AMD Athalon 64 X2 Processor, 939 Socket: what to expect?

[Guest]

OK, I am currently downloading Vista RC-1 64 bit, I plan on doing a Fresh
Install of it on my C Drive, letting it format that partition (C is Partition
1 of that drive).

I have 2 physical internal EIDE hard drives and one external EIDE hard drive
installed in a USB2 drive case.

Internal Drive 0 has 2 partitions:
Primary: C Drive
Logical: E Drive

Internal Drive 1 has only one partition:
Primary (and only): D Drive

External Drive 2(USB2):
Primary (and only): F Drive

I have an AMD Athalon 64 X2 4400+ processor in a 939 Socket.
I have 2 Gig of PC 3200 DDR RAM

I am planning on Booting with the burned DVD and letting it format my C Drive.
If all goes well, I will be happy.

If it doesn't, will I be able to restore my C drive using my Norton Ghost
Boot CD and restoring my C drive with a Ghost Image?

Does Windows Vista RC-1 do ANYTHING to ANY of my other Drives?
My C drive is the primary partition of Drive 0 and I do NOT want Vista
to touch my other intrnal OR external drives.

Any feedback appreciated, Thanks..

 

[Terje Alexander Barth]

OK, I am currently downloading Vista RC-1 64 bit, I plan on doing a Fresh
Install of it on my C Drive, letting it format that partition (C is Partition
1 of that drive).

I have 2 physical internal EIDE hard drives and one external EIDE hard drive
installed in a USB2 drive case.

Internal Drive 0 has 2 partitions:
Primary: C Drive
Logical: E Drive

Internal Drive 1 has only one partition:
Primary (and only): D Drive

External Drive 2(USB2):
Primary (and only): F Drive

I have an AMD Athalon 64 X2 4400+ processor in a 939 Socket.
I have 2 Gig of PC 3200 DDR RAM

I am planning on Booting with the burned DVD and letting it format my C Drive.
If all goes well, I will be happy.

If it doesn't, will I be able to restore my C drive using my Norton Ghost
Boot CD and restoring my C drive with a Ghost Image?

Does Windows Vista RC-1 do ANYTHING to ANY of my other Drives?
My C drive is the primary partition of Drive 0 and I do NOT want Vista
to touch my other intrnal OR external drives.

Any feedback appreciated, Thanks..

The only problem I had with Vista RC2 installation was this.

Before installation:
My BOOT Drive was C:\ which had Windows XP 64 bit Edition.
Also REcovery Console installed.
My other OS was Windows XP 32bit on E:\
I chosed to install Vista on F:\.

After installation:
- Boot manager on C:\ replaced with Vistas.
- All partitions "re-branded" inside Vista
e.g. F: => C:, C: => D:..
- C:\ XP-64bit installation corrupt.
- C:\ Recovery Console broken

After spending a lot of time fixing the XP installation
I can still boot from C:\ (HD0, Partition 0) and XP64 is C:\.

So in short: Vista changes the boot partition, your other drives
should be safe.

You should disable "System Protection" in Vista for the drives
where you have other operating systems installed.

 

[Guest]

If I were you I would install Vista on a spare hard drive before destroying
your present OS.I think Vista RC1 is slower than XP many programs and
hardware will not install.Looks like a Ferrari,runs like a Skoda(apologies to
Skoda)

 

[Guest]

Can you tell me what you mean by "turn off system protection"?

 

[Guest]

OK, thanks for the replies. New, updated question:

I really don't want to change (or loose) any of the info on my other hard
drives, those being my D,E,and F drives. I want to let the DVD boot and
format my C drive.

Then, if after, I have problems I can restore my C drive using a Ghost Image
(which is stored on my external F drive).

To play it safe, I may just un-plug the external (USB2) hard drive.

1) Will the Vista 64 bit RC1 do anything to E drive (Drive 0, partition 2),
Vista will be formatting Dive 0 Partition 1 C Drive?
2) Will Vista be changing anything on my other drive(s), internal Drive 1 or
external Drive 2?
3) After I'm done testing Vista, will I be able to restore my original C
drive back
to Drive 0, partition 1 using a Ghost image and my Ghost boot CD?

Thanks for any replies...

 

[Guest]

Keep it simple and you will be alot happier. you have a very powerful system,
and i am sure it is running very fast. but dont expect vista to run as good.
since you have two HDD i would install vista to one of the drives and keep XP
and Vista separate. i can tell you how to do it or give you a link if you are
interested. you can expect Vista run with no real issues.

if you have time and want to see what it may be like try the 32bit version
of Vista in MS Virtual PC 2007 BETA (find at microsoft downloads site) or you
can try VMWare Work station -- the 64bit version may work in VM Ware but it
will not in MS Virtual PC.

i would NOT install Vista on top of XP or put them in a dual boot setup. i
would install vista all by it self into the other drive and keep the XP drive
bootable.

Dual Booting: installing more than OS on the SAME drive, which contains ONE
Master Boot Record.

if you install Vista with the XP drive still attached Vista will delete the
MBR from the XP drive and will rely on Vista to boot XP. if the Vista drive
craps out or Vista craps out you end up with TWO unusable OS's. and if you
decide to go back to XP you will then not only have to delete Vista but also
re-install the MBR to make XP bootable again.

 

[Terje Alexander Barth]

if you install Vista with the XP drive still attached Vista will delete the
MBR from the XP drive and will rely on Vista to boot XP. if the Vista drive
craps out or Vista craps out you end up with TWO unusable OS's. and if you
decide to go back to XP you will then not only have to delete Vista but also
re-install the MBR to make XP bootable again.

Should add that you can use the XP install CD and the recovery console
to fix the MBR should Vistas boot loader decide to fail.

"fixmbr" and/or "fixboot" are your friends.
"bootcfg" as well.

 

[Roberto Baggio]

If it doesn't, will I be able to restore my C drive using my Norton Ghost
Boot CD and restoring my C drive with a Ghost Image?

If you can restore before installing Vista, you will be able to restore
after installing Vista.

Does Windows Vista RC-1 do ANYTHING to ANY of my other Drives?
My C drive is the primary partition of Drive 0 and I do NOT want Vista
to touch my other intrnal OR external drives.

I had WinXP 32 and 64 bit installed. I've now installed Vista 32 and 64
bit. All 4 operating systems co-exist perfectly. Only thing with
installing Vista on my system is that the Vista system drive wants to be C:,
so the drive lettering, when viewed from Vista, will is different than when
viewed from WinXP. Fortunately this isn't an issue for me.