Re: Dual boot 32 and 64 bit vista

Hi,

> Can I put the 32 bit OS on the empty IDE drive, in it's own partition?

Yes. But the boot files (bootloader) will be located on the system drive.

> Even better, could I halve the primary IDE master partition, and put
> 32bit and 64 in separate partitions on the same drive?

Again, yes. But you don't mention how big the drive is. You want to have
lots of room to breathe here. Disk manager will allow you to shrink the
existing volume, creating space enough for a second one.

While installing the 32-bit version shouldn't munge the system, you can
recover by booting the Vista DVD and doing a startup repair, or by entering
the recovery environment if necessary.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

"phatnutz" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> As the subject implies, I'm considering runing the 64 bit and 32 bit
> versions of vista side by side.
>
> Some of my hardware isn't supported in 64 bit, but I'd like to have the
> OS up and running so that I can eventually switch over to run 64 bit
> only.
>
> Licensing isn't an issue, as I have a 64 bit oem license installed, and
> a friend has a retail 32 bit license that he will trade me for some
> hardware. I don't want to give up around 200 bucks worth of good
> equipment if I'm not going to be able to do this, so guidance or
> opinions are welcomed.
>
> Here's some hardware info:
>
> AMD Athlon64 6400+
> 2 gig corsair ram
> Asus k8u-x
> 2 IDE hdd's
> 2 SATA drives (RAID possible, but just in SATA mode for now - 64
> doesn't even recognize the controller!)
>
> and software related:
> Vista64 installed on primary ISE Master, siingle partition covering the
> entire drive
>
> Can I put the 32 bit OS on the empty IDE drive, in it's own partition?
> Even better, could I halve the primary IDE master partition, and put
> 32bit and 64 in separate partitions on the same drive?
>
> It'd be good If I could leave that primary slave IDE drive available
> for both installs, since the 64 bit doesn't see my SATA controller and
> I'd need that second IDE drive as a shared location that both installs
> could access (mostly for media).
>
> Also, if no one can help me with this, can someone at least let me know
> how I'd go about salvaging the current 64 bit install if I hosed the
> bootloader? Maybe I can back up the MBR and restore it somehow from a
> boot disk? I have a nice usb boot drive that is 1 gig, so I can load
> all kinds of apps on it if necessary, and access them all from the
> command line if I need to save myself from myself.
>
>
> --
> phatnutz