[gerryf]

that is a darn good question, and not one I can answer perfectly because I do not know how the recovery works. IE, can it actually resize the partition, or create it from scratch?

I do not know if your recovery program expects to find a c: drive of X amount of space.

What I would suggest you do is reverse what I did using Partd first. To do this, I would use disk management (start > run, type diskmgmt.msc) to delete the partition, then use partd to merge enlarge the partition to take up all the space, and THEN run your recovery from the CD

That would be safer/wiser.

[Advertisements]

Well...when I do the recovery process, I put the disc in first, It tells me to ether format or start the recovery process....I uasally do format first.

I belive it formats The C drive and the D drive. Then it askes me for the CD's. The data files that are on the CD's gets sent to the D drive. After about 2 and a half hours later. I take Disc 2 out and The files from the D drive gets sent over to the C drive.(It saids....Windows XP recovering)....or something like that.

It also saids when I begin...it saids that its creating a new Partition(the D drive for the recovery process.)

So I don't know. maybe I have to do some more research. I'm not getting much help from other sites...and other people's reviews from other Message Boards..

I'll keep looking.

[Paulisneat]

Well...when I do the recovery process, I put the disc in first, It tells me to ether format or start the recovery process....I uasally do format first.

I belive it formats The C drive and the D drive. Then it askes me for the CD's. The data files that are on the CD's gets sent to the D drive. After about 2 and a half hours later. I take Disc 2 out and The files from the D drive gets sent over to the C drive.(It saids....Windows XP recovering)....or something like that.

It also saids when I begin...it saids that its creating a new Partition(the D drive for the recovery process.)

So I don't know. maybe I have to do some more research. I'm not getting much help from other sites...and other people's reviews from other Message Boards..

I'll keep looking.

[superstar]

Hey what's up gerrf?

Listen I have a few of questions for you. By the way excellent post!


1. Why do you mention that installing windows vista beta is dangerous? Can it harm hardware in my system? I am assuming what you mean is that it might just crash or if you are dependant of the o/s to just not be. Meaning that you can just re-partition it, format, and go back to a previous o/s and it will be fine. If so than it's worth a try to install it on an old 10gb hard drive I have laying around.

2. How do you install windows vista from boot up with the dvd? (ie: on a freshly partitioned/formatted drive, not upgrading in xp). When I try to install it to my old 10giger hard drive everything works fine to partition and format it. But when it comes time to choose to begin the installation it tells me something like "Could not find a hard disk suitable to hold the temp files" or something like that. Does this mean I need some sort of driver? The old hard drive I am trying to use is a 10GB Maxtor model# 31024H.

3. What is "vista upgrade advisor"? Is this a tool that I can run to see if it would work on my system?

4. I have an old 10gb hard drive I can use to test vista. Is that big enough? I don't plan to save files on it, etc. Maybe just surf the net and check the vista features. (10GB Maxtor model# 31024H)


Hope you can get back to me as I really want to try this thing out. By the way I have Vista Build 5219.

Edited by superstar, 28 July 2006 - 03:46 AM.

[†Gladiator†]

Hmm I am running beta 2 and i know that you should have at least... a least 15gbs free to install the sucker. Judging from you system specs, you won't really have a good time with vista for onething, 512mb of ram will be eaten alive by vista, and the rest of your specs barely meets the minimum. So sry but i don't think you will get that good of a vista experience(no aero for 9550 gfx card)

[sarahw]

(no aero for 9550 gfx card)

Not true. Not the best card for Vista, but it will run.

[†Gladiator†]

my bad, but i have seen 9600 not being able to handle aero, i guess the rest of the system specs counts too.

[superstar]

Which leads me to ask my question again:

How do you install windows vista from boot up with the dvd? (ie: on a freshly partitioned/formatted drive, not upgrading in xp). When I try to install it to my old 10giger hard drive everything works fine to partition and format it. But when it comes time to choose to begin the installation it tells me something like "Could not find a hard disk suitable to hold the temp files" or something like that. Does this mean I need some sort of driver? The old hard drive I am trying to use is a 10GB Maxtor model# 31024H.

The dvd that installs win vista says it requires about 9GB. So I think it wil run. I don't plan to download files and stuff. I just want to see the interface and how it is.


Thx

[†Gladiator†]

see vista takes the files off the dvd and that's 4 gigs and it still has to expend it which will be additional 4-5 and than the install features etc etc you kinda get the idea. I believe it's because of the size of the drive. So why don't you partition your 80 gig into 60 and 20 and install vista on the 20? that way you will know for sure that vista would run.

