My main drive has a D partition 5.3 GB (1.7 free) at the beginning of the drive then a C partition 61 GB (42 free) and a further partition F 166 GB (165 free)

I have xp pro on C and want to load W7 Pro onto F so that I can dual boot but W7 (32 bit) says it can't find drivers and will not load - all 3 partitions are primary - any ideas welcome - DJ

Does it indicate which drivers it can't find? If using a SATA drive, it could be drivers for that, in which case is there an option earlier in the installation routine to load SATA drivers?

Sounds just like a Medion PC setup.
I have the same configuration on one of my PC's which runs a Duel-Boot system (XP & Vista), so there is no problem with that setup.

As Mike has indicated, look for the "Press F6" to load additional driver, although if this is the case you will have to find out which SATA Controller/Driver you will need, try taking a look in "Device Manager" for any indication.

Thanks for the info guys, but after I went to bed I got to thinking back to when I dual booted W98 & XP and how little I used W98 after a few weeks and here I am getting ready to do the same thing again, but why? - so I've decided to bite the bullet and just load W7 and wipe XP off -I have an XP image if I change my mind after doing it so I'm not risking much - thanks again - DJ

I'm Back - after much thought I loaded W7 onto my second drive and all went well until I shut down and booted up later into, guess what, XP on my first drive - so now I have a perfectly good install of W7 that I can't get into, I can go to the drive and see all that's in there but beyond that I'm stuck - any ideas? - I've thought of a boot manager but don't know much about them or how to set one up - DJ

Try configuring the Boot Device sequence in the BIOS so that your second drive with Win 7 is before the drive with XP. Win 7's boot manager should give you the option of which operating system to load.

>> I've thought of a boot manager but don't know much about them

"EasyBCD" should be able to solve the boot problem. (You only need to load it onto one of the OS)
Which has been discussed in previous threads here.
http://download.cnet.com/EasyBCD/3000-2094_4-10556865.html

Don't you get the option of which OS to boot into when the PC starts to boot-up? (see time allowed below)

Do you have the option of changing the boot sequence from within:
"Startup and Recovery"

Go to:-
Control Panel > System > "select the Advanced tab" select the "Settings" button for "Startup and Recovery" then click the drop-down button for "Default operating system"

Also from within here you can change the "Time to display list of operating systems" during the boot sequence.
(Default is 30 seconds, but in EasyBCD I have mine set at 5 seconds)

.