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Can I install the hard drive from my old Dell Desktop with XP Professional into a vacant slot and boot from that when i want to?

I don't think so. Windows is finicky about the boot sectors of the drives. It would be great if you could, though.

Can I install the hard drive from my old Dell Desktop with XP Professional into a vacant slot and boot from that when i want to?
I don't think so. Windows is finicky about the boot sectors of the drives. It would be great if you could, though.

I did exactly what you're talking about Sam, not on a Dell system mind you, but on an ASUS motherboard, here's how you should be able to do it:

- assuming that your hard drives are SATA and not IDE (thereby requiring NO 'master' or 'slave' jumper settings), slide that XP drive into a slot, run the SATA cable to the motherboard, be sure the power coupling is connected as well.

- after you button everything up, when you first power up your system, be SURE to hit the 'DEL' (delete) key to go into the BIOS setup function.

- once you're into the BIOS, look for the hard drive/boot configuration menu, and select your XP drive as 'boot', hit 'escape' and 'save' and leave the BIOS menu, wait for the system to boot back up. When it does, you SHOULD see your old XP boot screen and desktop after everything is up and running. When you click on 'My Computer' you should see the Windows 7 drive designated as either 'D' (or perhaps 'E', if XP assigns your optical drive to the next available letter).

Now if you're REALLY REALLY lucky, when you first boot up the system after installing the XP drive, you MIGHT see a message during bootup that says 'hit F*' key for boot menu' (with '*' being the corresponding number of the function key designated), if you hit that function key, you may very well see a little menu pop up that lets you choose from whatever drive devices are present in the hardware configuration to boot from, i.e., you may be able to boot from 'C' (Windows 7), from 'D' (Windows XP), etc. If you choose 'D', Windows 7 will be seen as 'D', and likewise if you choose 'C' for Windows 7, the XP drive will (or should be) designated as 'D'.

Both Windows 7 and XP use a common file system, 'NTFS' although I have heard that there are some subtle differences but I've never discovered them and I run both Win7 and XP on a daily basis.

Anyhow, hope this helps some, FReepmail me if there is anything else I might help with.

Important PS: be aware that depending upon the hardware/motherboard configuration of your old Dell desktop, there may be a conflict in drivers if you're using that drive in a newer system. Even if that is the case, you should be able to select the appropriate drivers that will work with your older XP operating system and the newer hardware that you have now. It can be tricky, but it is doable.

I have an ASUS motherboard from about 2002 that has a bios that will let you boot to any disk he sees during POST.

Can’t boot to a thumb drive, though...
:-(