Novice HDD..er, need help creating a dual boot

Hi, i am a complete nivice when it comes to harddrives, and i need to create a dual boot system off two seperate drives. Ive got my 500gb seagate with vista 64 on it currently, and i want that to be the primary (if that exists)
and i ve got a new 250gb i want to install XP 32bit on.
I have no idea how to configure the drives to dual boot, is it as simple as just taking out the 500gb and putting in the 250gb on a fresh start with XP, then just connecting the other up??

dont want to screw it up too much

Help is appreciated!!

Not really sure, i know xp's MBR and Vistas are completely different, so you might have trouble there. Like had vista preinstalled and upgraded to dual boot xp it couldnt even find vista... so have fun good luck..

Simple and easy
Disconnect Vista HDD, Install 2nd HDD into the 2nd SATA port and install XP. After install simply reattach your vista HDD.

Then use the option at bootup which hard drive to boot in to (F12 on my system). No messy boot manager to screw system up!

NOTE Drive letter will change. If boot to visa that drive will be C: and XP Disk will be D: and visa-versa if boot to XP. See my config - that is what I do On my system Boot drive is always C: As I have partions/logical drives on both HDD my drive letters all swap - BUT NO problem.

Using a boot manager, You normally have to reboot to switch operating systems anyway. And You DO NOT have to go into Bios to change which disk to boot from each time. In Bios you set the 1st boot drive which becomes the default. Hitting F12 just brings up a menu asking which device you want to boot from This time.

I use one operating system predominately, I turm my system on and walk away (go get a cup of coffee) come back and I'm in my operating system. If I want to boot to the other operating system simply hit F12 and select. AT LESS I don't have to worry that I'm may clobber on MBR and that may screw up up booting to the other system, and it removes one software level - which I like