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ToddD
03-11-2010, 03:20 AM
I have googled this and see a lot of info about resizing C and creating partitions. I have a relatively new(1month) 1TB main drive with 2 partitions, C(xp64 pro), and D. The D drive partition is completely clean, nothing on it. So my questions about dual booting Xp and 7 are:

Can I simply install Windows 7 to the D partition, or is there anything I should do first.
Should I buy another 1TB drive and install there, how does that affect the dual booting?

and more importantly, if I install Windows7 to D, am I going to have issues when trying to install other apps? I know XP doesn't behave well if installed on anything other than C(other apps look for c drive as an install path), is windows 7 any different in that respect?

Is it typical when dual booting to have 1 OS on a drive other than C, or am I missing something?

Thanks for any help/info.


Todd
Jettatore
03-11-2010, 03:49 AM
You technically can do it, every single way you listed above, if you follow specific rules.

Personally, I prefer, and have had the best of luck the following way, using multiple physical HDD's.

Physically unplug all drives except the drive that you want to install a new OS on. Backup files on this drive if needed/Format/Clean install. Now, plug back in your existing drives that have their own installs. Simply use the BIOS HDD boot order to select which drive you want to load and it will load that operating system.
meleseDESIGN
03-11-2010, 06:20 AM
There is no need for two HDDs, spliting one HDD into 2 partitions is all it needs for Dual OS.
You can install XP 64bit also on the D: partition, since your applications will look in the registry for the systempath/programpath you wont run into any issues when installing XP to another partition.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/8057-dual-boot-installation-windows-7-xp.html


Anyways, I donīt understand why someone like to install two OS from Microsoft, is there any real reason for it? Install and run allmost every software in both, XP and 7 isnīt an issue. To me it would make more sense if you had planed to install GNU/Linux beside Windows.


;)
ToddD
03-11-2010, 12:28 PM
Thanks guys!

meleseDESIGN, I don't want to abandon my XP install as I know it is stable and have a great amount of faith in it. That said, the fact that i-tuunes, Canon EOS utility, and Quicktime are all unsupported( I have them installed,,,but they make you jump through hoops to install) on XP64, and the fact that XP64 will soon be unsupported itself make this an opportune time to get windows 7 up and running(for me at least)

Sounds like I am going to give it a go next time I have a couple of days off :)


Thanks again!

Todd
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03-11-2010, 12:28 PM
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