safe this and does work

I have a Windows XP system with one disk drive.
What if I... .... Add a second drive; .... Install Vista Beta as a dual-boot system to boot off the new drive...
Will this simply add something to boot.ini on the first disk, or will something more complicated happen? How risky is it?
Will the two operating systems be able to read each other's disks?

It should work just fine, yes, it will alter the MBR on C: and take over as the default bootloader, you will still have access to your XP installation on under the Earlier Version of Windows boot entry on the Vista boot manager.
Just launch setup from within your existing installation of Windows, when the Custom option is made available on the Setup wizard, click it and select the disk you dedicated to Vista. -- -- Andre Windows Connected | http://www.windowsconnected.com Extended64 | http://www.extended64.com Blog | http://www.extended64.com/blogs/andre http://spaces.msn.com/members/adacosta
"Michael A. Covington" wrote in message

I have a Windows XP system with one disk drive.
What if I... ... Add a second drive; ... Install Vista Beta as a dual-boot system to boot off the new drive...
Will this simply add something to boot.ini on the first disk, or will something more complicated happen? How risky is it?
Will the two operating systems be able to read each other's disks?

Thanks. Can I easily make XP the default? Also, what happens when, later on, I want to remove drive D: (which has Vista Beta on it) and go back to one disk and one operating system? Would I just need to edit boot.ini to get rid of the reference to the no-longer-existent disk and OS?
"Andre Da Costa [Extended64]" wrote in message

It should work just fine, yes, it will alter the MBR on C: and take over as the default bootloader, you will still have access to your XP installation on under the Earlier Version of Windows boot entry on the Vista boot manager.
Just launch setup from within your existing installation of Windows, when the Custom option is made available on the Setup wizard, click it and select the disk you dedicated to Vista. -- -- Andre Windows Connected | http://www.windowsconnected.com Extended64 | http://www.extended64.com Blog | http://www.extended64.com/blogs/andre http://spaces.msn.com/members/adacosta
"Michael A. Covington" wrote in message I have a Windows XP system with one disk drive.
What if I... ... Add a second drive; ... Install Vista Beta as a dual-boot system to boot off the new drive...
Will this simply add something to boot.ini on the first disk, or will something more complicated happen? How risky is it?
Will the two operating systems be able to read each other's disks?