Installing Vista in two hard drives

D

Deviatorz

Member
I recently purchased a SSD since my HDD just painfully slow. However, I was wondering since I have the recovery CD for vista, can I install vista onto my new SSD and also use my vista on the old HDD? In other words, interchange hard drives? both will have the same OEM CD key and since that CD KEY is linked to the motherboard, shouldn't it be ok? This is different from duel booting since its the same key.

If you're wondering why I'm doing this the new SSD doesn't have as much space as the HDD so I want to keep there.
 

My Computer

System One

Deviatorz said:
I recently purchased a SSD since my HDD just painfully slow. However, I was wondering since I have the recovery CD for vista, can I install vista onto my new SSD and also use my vista on the old HDD? In other words, interchange hard drives? both will have the same OEM CD key and since that CD KEY is linked to the motherboard, shouldn't it be ok? This is different from duel booting since its the same key.

If you're wondering why I'm doing this the new SSD doesn't have as much space as the HDD so I want to keep there.
Click to expand...

Hello Deviatorz and welcome to the forums :party:

I'm afraid this isn't possible, you'll have to wipe both drivers and do a clean install of Vista onto your SSD. Then when you come to install your programs, you have to specify them to install to your HDD. If you do what you planned to do, with your current set up, Windows won't know where your programs have gone. Sorry, I know it's a pain, but at least you'll get the benefit of the lightning fast boot times SSDs promise :)

Tom
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Build #1
    CPU
    Intel Core i7 3770K @4.4GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS P8Z77-V PRO
    Memory
    Corsair Vengeance 2x4GB DDR3 1600MHz Low Profile (White)
    Graphics card(s)
    Gigabyte Radeon HD 7850 (2GB GDDR5)
    Sound Card
    Integrated on motherboard
    Monitor(s) Displays
    23" LG LCD/LED IPS
    Screen Resolution
    1920*1080
    Hard Drives
    Samsung EVO 128GB SSD Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200rpm 2x500GB Seagate FreeAgent 5400rpm
    PSU
    Corsair TX650W V2 (80+ Bronze)
    Case
    NZXT Phantom 410
    Cooling
    Corsair H100 Water Cooler, 1x140mm and 1x120mm stock fans
    Mouse
    Microsoft Desktop 2000 Wireless Mouse
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Good morning Tom982- I have the same OEM copy of Vista on two different hard drives which are installed in the same computer. In fact, I have two copies on one hard drive (different partitions) and all three are bootable.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Operating System
    Vista Home Premium 64 bit SP2
    Manufacturer/Model
    Cyberpower
    CPU
    Intel Quad CPU Q6700 2.67 GHZ
    Motherboard
    NVIDIA 780i
    Memory
    4 GB
    Graphics card(s)
    MSI GTX 560 TI Twin Frozr
    Sound Card
    Sound Blaster SB Audigy
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Viewsonic VG2436
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080p
    Hard Drives
    Samsung HD 105SI WDC WD20
    Case
    Apevia XJupiter
    Cooling
    air
    Mouse
    Logitech MX 600
    Keyboard
    Logitech MX 3200
    Internet Speed
    30 Mbps
wither 3 said:
Good morning Tom982- I have the same OEM copy of Vista on two different hard drives which are installed in the same computer. In fact, I have two copies on one hard drive (different partitions) and all three are bootable.
Click to expand...

