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Help with dual hard drive/dual boot
Here is a weird question; please help if you can:
I'm running XP on a Panasonic Toughbook laptop. I have two 160 GB hard drives, each in caddies that remove/replace in seconds from the laptop. Shut the laptop down, flip a door open, slide out the HD, install the new, close the door, boot up again. Poof...done.
The computer has a Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, 1.6 ghz, 3.15 (actually 4 but the XP can't read it all) gB memory. It's got the guts needed.
I would like to purchase and install W7 Pro on one of the drives. I can as such 'ease' into familiarity with W7, experiment with compatibility with work software, but still have the full functionality of XP at hand with the other hard drive.
When/if it all works out, I can migrate data over as needed from the XP drive to the W7 drive with an external USB drive, and abandon XP.
Dual boot on one drive is not workable; the XP drive does not have the space to make that possible....I would be forever fooling around with space limitations. And, I have the extra drive/caddy already in hand (it's a spare for imaging from my backup in the event of a failure).
I'm very experienced with computers; typically people come to me for help.....but 7 is uncharted territory for me. I've given the process a lot of thought, and want to do it this way, so toward that end, your expertise on the following questions would be appreciated!
Here's the questions:
1. Will I have motherboard reporting issues when validating W7, since it is the same motherboard already registered and remaining active with XP?
2. Can I use the OEM W7 pro version, or should I buy the full install?
3. Would you recommend the 32 or 64 bit W7 version? I'm tempted to use 64, but
have some worries about backward compatibility with older software. Are my fears grounded in any reality?
Thanks a bunch for your help!