I installed Vista in a 200 Gig Hard Drive with all updates, pulled the hard drive. Then Installed a XP Pro SP3 on a 40 Gig Hard Drive. Now I want to hook up both on same machine, have both set for Cable Select when it boots, it can operate on the XP, and it see the Vista drive and files and folders, but doesn't load Vista. Can this be done witout Partition Software. Not a Computer Expert, Type slow.

Can I ask you a dumb question? Why would you want Vista when you have XP? What are you trying to accomplish with this type of set up. I don't think you'll be able to do this on one machine regardless of partitions or not.

Hoping no one would ask, But after I bought My Laptop with Vista a while back, 1 or 2 years ago, I realized it didn't work with some Important Security Software, so I bought a cheap XP for running certain software, after a problem with Windows Police Pro and Security Tool(Both Rogue and Scareware Programs, Couldn't find reinstallation for thXP, but found a good Vista I had and Loaded it, Updated, running nice, then I got XP reinstallation Disc in the Mail and reloaded XP. Instead of leaving 1 out, I figured I would hook both up, The only reason I currently need Vista is for Purble Pairs, my girlfriend likes to play. I tried different sites, Microsoft, RapidShare and couldn't find a Purble Place for XP for free. Don't see why I should pay for it. It is on the Vista Hard Drive? Thanks
XP is on 1 Hard Drive, Vista is on another Hard Drive, no Partitions.
I find it hard to believe this can't be done on one Machine.
If I was good on Computers, I think I could figure it out. I'm not, so I can't?

Free Download Purble Place for Windows XP and How to Play Purble Place Vista Game for Children

Purble Place - Microsoft Windows Vista Community Forums - Vistaheads

This question was from 2007 and said you could not run the game on XP but the link above that said it was for XP. Go figure.

It would be cheaper to just get another cheapie computer to keep girlfriend happy. Looks like a dumb game to me.

My Girlfriend does the Pairs, Which Takes a good Memory and quick thinking, some think this is dumb, My Granddaughter likes making the Cakes.
Like I was saying, I tried Rapidshare, it wouldn't let me do the free download.
I want to ask someone Computer Savy how to be able to load Either Vista and/or XP on same Machine, 2 hard drives?

It is perfectly possible, but you went about it the wrong way. You should have had the XP hard drive in and then the other blank, and install vista after XP, while it is in the machine. You now have two boot sectors, and your bios will have to choose which one to run based on cable position and other priority considerations.

To fix what you have, you can try putting both harddrives in and using the GRUB cd. There is a way to over write the boot sector and point to both harddrives using grub. You may even be able to put both in, then when one loads, modify the boot.ini in whatever loads (preferably XP). Here you can add a selection to point to the other hard drive and it will give you the option on start up.

Good Luck.

I loaded Vista because I couldn't find reinsttall disc for XP, So I installed Vista, Then when I got the XP Disc, I loaded on a separate drive. Then instead of swapping hard drives physically, I figured I would try Both hard drives, Both set for Cable select, and XP is on the end of the cable.
I agree with yourself and Perito, the Boot.ini needs to be dealt with, but need steps to complete.
Can Drives be selected in F8?

Not usually by selecting F8.

EasyBCD 2.0 Beta Builds - The NeoSmart Forums

This usually does the trick.

Also, you could boot from your XP cd and enter the recovery console.

At the prompt type:

c:\ >bootcfg /rebuild

Once it finds the installations of vista and xp it will ask you to type in what you want displayed on the boot up screen for each, and any additional options. When it asks for the additional options type "/fastdetect" without the quotes.

Reboot, and see if it fixes it.

If either are in accessible or fail, let me know, and I will walk you through it manually.