The easiest way to do it without having confusion while using the machine would be to have a second hard drive with the same specs as the original, same brand, size, speed everything. That way the computer doesnt have to reconfigure for the new drive type every time you swap the drive. It would work even with a different drive but we are looking for simplicity here. Then install a removable caddy that supports the drive type you have allready and thus the new drive, makes sure to plug the caddy drive cable into the same port the original hard disk was connected to. Now just put in the new drive in the caddy that is turn on the machine with a copy of win XP in the CD rom or dvd rom with the bios set to boot from it. Load xp and set it up as you would normally. If you want to use Vista, which I for sure wouldnt understand as I have it and brother,,well I'll skip that,,anyway whatever system you want to use just put that drive in before you turn on the machine. I use EZ Swap2 Caddys. They are fast reliable, hot swappable if your motherboard supports it and best of all they use Direct Connect inside so you never have to mess with plugging anything in. Just slip in the drive and turn on the machine. I have been doing this since the first betas of Vista came out and have had no problems at all. None ,,, nota,,,,zilch and thats good. I even have a raid0 stripe drive that has all my music and photos and data files that I use and it works (all the data) equally well with either OS. So I dont have to have dupes of 125 gigs of tunes, vids and photos. Good luck. There are for sure other ways but none as simple if you can afford the caddy and another drive.
This is not a dual boot in the normal sense, but lets you use both OSs. It will also void your warranty.
got to: http://imhdd.ms11.net/switch/sw01.html
This is nice in that you don't touch the Vista and it doesn't see the XP or vise versa. You only have to modify the front of the case permanently and you have a second hard drive when you convert to one system.
1. buy a new hard drive for your computer. ~$120
2. buy a double pole double throw centeroff toggle switch.<$3.50
3. scavange a set of drive connectors from a scrap power supply. Free
4. obtain about a foot of bare 14 guage copper wire for connector pins. Free
Other goodies - tape or cable wrap. a drill for the toggle switch, possibly epoxy, and "liquid" eletrical tape for insulation.
Read the directions and decide if you want to proceed. Its simple and it works, I have a switchable xp/Linux system. the only reason I keep xp is for games and a couple of programs I haven't bought for linux. Most everything is in Linux now.
ok good
i have not done it with xp & vista yet, but i did do it with windows 98 & xp. i just have 2 hard drives and i just switch the plugs on them as i need them. i did take some programs off windows 98 and put them in windows xp, all working good so far, as soon as i get a new computer i'll do it the same way vista to xp. my daughter install xp over 2000 Windows Millennium Edition and she still has Millennium on her system with xp.what windows did was made a back up of Millennium on her system when she installed it. hope that helps a little
rich
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