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XP/Vista dual hard drive question

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My first post here, and I've got a question. I've gone ahead and done a search and couldn't find the info I am looking for. I know a pretty good amount about computers, I'm just not sure how easy this would be for us.

At my work (small company) we are going to get a new computer that most likely will have Vista on it to replace one our computers with XP. I am wondering if we could pull the hard drive out of our XP computer, and put it in our new computer and still be able to boot off of it and use the software that is installed on it, and if it would be easy to switch between drives (if needed)

Thanks!

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Yes, this should be OK. After startup, you will get an option screen to choose which OS to go with, Vista or XP. If you don't choose, it defaults after 30 seconds to the machine's choice!

I think you could probably set all this up in the BIOS.

Good Luck :) 

So it would pretty much be a pull the drive out of the old computer, either replace the drive in the new computer with it (might be a whole new can of worms), or put the old computer's drive in a different bay and get to work?

Would we need to re-install programs (we have all the disks & passwords), or should they work normally?

The computer will only have 3-4 different programs we would need to re-install if we have too which won't be too bad.

31computers, I think you read his post wrong.
You can run into probs with the HD switch. What's your specs. You definatly can't do this if one machine has an Intel and the other AMD. 31computers is right if your dual booting with two hard drives that both versions of windows were installed for that comp.
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Yes, bruce555 is correct in the way we are looking at swapping drives.

I believe the computer we are looking at has an Intel processor, I know the current one does.

Old computer is a Pentium 4 488 (I think its a 488) processor with 512 megs of RAM.

I guess the easier question is how tough is it to network XP/Vista? That is the main reason for wanting to change drives. If the networking would flow smoothly, then we would just copy the drive using PCMover or a program like that.

Quote:
31computers, I think you read his post wrong.
You can run into probs with the HD switch. What's your specs. You definatly can't do this if one machine has an Intel and the other AMD. 31computers is right if your dual booting with two hard drives that both versions of windows were installed for that comp.


Thanks bruce555, you are right. He needs to supply more info doesn't he!

The XP drive may or may not work, depending on the drivers installed, as these are for the old computer's components. If your motherboard's chipset is similar it may boot up and allow you to uninstall the old drivers and put in the relevant ones for the new machinery, and use it as before, though a fresh install would still be best.
You can alter the boot.ini file in the drive that currently boots to make it aware of the other OS drive as an option at bootup if the drive is functional in the new machine.

Quote:
The XP drive may or may not work, depending on the drivers installed, as these are for the old computer's components. If your motherboard's chipset is similar it may boot up and allow you to uninstall the old drivers and put in the relevant ones for the new machinery, and use it as before, though a fresh install would still be best.
You can alter the boot.ini file in the drive that currently boots to make it aware of the other OS drive as an option at bootup if the drive is functional in the new machine.


Well sounds like we're gonna waiting a while to get a new computer anyway, since I just found out one of the programs we are using won't run on Vista until the next release comes out in the next few months :( 

Thanks for all the replies in helping me figure this out. I haven't messed with dual OSes before :) 
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