Installing Windows XP after Windows 7

Hi am new to the forums and i have a question. I have Windows 7 Pro 64 running from a Vertex 3. I also have a spare hard drive ( Seagate Momentus XT) that i use for storage and i want to install Windows XP on it. Are there any potential risks in doing that? Will it mess up my Windows 7 installation? I tried installing XP(SP3 and SATA drivers integrated) with a bootable CD. While it sees my drives it does not recognize that there is data on the Seagate and wants me to delete the partition. Is there a way around that? Also will the installation of XP be safer if i unplug the SSD while installing XP? Thanks very much in advance.

PS: also the seagate drive has a 100MB EFI system partition. Is that needed to boot win 7?

Hello ggp759 -

EDIT: didn't see your edit before I started my reply. Can you post a screen shot of your disk manager screen so we can see the current setup?

You're on the right path to unplug the Win7 Vertex drive, plug in the Seagate, boot to your XP install disk and go for it.

Suggestion (should work):

Before doing the above, using Win7 and a disk manager program, resize and partition the Seagate so there are two partitions.

Resize from the head (front) of the drive to create a blank space for your XP install. You could then format the new partition as FAT32. Last, make the new empty partition ACTIVE.

Now unplug the Vertex, boot to the XP install disk and go from there.



Regards,
GEWB

Thanks i will post a screenshot in a sec

This is the screenshot. Drive C is the Vertex 3 and and drive E is the Seagate.

You can not install Win Xp 32bit to a uEFI Hd Drive set up. 32bit will only install to a MBR setup, & not a GPT.

theog said:

You can not install Win Xp 32bit to a uEFI Hd Drive set up. 32bit will only install to a MBR setup, & not a GPT.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ There's your answer ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Regards,
GEWB

theog said:

You can not install Win Xp 32bit to a uEFI Hd Drive set up. 32bit will only install to a MBR setup, & not a GPT.

Sorry i dont understand what you mean. what is a uefi hard drive setup? Is there anything i can do? go the XP 64 bit edition?

theog said:

Have look at this tutorial:
UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) - Install Windows 7 with
& check out the MS links.

Thanks. So if i got it right i have to delete the partition on the Seagate drive and install Windows XP 64-bit? Please forgive me if am asking stupid questions:)

As I said,
I personally would go for
Windows XP Mode - Install and Setup
Win Xp 64bit drivers are hard to find.