Switching betwen OSs by cold swapping drives?

adamsad1 · 02-27-2008, 04:47 PM

Hello,

I have a Lenovo X61 Tablet which I use primarily for school. I’m getting tired of Vista and am thinking about switching to Linux. I don’t want to format my drive until I know I can get Linux working properly, and since I use it for taking notes in class I don’t want the clutter of an external drive (and flash drives don’t give me enough space.)

What I’m considering is just replacing my hard drive and installing Linux on the new one, and if it doesn’t work out switching back to the HD that has Vista on it. As far as I know that shouldn’t be an issue and my computer should boot right back into Vista as though nothing ever happened, but I've never tried this and just wanted to make sure it would work.

Thanks.

Homenet · 02-27-2008, 04:47 PM

yeh this will work fine

luckyedboy66 · 02-28-2008, 04:00 AM

you might give "dual booting" a shot. it basically allowes you to have to OSs installed on one hard drive (via 2 partitions). just google it.

adamsad1 · 02-28-2008, 03:03 PM

Thanks for the help.

Yeah, I've thought about dual booting, but I just don't like the idea of partitioning my C drive. I'd want to back everything up first, meaning I need a second hard drive anyway. Might as well just get a new (bigger) HD, see if I want to keep Linux and if I do format & partition the new drive the way I want (two NTFS partitions, one FAT32 for file transferring between Windows and Linux, plus Linux partitions) then ghost my old drive onto the new one.

02-27-2008, 04:47 PM	#1 (permalink)
adamsad1 New Member Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 2	Switching betwen OSs by cold swapping drives? Hello, I have a Lenovo X61 Tablet which I use primarily for school. I’m getting tired of Vista and am thinking about switching to Linux. I don’t want to format my drive until I know I can get Linux working properly, and since I use it for taking notes in class I don’t want the clutter of an external drive (and flash drives don’t give me enough space.) What I’m considering is just replacing my hard drive and installing Linux on the new one, and if it doesn’t work out switching back to the HD that has Vista on it. As far as I know that shouldn’t be an issue and my computer should boot right back into Vista as though nothing ever happened, but I've never tried this and just wanted to make sure it would work. Thanks.

02-27-2008, 04:47 PM	#2 (permalink)
Homenet Gold Member Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 270	yeh this will work fine __________________ ----Get paid to search!----

02-28-2008, 04:00 AM	#3 (permalink)
luckyedboy66 Platinum Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: AlAbAmA Age: 19 Posts: 728	you might give "dual booting" a shot. it basically allowes you to have to OSs installed on one hard drive (via 2 partitions). just google it. __________________ Laptop: HP DV9000z CPU: AMD Turion64x2 2.0 Ghz GPU: nVidia GeForce go7600 RAM: 2048Mb, HDD: 2.5" 120Gb, OS: Windows Vista ____________________ ''''!____. \|------- [hp] -------- \| ![=\|[ ]\___ \|_...__...____________\| ![ \|_\| ///.]\| "(@)'(@)'''''''''''''''''''''''''''(@)(@)***(@ )

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02-28-2008, 03:03 PM	#4 (permalink)
adamsad1 New Member Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 2	Thanks for the help. Yeah, I've thought about dual booting, but I just don't like the idea of partitioning my C drive. I'd want to back everything up first, meaning I need a second hard drive anyway. Might as well just get a new (bigger) HD, see if I want to keep Linux and if I do format & partition the new drive the way I want (two NTFS partitions, one FAT32 for file transferring between Windows and Linux, plus Linux partitions) then ghost my old drive onto the new one.