Dual Boot Vista and Windows 7

N

nnicko

New Member
Hi. I'm currently running Vista Ultimate 64 and wish to add Windows 7 Ultimate (clean install) and have dual-boot capability. Does it make a difference if I create a new partition on my current HD (250GB/140GB free) or if I add a second HD and put 7 on it? Is one method better than the other?

Thanks.
 

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hey , ive had no experience with two separate harddrives with two seperate os'es (one on each) but i can tell you in my opinion , creating a partition an using that for another os works well , like i said i cant vouch for two harddrives
 

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There is no real difference between having Windows installed on another partition or hard drive. Although the way hard drives are designed means that the second and any subsequent partition is slower than the previous (although I believe the difference is insignificant). Windows 7 should automatically detect vista and add it to the boot loader as appropriate allowing you to easy boot either operating system.
 

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Hello,

Both will work perfectly. However 140gb free may not be a huge amount depending on what you use it for. This will be fine, unless you KNOW it will not be fine (ie you know you use a lot of drive space, maybe you are a developer or graphics designer)

If you don't have a second hard disk, try a partition and see if it suits your needs. If you do have another hard disk, use it, unless that is your backup data drive or you have some other use for it.

Richard
 

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    Stock Dell 0TP406
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    Onboard
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    1 x Dell 2007FP and 1 x (old) Sonic flat screen
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    1 x 640Gb (SATA 300) Western Digital: WDC WD6400AAKS-75A7B0 1 x 1Tb (SATA 600) Western Digital: Caviar Black, SATA 6GB/S, 64Mb cache, 8ms Western Digital: WDC WD1002FAEX-00Z3A0 ATA Device
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