Dual boot two XP versions

Hi there,
I have got an Acer One ZG5 (1gb ram, 120gb harddisk) with win xp home installed.
I'm want to use my Laptop for DJing with Torq and therefore need a clean windows xp installation beside my present windows installation.
So I want to make a second windows partition by shrinking my present windows partition (probably using gparted).
Is there any way to install windows from the recovery partition to the second win partition as well? As I'm only booting one windows at a time do I still need a second licence?
If I can't install from the recovery partition, could I just get an windows xp image and mount it with e.g. deamonTools and install it from within running xp on the first partition? Would I have to download a driver pack for my Acer one?
Trial and error would give the answers, but maybe there are some folks out there who can provide some useful tips before I waste valuable time

Cheers

 

You'd probably be better of using a USB stick or USB CD/DVD-RW for the install, as I'm sure there's parts of the installation proecss that still require access to the media in GUI mode setup, after the system has done a reboot or two.

Windows XP can be installed side-by-side on one partition, just tell the text mode setup that you want to install it to a different folder (eg. WinXP instead of Windows). But the second partition is the best idea.

You will more than likely have to install from a separate media other than the recovery partition. As for the license, you might get away with using the same license in the second installation on the second partition, seeing as only one will boot at a time. You will however have to activate the license in the secondary installation. I do not know if this will cause problems with the Windows activation servers or not, but I'd be keen to try it myself. Worst case, you can ring the activation line when the time comes, and you can explain to a consultant then that it's the same computer, just a different partition.

As for partitioning the drive, not too sure cos I haven't used XP in a long while, but if you right click on My Computer and goto Manage, then Disk Management, you might be able to "shrink" your current XP partition, then create a secondary partition in the unused space.