xp and vista on the same pc

lo all

the other week i was asking elsewhere without much luck about dx10 and how to get the buggar working. in the end after getting no where with patches (for COH), i wrote to BFG (card manutacturer). the answer to my problems in simple. DX10 is vista only!!!!!


bahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

fortunately i have a copy of it, but took it off cos its a biatch. doesnt run my scanner and a lot of games and compatability thing on it is useless. solution then is to leave xp home on, but partition the drives and put vista elsewhere. current setup is

160gig c drive (xp system drive)
250gig e storage drive
160 gig f storage drive (storage drive at the mo but want to for vista)
8800gts
6600
2 gig ddr2
580w PSU
gigabyte 965p-DQ6


ideally what i want to do it keep the 250 gig storage drive, use the 160 f drive for vista, and have a partition for it on that drive. i dont want to touch xp. that way when i switch on the pc, i will have a choices screen that comes up asking me if i want to load vista up or xp. vista ulitmate 64 bit is is the copy i have aswell and i dunno if that complicates it further or not(£117 and still made no use of it yet grrrrrrr)

how do i do it is my question?

Vista will see XP & create a boot-menu to select which OS to boot-up. So basically you don't have to do anything, just do a clean install on a separate partition/drive

i recently bought an internal caddy, which means i can switch a hard drive in about 3 seconds, no messing about with sata connectors or power leads, the caddy holds 5 drives, my current setups is

1. 150 GIG raptor x - vista home premium 64 bit
2. 75 GB raptor - empty
3. 75 GB raptor - movies
4. 7200.10 - 320 gb - mp3's and pictures
5. 7200.10 - 160 Gb - movies

basically im gonna sell the empty raptor or use it in my brother's pc, put XP on the 3rd raptor and move the movies onto my new Seagate 500gb drive, this means i will have 1 drive with XP on it and 1 with VISTA, when i want XP i'll simply switch drives, with this cadddy it takes 2 seconds

its the ICY DOCK 5 Bay internal enclosure, it may cost £80 but its totally worth it, imagine being able to change a hard drive, without having to open your case, touch a single sata lead or a single power cable, simple plug and play after you have installed this enclosure, i wouldnt reccomend removing drives whilst the PC is still powered on though for obvious reasons. with this new setup, buying bigger hard drives is now a much easier option to take, i can install a hard drive within a few seconds, so i might just sell both the 160gb and 320gb seagates and buy 1 big hard drive.

if your like me and hate having to open the case to install new parts such as hard drives, i would thoroughly reccomend this product, it gets a 9.5 out of ten, but only because i think the fan that comes with it is rather poor and they should have made a better cooling system, for £80 i expected much better cooling, but the features od this enclosure surpassed all my expectations

well matey, your first post was simple and to the point and i followed that and job done. simple. boot screen now with

earlier version of windows
vista

dead easy. if i had seen the second post i might of waited and forked out a one-r, but i didnt.

none the less the idea of that setup sounds good to be and is noted for the future. for the record, i have tried the plugging in and out of drive whilst the system is on and in answer to it for anyone else that reads this 'yes, plug them out but do it swift, but for the life of ya dont plug them in as they go BANG every bloody time!' (learned that the hard way)

...best to switch the unit off and then switch off psu at the back, then switch on pc. you discharge the left over juice that way, and theres always a bit left.


cheers for ya help m8. cant believe dx10 is vista only the buggars. i suppose it forces the upgrade which in the longer term will be for the best for us all and vista is everywhere now. bought it though when it first came out after thinking that i may aswell learn the buggar, but its a compatability issue with the other old stuff i have still on this pc that put me off - printers, a scanner, oldish cards, games... etc etc.

thanks to you mate i know have the best of both worlds so many thanks


EDIT - same pic different people lol. none the less, ta to the pair of ya