I want to upgrade to XP, but here's a question for anyone.
For my computer there are XP drivers available on the manufactures website. Now while I know computers very well I'm no expert, so I don't have full confidence in my ability to switch.
However, One bad thing that could be a plus is it only came with a 111GB hard drive which I'm filling up rapidly (I have lots of pictures & videos), so I am going to need another hard drive. This is no problem, There's plenty of space & plugs in my computer for it. I'm looking at getting 500gb one which by itself should be more than I will ever need.
Now if I buy a new hard drive, can I install XP on the new drive, put the right drivers on it and then just switch the plugs to make that my C:\ (boot up)drive? If anything goes wrong then I can just switch them back. And if it does work, just delete all the vista files and use the current hard drive I have as back up & storage.
I know I will have to reinstall much of my software, but it would be worth it to escape Vista Hell.
Is this a good idea or a stupid one?
You’re askin’ the wrong guy. I think Shadow Ace could help or many other FReepers. Now if your computer ran on Diesel..................
Qam1,
Yes you can do this. The easiest way to do this while preventing potential problems is to disconnect the old drive plug up the new drive and install away. Once everything is up and operating you can add the old drive back in and format it or do what you want with it. You may have to do some drive letter remapping because you cant have two “C:” drives at the same time and thats what Windows likes to boot from.
There are some ways around this limitation but you have to have the correct hardware and you have to go through some machinations to get things steady side by side. email me if you want more info.
Syn
Do you have Vista re-installation discs? Make sure you have them and don’t monkey with your Vista recovery partition. This is crucial if you install XP along with Vista
It looks like you will get a new hard drive for XP. That’s your best bet
Then problem you will see if you try to do the install with the Vista disk still installed, is that the new one won’t be “C:” during the install. XP will install to it, but internal references on where to find files will be screwed up. I think there is a way to tell windows “install on the drive that’s now D:, but do so as if the file structure is on C:”, but I don’t know (or don’t remember) how to do it. Better to just take out your other drive and plug the new one in by itself. If you get XP up and running, you can plug the other one back in and it won’t matter that its drive letter has changed, as all you want it for is to extract data off of it.
One thing to be careful about is that I believe a lot of the new laptops are shipping with SATA drives, so make sure to get the new drive that will be compatible with the interface your laptop has.
Also, copies of Windows that I’ve installed don’t contain SATA drivers (this is where you get the “press F6 to install custom RAID or SATA drivers” prompt), and you can’t have the new driver on a CD, it has to be on a floppy! This will be a problem if your laptop doesn’t have a floppy. I don’t know if a USB floppy will work. A floppy with a special connector that came with your laptop is probably supported at the BIOS level so it should work. Otherwise you’d have to “slipstream” the SATA drivers into the XP install media.
After you put XP on your new one, copy all your files from the old hard drive to the newer hard drive. Don't forget your Favorites! It might even be a good idea to run Microsoft Backup on your old drive and keep the .bkf file in a safe location just in case.
After you transfer over all the files, format the old drive and use it as extra space for files that you don't really need on a consistent basis.
Freepmail me if you have any questions.