Technical install question

Here's my plan.
XP on single SATA drive C. Buy new SATA drive. Disconnect XP drive
and connect new unformated drive. Boot from Ultimate CD then format
and install Vista. Reconnect XP drive, reboot. Now I think vista
will see the XP drive and assign it a letter behind the DVD drives
giving me access to all of my data on the XP drive. Are there holes
in my plan? If not then the BIG question is:

If I run into a deal breaker for Vista can I then disconnect the Vista
drive and boot back into XP and forget the whole thing or will Vista,
upon the first mount of the XP driv, see that it is a bootable drive
and write to the boot sector making the XP drive now unbootable?

Thanks

That would work. It won't add it to the boot menu and screw up the boot
sector. And yes, if you don't like Vista, you can just take the Vista
drive out and have only XP.

Dustin Harper
dharper@vistarip.com
http://www.vistarip.com



M. W. Maddocks wrote:
> Here's my plan.
> XP on single SATA drive C. Buy new SATA drive. Disconnect XP drive
> and connect new unformated drive. Boot from Ultimate CD then format
> and install Vista. Reconnect XP drive, reboot. Now I think vista
> will see the XP drive and assign it a letter behind the DVD drives
> giving me access to all of my data on the XP drive. Are there holes
> in my plan? If not then the BIG question is:
>
> If I run into a deal breaker for Vista can I then disconnect the Vista
> drive and boot back into XP and forget the whole thing or will Vista,
> upon the first mount of the XP driv, see that it is a bootable drive
> and write to the boot sector making the XP drive now unbootable?
>
> Thanks
>

On Sun, 04 Feb 2007 10:44:49 -0800, Dustin Harper
<dharper@vistarip.com> wrote:

>That would work. It won't add it to the boot menu and screw up the boot
>sector. And yes, if you don't like Vista, you can just take the Vista
>drive out and have only XP.
>
>Dustin Harper
>dharper@vistarip.com
>http://www.vistarip.com
>
>
Thanks! That makes me feel better.

Maddie

Eat, drink and make merry
for tomorrow may never come.
-Fighter pilots credo-

To add to that..some BIOS have settings that when enabled will give you the
option of which drive to boot from upon starting the system.My Asrock mobo
has this and enabled it basically says to boot from WD push F10 to boot from
Seagate push F9.
See if yours does.Because you will get a little tired of switching HD every
time you wish to boot from a different OS or enetering the BIOS to switch
boot order
peter
"M. W. Maddocks" <mmaddocks@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
news:dobcs2tb9a7pnaum8ec76vlnmmoialuos6@4ax.com...
> On Sun, 04 Feb 2007 10:44:49 -0800, Dustin Harper
> <dharper@vistarip.com> wrote:
>
>>That would work. It won't add it to the boot menu and screw up the boot
>>sector. And yes, if you don't like Vista, you can just take the Vista
>>drive out and have only XP.
>>
>>Dustin Harper
>>dharper@vistarip.com
>>http://www.vistarip.com
>>
>>
> Thanks! That makes me feel better.
>
> Maddie
>
> Eat, drink and make merry
> for tomorrow may never come.
> -Fighter pilots credo-

Has anyone tried importing files/settings into Vista after this scenario
occurs? I'm curious because it is close to what I'll be doing. I want
to know if this will work, having the XP hdd being looked at 'like'
another machine.
Thanks
Warren


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