I have a computer question.

[Amasov]

Alright, it goes like this -

I want to move over to Windows 7, but I don't want to get rid of my current operating system, which is a very nice and stable version of Windows XP 64-bit.

I thought about partitioning, but some friends told me some horror stories about dual-booting XP and 7.

So, wanting to have more hard drive space anyway, I thought about this - buying an additional internal hard drive and installing and running Windows 7 on that one.

My question, are there any foreseeable issues here? Can I actually do that?

Assuming it works, as far as accessing it, I know it's going to be an extra step as I'll have to go into the BIOS every time and change the boot order to load the appropriate hard drive first depending on which OS I want to load.

But yeah, that's my question.

 

[farmkid]

I think that should work. I've done something similar in the past with no problems. Going into the BIOS every time you want to switch operating systems gets old fast, but yeah, it works. Just be sure you unhook your drive with WindowsXP before you install Windows 7.

 

[Amasov]

^The install disc won't ask where you wish to install it to?

 

[farmkid]

Yes, it will ask, but if it finds a previous installation of Windows, it will probably try to upgrade that, rather than install a fresh copy. Also, you want the drive you install it on to be C:, so in a sense you will have two C: drives. Your old drive will be C: when you run XP and your new one will be C: when you run Windows 7, and the other will be D: or something, so they will switch when you switch operating systems. It might not be a problem to leave your old drive hooked up during the installation process, but then again, there are several problems it might cause if you're not careful. It's easiest to just unhook it while you do the installation.

 

[JonathonWally]

Assuming it works, as far as accessing it, I know it's going to be an extra step as I'll have to go into the BIOS every time and change the boot order to load the appropriate hard drive first depending on which OS I want to load.

Why would you have to do that? With multiple bootable OSes on a computer, it'll just ask you which one you want to use after the computer POSTs.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

What ^Beaker said.

You'll get a screen that looks similar to the one if you hit F8 during start-up.

When I had Xpx64 & Win7RC on 2 separate HDD's, and Win7 was the second OS installed,
it had "Windows 7" & "Earlier Version of Windows" as options.

The problem I had was when I tried to remove Win7RC and it kept giving me the 2 options.

 

[Amasov]

Assuming it works, as far as accessing it, I know it's going to be an extra step as I'll have to go into the BIOS every time and change the boot order to load the appropriate hard drive first depending on which OS I want to load.

Why would you have to do that? With multiple bootable OSes on a computer, it'll just ask you which one you want to use after the computer POSTs.

I thought that only applied to you if you've got both OSs on the same hard drive.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Nope. Like you, I just didn't want to put both on the same HDD. Heard too many horror stories and it was
really only for me to be able to test Win7 anyway.

I had a third (spare) HDD in the machine.

It always asked, but would default to whichever one I chose within whatever amount of time I chose.

Those options are under System Properties>Advanced>Startup & Recovery.

I believe you have to do this from the latter OS installation.

 

[sojourner]

Yea, the boot loader for Win7 will give you the option to select which OS you want to load. All you really need to do, if you feel the need, is when installing make sure to install to the new drive and make sure when it asks if you want to upgrade the Win xp install to just say no.

On a related note, I ran Win7 RC1 and 2 for over a year on the same drive as my Winxp install and never had any issues.

And based on my experiences with Win 7 and stability, you'll find yourself not needing that Winxp install for very long. As bad as Vista was, Win 7 goes the other way in being good.

Bonus with Win7, when you purchase it you get both 32bit and 64bit on the dvd. You can choose which to install on your PC.

 

[JonathonWally]

Assuming it works, as far as accessing it, I know it's going to be an extra step as I'll have to go into the BIOS every time and change the boot order to load the appropriate hard drive first depending on which OS I want to load.

Why would you have to do that? With multiple bootable OSes on a computer, it'll just ask you which one you want to use after the computer POSTs.

I thought that only applied to you if you've got both OSs on the same hard drive.

Nope.

Maybe back in the day with parallel hard drives when one was slaved, but even then you would just use a bootloader.

Now it detects multiple OSes across all drives and the windows bootloader pops up and asks which one you want to use.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

If you do go all Win7, and want to install the XP Mode app, remember it will not work under Win7 Home edition.

I haven't needed it, but I have Win7 Ultimate, so I can install it if I need to.

 

[Orac Zen]

I've done exactly what the OP wants to try and (leaving aside the fun and games I experienced getting TV cards running) have had no issues whatsoever. I have my stable-as, set-up-just-how-I-want-it 32-bit XP Pro and equally stable-as (thus far), getting-to-the-same-state 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate on separate hard drives and both are performing without a hitch. No mucking around with the BIOS or anything else; just two options at boot time. Both "just work".

I still really like XP and see no reason to discard it, but 7 is damned good so far. (As an irrelevant aside, having used Vista as well I don't get the disdain for it at all, but no matter. )

 

[Amasov]

I used Vista for about a year and I have it on the laptop I purchased last summer. I haven't had any severe issues with it. The horror stories I would hear would range from constant BSODs to it being incompatible with just about everything.

The problems I ran into were just ones that I created for myself. I installed it on a four year old PC, so the processor wasn't exactly up to specs to run it at full. Plus, the online MMO I still play, Final Fantasy XI, didn't seem to like Vista at all - plus if I tried to use a video capturing program [Fraps] to record any footage from the game, my PC was pretty much like, "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?!?!" and the framerate would drop to 4FPS.

It was short-sighted of me to install Vista on a machine that wasn't really built to handle it, despite the upgrade adviser saying it wouldn't be a problem.

On my laptop, no issues at all. It's running very nicely.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I was going to suggest installing the other OS in a separate location and just using the bootloader, but the OP had this:

I thought about partitioning, but some friends told me some horror stories about dual-booting XP and 7.

Sounded like he didn't want to do a dual-boot. But yeah, I dual-boot XP and a few flavors of Linux and that works fine--all off the same hard drive. As long as XP is installed first, it should be very straightforward to install an instance of 7 and have it added to the bootloader without harming XP in the slightest.

 

[Lindley]

which is a very nice and stable version of Windows XP 64-bit.

As someone currently using said OS, let me say

 

[Orac Zen]

^
Why? Presumably you're not a fan of said OS, or have difficulties with it, or whatever, but that hardly precludes other people finding it stable, useful, and otherwise not in the least -ish.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I have not used 64-bit XP, but I find the 32-bit flavor remarkably stable--for a Microsoft product.

I can run it under heavy load and frequent usage for weeks on end. My XP systems pretty much only reboot when a Microsoft update installs.

 

[Lindley]

^
Why? Presumably you're not a fan of said OS, or have difficulties with it, or whatever, but that hardly precludes other people finding it stable, useful, and otherwise not in the least -ish.

Let's just say that XP64 is the redheaded stepchild of 64-bit OSes.

And the RAID drivers for it are crap. My 7200 RPM hard drive is slow as molasses.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

The IT director here offered to upgrade me to XP 64-bit so I could have more than 4GB of RAM. I think I'll turn him down if it's that bad.

 

[Lindley]

Well, it's possible that the hard drive issue is specific to Dell Precisions, but XP64 does not have a good rep in general.