Oops, I completely misunderstood the OP's question :o Thanks for correcting me!
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Build #1
    CPU
    Intel Core i7 3770K @4.4GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS P8Z77-V PRO
    Memory
    Corsair Vengeance 2x4GB DDR3 1600MHz Low Profile (White)
    Graphics card(s)
    Gigabyte Radeon HD 7850 (2GB GDDR5)
    Sound Card
    Integrated on motherboard
    Monitor(s) Displays
    23" LG LCD/LED IPS
    Screen Resolution
    1920*1080
    Hard Drives
    Samsung EVO 128GB SSD Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200rpm 2x500GB Seagate FreeAgent 5400rpm
    PSU
    Corsair TX650W V2 (80+ Bronze)
    Case
    NZXT Phantom 410
    Cooling
    Corsair H100 Water Cooler, 1x140mm and 1x120mm stock fans
    Mouse
    Microsoft Desktop 2000 Wireless Mouse
    Keyboard
    Microsoft Desktop 2000 Wireless Keyboard
    Internet Speed
    95 Mb/s Download 70 Mb/s Upload
I hope he see's the change.

What's a BURG? I see you're dual booted with BURG.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Operating System
    Vista Home Premium 64 bit SP2
    Manufacturer/Model
    Cyberpower
    CPU
    Intel Quad CPU Q6700 2.67 GHZ
    Motherboard
    NVIDIA 780i
    Memory
    4 GB
    Graphics card(s)
    MSI GTX 560 TI Twin Frozr
    Sound Card
    Sound Blaster SB Audigy
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Viewsonic VG2436
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080p
    Hard Drives
    Samsung HD 105SI WDC WD20
    Case
    Apevia XJupiter
    Cooling
    air
    Mouse
    Logitech MX 600
    Keyboard
    Logitech MX 3200
    Internet Speed
    30 Mbps
wither 3 said:
I hope he see's the change.

What's a BURG? I see you're dual booted with BURG.
Click to expand...

Because I'm dual booted, I needed to configure a bootloader. When I installed Linux, it replaced the Windows one with GRUB, which looks like this:

GRUB.jpg


But it isn't the nicest of interfaces, so I replaced it with BURG (grub backwards, and also stands for Brand-new Universal loadeR from GRUB) which is a graphical bootloader. It is completely customisable with themes and mine looks vaguely like the one below:

os_logo.png
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Build #1
    CPU
    Intel Core i7 3770K @4.4GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS P8Z77-V PRO
    Memory
    Corsair Vengeance 2x4GB DDR3 1600MHz Low Profile (White)
    Graphics card(s)
    Gigabyte Radeon HD 7850 (2GB GDDR5)
    Sound Card
    Integrated on motherboard
    Monitor(s) Displays
    23" LG LCD/LED IPS
    Screen Resolution
    1920*1080
    Hard Drives
    Samsung EVO 128GB SSD Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200rpm 2x500GB Seagate FreeAgent 5400rpm
    PSU
    Corsair TX650W V2 (80+ Bronze)
    Case
    NZXT Phantom 410
    Cooling
    Corsair H100 Water Cooler, 1x140mm and 1x120mm stock fans
    Mouse
    Microsoft Desktop 2000 Wireless Mouse
    Keyboard
    Microsoft Desktop 2000 Wireless Keyboard
    Internet Speed
    95 Mb/s Download 70 Mb/s Upload
I see.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Operating System
    Vista Home Premium 64 bit SP2
    Manufacturer/Model
    Cyberpower
    CPU
    Intel Quad CPU Q6700 2.67 GHZ
    Motherboard
    NVIDIA 780i
    Memory
    4 GB
    Graphics card(s)
    MSI GTX 560 TI Twin Frozr
    Sound Card
    Sound Blaster SB Audigy
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Viewsonic VG2436
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080p
    Hard Drives
    Samsung HD 105SI WDC WD20
    Case
    Apevia XJupiter
    Cooling
    air
    Mouse
    Logitech MX 600
    Keyboard
    Logitech MX 3200
    Internet Speed
    30 Mbps
Nice! Is BURG pretty easy to install?
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    HP Pavillion dv5t
    CPU
    Intel Core Duo 2.53GHz
    Memory
    4Gb
    Graphics card(s)
    NVidia GeForce 9600M GT 512Mb
    Screen Resolution
    1280x800 32bit
    Hard Drives
    Seagate Momentus XT 500Gb Hitachi Travelstar HTS543225L9A300 250Gb
    Mouse
    Microsoft 4000
Yeah, it's not too bad, there's plenty of tutorials around on how to replace GRUB with BURG, like these:

