Buying a new computer- I want both XP and Vista though.

SmartTart · 09-13-2007, 05:56 AM

Hello Everyone-
I am usually fairly computer literate but I had a question regarding hard drives and operating systems that I thought I could use some help on. I am planning on buying a new computer (mainly for hard drive space and gaming purposes). I am running XP and have the XP CD, but all the new computers come preloaded with Vista. Kinda a bittersweet thing, since I want XP for 99% of my gaming and user friendly experience, but Vista for 1% of the games (such as Halo 2) and utilities that it has already "monopolized". Here comes the tricky part- the computer I am looking at has I believe 350 Gb space on it- not enough for right now. I can hookup the hardware on the HDD myself, but is there some fairly easy way to install XP on the secondary drive (or make it the primary) and have it as the default Operating System? Meaning I start the computer, XP boots automatically (or by manual decision). However, I still have the other drive with Vista on it which I can boot from whenever I want. Is this possible and more importantly, easy to hook up? If it makes any difference, I have a copy of "Partition Magic 8" that I got just for this little project.
Thanks for the help, I really appreciate it.

SmartTart

andy faith · 09-13-2007, 08:27 AM

yeh, after you get the pc, boot from the xp cd and it should give you a choice of what hard drive to install it to, choose the other one from the one vista is on. Then when it's installed you should have a boot menu which gives you 30 seconds to decide and xp should be the default operating system to boot into. You can change the length by going (in xp) into system properties -> Advanced -> Startup and Recovery -> settings -> then in the system startup part at the top change the "Time to display list of operating systems" to whatever you want. You can also use that to change the default operating system and a few other things.

andy faith · 09-13-2007, 08:28 AM

Welcome to the forum by the way!

SmartTart · 09-13-2007, 04:54 PM

Thanks a bunch for the help. I thought it couldn't be that hard to do, I just couldn't put it all together myself. Thanks a bunch on the configuration info, that would've taken me weeks to figure out. Appreciate it!
and thanks for welcoming me to the computer forum community!

SmartTart

09-13-2007, 05:56 AM	#1 (permalink)
SmartTart New Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Washington State Age: 19 Posts: 18	Buying a new computer- I want both XP and Vista though. Hello Everyone- I am usually fairly computer literate but I had a question regarding hard drives and operating systems that I thought I could use some help on. I am planning on buying a new computer (mainly for hard drive space and gaming purposes). I am running XP and have the XP CD, but all the new computers come preloaded with Vista. Kinda a bittersweet thing, since I want XP for 99% of my gaming and user friendly experience, but Vista for 1% of the games (such as Halo 2) and utilities that it has already "monopolized". Here comes the tricky part- the computer I am looking at has I believe 350 Gb space on it- not enough for right now. I can hookup the hardware on the HDD myself, but is there some fairly easy way to install XP on the secondary drive (or make it the primary) and have it as the default Operating System? Meaning I start the computer, XP boots automatically (or by manual decision). However, I still have the other drive with Vista on it which I can boot from whenever I want. Is this possible and more importantly, easy to hook up? If it makes any difference, I have a copy of "Partition Magic 8" that I got just for this little project. Thanks for the help, I really appreciate it. SmartTart

09-13-2007, 08:27 AM	#2 (permalink)
andy faith Gold Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Coventry Age: 19 Posts: 276	yeh, after you get the pc, boot from the xp cd and it should give you a choice of what hard drive to install it to, choose the other one from the one vista is on. Then when it's installed you should have a boot menu which gives you 30 seconds to decide and xp should be the default operating system to boot into. You can change the length by going (in xp) into system properties -> Advanced -> Startup and Recovery -> settings -> then in the system startup part at the top change the "Time to display list of operating systems" to whatever you want. You can also use that to change the default operating system and a few other things. __________________ Main PC: Athlon XP 2400+, 1GB RAM, Geforce4 Ti 4200, Asrock K7S8X mobo, 2x40GB HDD. NEC DVDRW, Pioneer DVD\CDRW Backup PC: Athlon XP 2000+, 512MB RAM, 60GB HDD, Radeon 7500 Main Laptop: Inspiron 6400: Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz, 80GB SATA HDD, 2GB PC2-4200, DVD-RW, Radeon X1300 Backup laptop: Latitude D410, Pentium M 1.73GHz, 60GB HDD, 1GB RAM, DVD-ROM

09-13-2007, 08:28 AM	#3 (permalink)
andy faith Gold Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Coventry Age: 19 Posts: 276	Welcome to the forum by the way! __________________ Main PC: Athlon XP 2400+, 1GB RAM, Geforce4 Ti 4200, Asrock K7S8X mobo, 2x40GB HDD. NEC DVDRW, Pioneer DVD\CDRW Backup PC: Athlon XP 2000+, 512MB RAM, 60GB HDD, Radeon 7500 Main Laptop: Inspiron 6400: Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz, 80GB SATA HDD, 2GB PC2-4200, DVD-RW, Radeon X1300 Backup laptop: Latitude D410, Pentium M 1.73GHz, 60GB HDD, 1GB RAM, DVD-ROM

09-13-2007, 04:54 PM	#4 (permalink)
SmartTart New Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Washington State Age: 19 Posts: 18	Thanks :) Thanks a bunch for the help. I thought it couldn't be that hard to do, I just couldn't put it all together myself. Thanks a bunch on the configuration info, that would've taken me weeks to figure out. Appreciate it! and thanks for welcoming me to the computer forum community! SmartTart

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