Vista install on SATA

[Guest]

I have XP running on my IDE drive, I am adding two SATA drives. Can I
install Vista on the SATA as boot (as initial install) and leave the XP where
it is? If so please explain.

SATA's are 250 gig each AMD 32 bit processor Athlon 2800 1 gig dual channel
ram

 

[Kerry Brown]

Yes it can be done. How depends on your SATA controller. Will the SATA
drives be setup as a RAID array? Can your BIOS be set to boot from one of
the SATA drives?

 

[John Barnes]

Make sure the SATA is first in boot priority or you will turn your IDE into
a Vista boot drive. A little more trouble, but safest if you want to
uninstall later, is to disconnect your IDE drive, install Vista and follow
my posts elsewhere to add XP back to the Vista boot process.
See other posts about drive letters, etc.

 

[Guest]

Yes it is a bootable (invida) was going to do the banding thing using the 2
drives for speed.

 

[Guest]

Will look for your post. I was thinking about removing the IDE during the
Vista install. Thanks.

 

[John Barnes]

Worked great for me and the utility Colin has recommended works for
modifying the BCD to add back the boot.ini access after the files have been
copied.

 

[Kerry Brown]

I highly recommend you don't do the "banding thing" (RAID 0?). Unless you
have a very expensive controller (not the onboard nVidia one) the speed
gains for normal use are negligible and you greatly increase your chances of
data loss. In addition you will make the Vista install more likely to fail.
You will need to install the RAID controller drivers during the Vista
install. I don't want to sound condescending but from your posts it sounds
like you don't understand much about RAID, hard drive controllers, and
installing drivers. If I am wrong I apologise in advance. I recommend you
keep the configuration as simple as possible. Your best chance for a good
install would be to connect only one SATA drive and a DVD drive. Make sure
the BIOS is set to boot from the DVD drive first then the SATA drive. Also
make sure RAID is disabled in the BIOS. Install Vista. Once Vista is
installed and you can boot into it you can then re-connect the other drives.
When you want to boot to XP you will have to set the BIOS to boot from the
XP drive and vice versa for Vista. This is the safest way to protect your XP
installation. Personally I wouldn't even have the XP drive hooked up when
using Vista unless you have a current backup and know how to restore it.

 

[Guest]

I am a greenhorn when it comes to SATA. I have been getting confusing info
locally on the banding issue. I had my doubts. I will install this
afternoon and cross everthing possible and see what happens/

thanks

art

 

[Leadfoot]

I have XP running on my IDE drive, I am adding two SATA drives. Can I
install Vista on the SATA as boot (as initial install) and leave the XP
where
it is? If so please explain.

SATA's are 250 gig each AMD 32 bit processor Athlon 2800 1 gig dual
channel
ram

I have my Primary OS on one sata drive on an Nforce 4 board (ASUS A8N-SLI
deluxe) and vista on another sata drive

I use the Motherboard bios to select which drive to boot from. If you have
your drives named the Vista installer will show each named drive during
installation and allow you to pick which one to install on.

My take is that this is the best way to do this as it avoids any interaction
between the Vista and XP

 

[Kerry Brown]

Good luck. Let us know how you make out.

 

[wgd]

When you want to boot to XP you will have to set the BIOS to boot from the
XP drive and vice versa for Vista. This is the safest way to protect your XP
installation. Personally I wouldn't even have the XP drive hooked up when
using Vista unless you have a current backup and know how to restore it.

I completely agree with your last statement. That is really excellent
advice. I wouldn't have the XP drive powered up either unless I had a
current Ghost image backup of the entire XP partition.

If Vista has access to a drive it will in all probability write a least a
few files to it. Perhaps for the automatic indexing or something else. If
Vista crashes while writing these files to the XP drive it could
potentially cause problems. Not a major issue to worry about, but
certainly something to consider.