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Windows Vista Dual Boot [Vista] - using seperate Hard Drives

Discussion in 'Legacy Windows' started by silverwork, 2006/05/30.

  1. 2006/06/24
    silverwork

    silverwork Inactive Thread Starter

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    I have a copy of Vista now and will install over weekend.

    After reading the replies and to be on the safe side I will do a format/clean install on a seperate IDE HDD with my XP Pro install Drive (SATA RAID) disconnected. I will then change boot order to control OS loading...

    What could possibly go wrong..? ;)
     
  2. 2006/06/24
    McTavish

    McTavish Inactive

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    Can’t see any problems with that approach. When both drives are connected and you are back in XP you may want to tell System Restore not to monitor the Vista drive. Vista by default will only monitor its own drive but you may want to remove your XP from being seen at all by Vista by removing its drive letter in Disk Management.

    If you have a floppy drive you could use a bootmanager on a floppy instead of having to swap the bios to boot. I’ve tested both GAG and Boot-US and both do the job well.
     

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  4. 2006/06/25
    Kevin A

    Kevin A Inactive

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    My BIOS doesn't seem to let me boot from USB devices..I only get options for "Floppy Disk Drive ", "CD Drive" and "Hard Drive "...I think I'll just look for a jumper and re-install it in the case..Now, I have a SATA drive, will that make any difference to my jumper setting needs?
     
  5. 2006/06/25
    anonemuzz

    anonemuzz Inactive

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    Can I install vista on E: or F:

    Hi,

    I have never installed Vista b4, and I just downloaded beta 2.

    My 200 GB hdd is partitioned as follows:

    c: 20gb - xp home edition
    d: 20 gb - xp pro
    e: 70gb- games
    f: 70gb - movies n music
    g: 20 gb - backup

    Can I install vista on any of these drives apart from C: and D: w/o formatting them? I have plenty of free space in E: and F: (around 30gb on each). I don't want to repartition my drives again, as I had just done it a round a month ago.

    Thanks

    Anon
     
  6. 2006/06/25
    anonemuzz

    anonemuzz Inactive

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    BTW all of theam are NTFS partitions.
     
  7. 2006/06/27
    McTavish

    McTavish Inactive

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    Kevin A…… If your internal drive is SATA then you can connect the IDE as master or slave "“ either would work as long as you set the jumper accordingly and use the correct plug on the IDE ribbon cable. Best to set it as a master if you can.


    anonemuzz……I suppose you could install to E or F and hope that Vista does not format the partition in the process. It’s not something I’ve done often but I have seen files on a partition retained. I don’t know the variables of when Windows decides to do this or not. Personally I’d say if you have any files on the partition that you don’t have a full backup of, then you’d be foolish to try it. In fact if you have anything on the entire computer that you can’t replace you should not even be thinking about installing Vista.
     
  8. 2006/06/28
    silverwork

    silverwork Inactive Thread Starter

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    OK I unplugged my SATA Drives (RAID-0) which my XP install is on and plugged a HDD with an older XP install in to install Vista on (don't mind formatting that HDD).
    However, it is not NTFS and Vista will not install. The Vista Disk I have does not give an option to format etc and my Floppy Drive is not working so I cannot use FDISK from an old WIN98 Start-Up Disk (thats what I usually use to format).

    What are my best options from below:

    1. Install Partition Magic on my SATA and format the HDD I want to install Vista on?
    2. Get a new FLOPPY Drive to run FDISK ($£$£)
    3. Get FDISK on my USB Flash memory (but doubtful this will work??)
    4. Any other suggestions???
     
  9. 2006/06/28
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    Seems like your best bet.

    Incidentally I just installed Vista on a spare desktop in which the drive was not formatted (used delpart to get rid of a previous Vista install and XP on another partition. fdisk to a single partition, but no format). Vista loaded without asking to format.
     
  10. 2006/06/28
    McTavish

    McTavish Inactive

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    There should be an option from the Vista DVD to delete partitions on the drive. Then just choose the unallocated space for the install and it will be formatted automatically.

    This is an old picture from Longhorn, but the first screenshot on this page is similar and the Advanced option is now at the right hand side "“ "Drive options (advanced) "
    http://www.windowsreinstall.com/winvista/vistainstallnew/part3.htm
     
  11. 2006/06/28
    silverwork

    silverwork Inactive Thread Starter

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    Did not have that option on my disk, but formatted from another HDD drive and can install now (though it took an age!)
     
  12. 2006/07/10
    babyboomer

    babyboomer Inactive

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    It's probably a bit late to respond to this, but I thought it might be helpful to say that I installed Vista beta 2 to a logical drive in the extended partition (which is probably what you are trying to do here) without any problems. The partition was created by the Vista installer, but I would not expect this to be a requirement. I would backup the partition first though. It is beta software, after all. Also, be aware that Vista will overwrite the boot sector on your drive C: although in my case all previously operating systems were available from Vista's boot menu via 'older versions of windows'.

    Hope this helps.
     

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