Change Ubuntu GURB Loader Using BURG - Sharing my mind - Just panoet here

How To Customize The GRUB Boot Loader Using BURG [Ubuntu]

But I have to say, on my first attempt, I did manage to end up with no bootloader! This is a right pain to fix this though, you can't use the startup repair in Windows because it'll write the Windows bootloader to the disk and you won't get the choice to boot into Ubuntu to reinstall GRUB. Instead, you've got to boot from the live CD and specify it to install GRUB to the disk, then install BURG afterwards. I can't remember the exact tutorial that I followed, but it was very similar to this:

Reinstall grub2 from LiveCD - Linux Mint Community

I believe you can also reinstall GRUB from a SuperGrub disk:

http://www.supergrubdisk.org/

Tom
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Build #1
    CPU
    Intel Core i7 3770K @4.4GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS P8Z77-V PRO
    Memory
    Corsair Vengeance 2x4GB DDR3 1600MHz Low Profile (White)
    Graphics card(s)
    Gigabyte Radeon HD 7850 (2GB GDDR5)
    Sound Card
    Integrated on motherboard
    Monitor(s) Displays
    23" LG LCD/LED IPS
    Screen Resolution
    1920*1080
    Hard Drives
    Samsung EVO 128GB SSD Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200rpm 2x500GB Seagate FreeAgent 5400rpm
    PSU
    Corsair TX650W V2 (80+ Bronze)
    Case
    NZXT Phantom 410
    Cooling
    Corsair H100 Water Cooler, 1x140mm and 1x120mm stock fans
    Mouse
    Microsoft Desktop 2000 Wireless Mouse
    Keyboard
    Microsoft Desktop 2000 Wireless Keyboard
    Internet Speed
    95 Mb/s Download 70 Mb/s Upload
Thanks, Tom. I have the Windows boot loader installed right now. So, is going from the default to BURG fairly painless then? Is the program footprint rather small?
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    HP Pavillion dv5t
    CPU
    Intel Core Duo 2.53GHz
    Memory
    4Gb
    Graphics card(s)
    NVidia GeForce 9600M GT 512Mb
    Screen Resolution
    1280x800 32bit
    Hard Drives
    Seagate Momentus XT 500Gb Hitachi Travelstar HTS543225L9A300 250Gb
    Mouse
    Microsoft 4000
Cytherian said:
Thanks, Tom. I have the Windows boot loader installed right now. So, is going from the default to BURG fairly painless then? Is the program footprint rather small?
Click to expand...

No problem, glad I could help :) What are you dual booting Windows with? I can't remember the exact file size of BURG, but it's not big at all, so you won't have any problems regarding disk space.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Build #1
    CPU
    Intel Core i7 3770K @4.4GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS P8Z77-V PRO
    Memory
    Corsair Vengeance 2x4GB DDR3 1600MHz Low Profile (White)
    Graphics card(s)
    Gigabyte Radeon HD 7850 (2GB GDDR5)
    Sound Card
    Integrated on motherboard
    Monitor(s) Displays
    23" LG LCD/LED IPS
    Screen Resolution
    1920*1080
    Hard Drives
    Samsung EVO 128GB SSD Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200rpm 2x500GB Seagate FreeAgent 5400rpm
    PSU
    Corsair TX650W V2 (80+ Bronze)
    Case
    NZXT Phantom 410
    Cooling
    Corsair H100 Water Cooler, 1x140mm and 1x120mm stock fans
    Mouse
    Microsoft Desktop 2000 Wireless Mouse
    Keyboard
    Microsoft Desktop 2000 Wireless Keyboard
    Internet Speed
    95 Mb/s Download 70 Mb/s Upload
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