Computer Shuts Down While Installing XP on second HDD on laptop

[Bobby63]

I have a Dell Studio 1735 laptop 17 inch that came with Vista Home Premium. I updated Vista to Win 7 Ultimate with no problem. The PC came with 320gb sata 2.5 HDD and 4gb of ram. I put another 320gb sata 2.5 HDD so I could install win xp pro OS on the second HDD. The computer is reading both drives in Computer and Bios. While trying to install win xp pro I get an error message, Quote: The computer is shutting down to prevent it from being damage. The new HDD has being formatted and install correctly. Where the first HDD is in C:, the second HDD is in F:. Question: Is it possible to have two operating systems on two different HDD on one laptop. I don't want to partition the first HDD and put 2 OS on one HDD and when I boot, will I have a choice on which Operating System I want to work with? HELP!

 

[tsnor]

1. many people downgraded Vista to XP when vista first came out. See if Dell had instructions on installing XP. This sounds like a driver issue.
2. Win7 has good compatibility. Why the XP install ?
3. Since you have win7 Ultimate, consider running win7 XP mode. I think this is a full copy of XP launched by win7 but I've never run it. here is a link: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/install-and-use-windows-xp-mode-in-windows-7