I have a similar system to yours, with the AMD AM2 5200+, same ram as PC2
6400, Asus Crosshair mb, two WD 150G Raptor's in striped RAID, two WD 250G
SATA, one 250G IDE HD, Asus EN8800 video, etc.

I bought Vista Ultimate for the 64bit functionality, and installed that to
the RAID array while XP Pro remained on the IDE drive. After a few
months of disappointment in incompatibility of applications available I
installed the 32 bit version to one of the 250G SATAs. I ran both versions
for two weeks while waiting for 64bit drivers to be made available by
various manufactures, then unplugged the RAID drives, holding the install
for a SP2 update. Will try 64bit updates then, again, and choose one to
keep. No noted conflict between the three OS drives.

The IDE drive seems to remain the controlling boot partition, but the latest
32 bit install is the default boot partition. All others were an
alternative choice during each bootup sequence. I cannot help regarding
the multiple OSs on multiple partitions on same drive question. I have
read it is not a good choice in groups, and it makes since to me to keep
them separate to protect at least one OS from a HD failure.

I hope someone with true tech knowledge will also reply.

Greybeard


"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

Greybeard - I undrestand it is not "good procedure" to piggyback on
another's post - may get better response by doing your own post.

"Greybeard" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:ZduUh.2830$nU4.2338@trnddc03...
>I have a similar system to yours, with the AMD AM2 5200+, same ram as PC2
>6400, Asus Crosshair mb, two WD 150G Raptor's in striped RAID, two WD 250G
>SATA, one 250G IDE HD, Asus EN8800 video, etc.
>
> I bought Vista Ultimate for the 64bit functionality, and installed that to
> the RAID array while XP Pro remained on the IDE drive. After a few
> months of disappointment in incompatibility of applications available I
> installed the 32 bit version to one of the 250G SATAs. I ran both
> versions for two weeks while waiting for 64bit drivers to be made
> available by various manufactures, then unplugged the RAID drives, holding
> the install for a SP2 update. Will try 64bit updates then, again, and
> choose one to keep. No noted conflict between the three OS drives.
>
> The IDE drive seems to remain the controlling boot partition, but the
> latest 32 bit install is the default boot partition. All others were an
> alternative choice during each bootup sequence. I cannot help
> regarding the multiple OSs on multiple partitions on same drive question.
> I have read it is not a good choice in groups, and it makes since to me to
> keep them separate to protect at least one OS from a HD failure.
>
> I hope someone with true tech knowledge will also reply.
>
> Greybeard
>
>
> "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
>
>