up MMC and revert the disks. They were all dynamic originally but longhorn refused to install on any of them except the one that had winxp pro on it and there was not enough room. Now here is my question. Ok if I upgrade my basic disk with Longhorn on it to dynamic and it kills my being able to boot to my winxp disk which is dynamic ntfs already is there any upside to reinstalling winxp again on another drive as basic with longhorn being the dynamic one? Question will Longhorn support dual boot with multiple dynamic disks? Question If not is there an advantage of having Longhorn be the dynamic disk as opposed to the alternate booting OS? Question .. I can read the disks fine from either angleso why is this situation like this? I didnt see any questions in the forum that dealt straight out with having dual boot with both systems running from dynamic disks however I did see a comment about them seeing simple volumes under dynamic but not others ... striped spanned etc. in some situations indicating it wasnt constant. I figured if the warning was just for the disk that I installed Longhorn in being the only OS supported then I would be fine with another OS ... winxp on another disk with Dynamic simple volume. The warning was clear but was it literal? Meaning all disks on that machine? I booted into the winxp system with dynamic disk fine. I realize if I do upgrade the longhorn disk to dynamic and lose my winxp then reinstallation of winxp dual boot behind longhorn will be a whole other can of worms. I need input. anyone ? update: Ok waited a while and took a chance experimenting. Whatever the rules are they dont seem to affect non system disks. I now have two dynamic disks with simple volumes one of which has xp pro on it and I have two disks with basic primary partitioned simple volumes with one having Longhorn on it. I am assuming that next I will get away with making the one basic simple volume/primary partition without the operating system on it into a dynamic disk as well. My assumption....... I still await the whys that I should not make the primary basic disk with Longhorn on it into a dynamic disk other than the warning threatening if I did that there would be no other dynamic disk that would be bootable to an OS. I just need a simple answer if this is true or if it is just telling me that no other OS can be bootable from that particular disk. The warning is misleading refers to any disks in plural. I will possibly wait another day and then I will look it over again and possibly look the warning over again and maybe take a chance. Reason being I have a larger disk I really want the XP on so if it craps I will just be lab rat fodder to continue my study . I have found no white papers or KB or listing in this forum that is clear on this concept. comments? Still no input hmm. Ok so I update my progress. Originally four drives and my problem still not solved or even sure it could be a problem . It is a simple one and I am learning. There is no reading problems between the drive types though. Longhorn still boots to a basic NTFS disk and now I have all three of the other disks Dynamic NTFS including my XP pro system disk I dual boot too. I am guessing the meaning of the warning was that once I convert it cannot have any other partition on that disk that can dual boot a seperate OS. Considering what Longhorn needs I doubt I would even do that with a 40gb disk. Anyway moving on. Good Luck all. I have join mine to a private domain win2k mixed as a member server to handle wins and IIS private but bored and moving to remove those roles and switch to active directory child domain in the forest with delegation. No problems at this point so I still have time to study the here and now instead of hanging out in the sandbox with what is to come. It is impressive though. Too bad I am poor lol. Success, IRN