wondering how to set up

You can even download microsoft's virtual pc 2007 if you wanted to... it's not that bad.

would installing it on a faster hard drive make the boot faster, if the mbr is on the slower hard drive?

here are the speeds for the hard drives.

Dave76 said:

sup3rsprt said:

I would put Windows on whichever disk performs the fastest, on a partition at the very beginning of the disk.

Perrybucsdad said:

Why dual boot? Put a VM on W7 if you have programs that require XP, but it makes no sense to dual boot any longer.

I always prefer having a partition for just the OS. This way, if the partition goes bad, or I need to reinstall the OS (Yearly Digital Enema) I don't have to worry about all of my data as it is on a different disc/partition.

Always do frequent backup's of your data, and always wear clean underwear! :)

mn9500 said:

so i think im going to make a partition on the new 1tb hdd (its the second set of results) and use it for windows 7.

Good advice.

I always use one partition for the OS and another partition for data/files. Makes it easier to re-install.

Your new 1tb hdd with the 32mb cache will be the fastest (which you proved already), as sup3rsprt mentioned, be sure to put it as the first usable partition on the disc.

how do i make sure its the first usuable partition? and can i do that if i already have it formatted with files on it?

edit: okay, im in acronis disk director, do i make the new partition active, primary, or logical? im guessing either active or primary.

can i make a second partition on the 1 tb hdd for windows to use? the hdd is already formatted with files on it, can i just make another partition in acronis disk director and use it for windows 7, or does it have to be the first partition on the disk?

wallyinnc said:

mn9500 said:

can i make a second partition on the 1 tb hdd for windows to use? the hdd is already formatted with files on it, can i just make another partition in acronis disk director and use it for windows 7, or does it have to be the first partition on the disk?

mn, I am confused. You will make one partition to install the OS, right? I think you want to make a partion for the OS and wants to know if it can be the second one (since you have the data on the first).
Answer is Yes.
Some people say it will be faster if the OS is in the first partition (logic tells you so, the access times to those sectors should be faster, I just don't know how much difference it really makes. Before I get spanked, I have not researched either, so there might be tons of evidence to it).
One think to consider: if you have teh OS on teh second partition and you need to expand it to the left, you might need to do a repair install, since you wil be moving the whole installation on the disk and Windows does nto always like it. Expanding to the right can be done easily.

yea, thats i was thinking, how much faster can it be. and i will have no problem expanding to the right, theres a whole lot of space free on the hard drive.

zigzag3143 said:

Perrybucsdad said:

zigzag3143 said:

I would love to VM but cant.

Curious... why is that?

Intel core duo<g> not core 2

Its a DELL

Swap that out with a Core 2 Duo! I did it to my e1705 and wow - what a performance increase!

so can anyone tell me how much faster it would be to have windows on the first partition of a hard drive rather than on the second partition?