windows 7 on seperate H/D to C:\

[leethesaxon]

Hi everyone, when Windows 7 comes out I want to buy and install it to a hard drive Ive got spare that is clean and new. Its a 1Tb h/d, freshly installed. I currently run XP pro Media Centre Edition, and want to install another OS to my system on the 1Tb h/d. Will it be possible to run 2 OS's on different h'd's on the same pc? I take it the option of dual boot will still come up at start up? Look forward to any help with this one folks.

 

[Jonathan_King]

Yes, it is quite possible. Just install Windows 7 on your new hard drive, and it should automatically add your XP install to the boot options.

 

[jimbo45]

No problem -- there's plenty of posts in the forum on dual booting W7 and XP. You can install OS'es on different HD's so long as the boot manager can handle it.

Note - in general the OLDER OS should be installed first. When you install W7 the boot loader will detect your previous OS (XP) and add this into the W7 boot loader menu.

If you install XP again after installing W7 you *might* lose W7 in the boot menu as the whole boot mechanism in XP is different. However you can recover it again by using easyBCD or use the W7 recovery option when you boot from the DVD.

However another option to consider is to run your XP system as a virtual machine depending on the hardware and what you still need XP for.

You could also consider XP mode - although there have been some questions as to performance. I gather it has been improved a bit of late but not sure how much yet.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[leethesaxon]

Thanks guys

I dont intend to reinstall XP again if I can help it. I want to keep my original OS , XP on C:\ and put Windows 7 on the new h/d E:\. 2 OS's on 2 h/d's. I dont know yet if my boot manager will handle Windows 7 as well as XP, though it did handle XP and Vista on the same h/d. I uninstalled Vista, didnt like it. Too used to XP now. My buddy said the Trial Windows 7 he has is brilliant and only a small file compared to Vista or XP. Hes upgrading soon too I believe. Im buying the Ultimate edition when its come out. Just hoping it works ok with my system.Thanks for your replies anyway guys and Ill keep you posted. You'll have to bear with me if I dont always make sense with this pc talk. Im 58yrs old and new to the technical side of pc's. I want to do this myself, not ask others to install things for me etc. Got to learn some time. CIAO!!