[Steve Soleimani]

Will this work on a Dell Dimension 2400 (or am I going to have 255,893,763,567,536,365 problems):

Specs (correct):

Intel®
Pentium® 4 CPU 2.66GHz
2.66 GHz, 512 MB of RAM

Also (I don't know if this is 100% correct):

Processor: Intel Celeron 2.4 GHz processor, 400Mhz FSB (100MHzx4)
Chipset: Intel 845GV chipset
Videocard: Integrated Intel Extreme graphics
Sound: Integrated Soundmax Sound
Memory: 256MB PC-2700 DDR memory (one module)

[bmwboy]

Will this work on a Dell Dimension 2400 (or am I going to have 255,893,763,567,536,365 problems):

Specs (correct):

Intel®
Pentium® 4 CPU 2.66GHz
2.66 GHz, 512 MB of RAM

Also (I don't know if this is 100% correct):

Processor: Intel Celeron 2.4 GHz processor, 400Mhz FSB (100MHzx4)
Chipset: Intel 845GV chipset
Videocard: Integrated Intel Extreme graphics
Sound: Integrated Soundmax Sound
Memory: 256MB PC-2700 DDR memory (one module)

1st computer: Maybe, but, if at all, extremely slow. It runs slightly slow on 1 gig of RAM.
2nd: No.

--bmwboy

[stix4jah]

I'm looking at keeping my system dual boot while I have Beta installed, anything special I have to do?

[recrec]

I would like some helpful advice on 'Dual Booting' XP (x86) and Vista (x86) using two seperate physical HDD. First: Will this senario create any problems with my original settings, and secondly which is the easiest and simplest root to go down? Thirdly: should I use a 'third party partition/boot manager, or just Windows disk or Vista's utilities?

[Lord of the View]

Ok. I have tried to find this information but have yet to locate the exact answer I am looking for. I have two hard drives. One is 40 gigs and the other is 250. They are both Western Digital SATA hard drives, though I don't know the model numbers off hand.

Both of these are connected to my ABIT AA8XE 3rd Eye motherboard. I would like to create a dual boot computer with XP Home on the 40 gig, which it is already installed on, and Vista Home Premium on the 250. Vista will be the default OS. The reason I want two OSs, is so that in case a program doesn't work in Vista, I can switch over to XP. Eventually, I will take XP off.

I purchased the Vista upgrade DVD from Amazon. How shall I install it? Should I unplug the 40 gig, install XP on the 250, then install the upgrade on that same drive? Then plug the XP drive back in? Since the XP drive is the C drive, would I need to switch it's configuration to the E drive or whatever? Please have your responces as detailed as possible because I am an idiot.

Thanks,
Chris

Edited by Lord of the View, 16 January 2007 - 02:40 AM.

[recrec]

Lord of the View QUOTE: Should I unplug the 40 gig, install XP on the 250, then install the upgrade on that same drive? Then plug the XP drive back in? Since the XP drive is the C drive, would I need to switch it's configuration to the E drive or whatever? Please have your responces as detailed as possible because I am an idiot.

If it's an upgrade you need to install over the correct XP version (see MS website for correct upgrade info), be aware though once you have done this there is no going back to your original XP install, because Vista has it's own 'Boot manager' called 'BCEDIT', gone is the NTLDR which XP uses. Vista also completeley re-orders your files, there is no going back! So the safest way is, to make sure you have a 'Ghost/backup' of your original system, also put another copy of virgin XP on another disk and use that for the upgrade, if you like. There are several ways you can do this: you can upgrade your original, or do a clean install, but remember keep a mirror copy somewhere; either on DVD or on a spare HDD.

This is the best way to do it, so follow this closely; you will need to open the box, and have a motherboard thats supports priority booting from the Bios:

As far as dual booting using two individual hard drives it's fairly simple. Assuming you've already got XP installed on one of them. The way I did my setup for Vista Beta 2 and RC1, I removed all hard drives from the computer (unplug the power clips, make them dead), and installed the target drive into the computer and fired it up. I had the DVD inserted into the drive and I let it go through the installation process.

Once it was done, I popped in the drive with the XP stuff on it, and fired the computer back up. I went into the BIOS, made sure the boot priority was set to go to the Vista drive. Rebooted, Vista loaded, detected the hard drive, rebooted again and it was ready for action.

Rebooted again, went into the BIOS, switched the boot priority to the XP drive and fired the box up - everything works fine.

I can copy or move files between the two drives without any issues - and I don't have to worry about any sort of residual, should I decide to never use Vista again. Doing it this way requires NO boot manager - other than what comes built into the motherboard's BIOS. All in all, it adds maybe an extra 15 to 30 seconds to the boot process when I want to switch.

Hope this helps! All the other methods (even mentioned by MS MVP's) are a bind, and take afair bit of computer know how. This method is the safest and proven, it will stop Vista or any other OP sys for that matter messing with your original installation and configuration/settings.

Edited by recrec, 18 January 2007 - 04:49 PM.

[Lord of the View]

Well, I want Vista to be the promary OS, so I should unplug my 40 gig, that has XP on it. This will leave my 250 gig on it ONLY. I install XP on it, then upgrade to Vista. THEN I plug the XP harddrive back in, but make sure that BIOS reads the 250 gig (Vista) before the 40 gig (XP).

Then, if I want to load XP, I would just change BIOS so that it reads the 40 drive before the 250?

In either case I should be able to read the other drive once in the OS?

My goal, is to install all of my programs on the 250. So that even if I am in XP, I can still read the 250 drive. Does this make sense?