Tek-Almighty September 8, 2007 Share Tek-Almighty Member September 8, 2007 WELL...the time is fast approaching for the Tek to build a new rig. Being an "eye-candy" geek, for inexplicable reasons...I am going to install Vista. It's been *almost and year, and SP1 is rumored to be coming out (see my other thread bout that), AND I really do want to enjoy DX10... BUT, I am not willing to go whole-hog and devote all my precious system and data to Vista. No...vista will only be there to play games, and that is it...at least until I am comfortable enough and we get to SP2... So a couple of scenarios to mull over...which do you tech guys think will work best (ahem, Cujo et al.) I will be buying an i680 class mobo and running either dual or quad core 2 duo.... I will probably buy at least 1 raptor 150gb. I currently have 2 x raptor 37gb and 1 raptor 74gb. Scenario 1 Install vista on on one 37gb raptor and XP on the other37gb raptor...plug both in to SATA 1 and 2 (I really don't like this option) Scenario 2 Install Vista on the 74gb raptor along with DX10 compatible games and install XP on 150gb raptor plug into SATA 1 and 2 and roll with that (seems like best option to me) Scenario 3 Buy 750gb seagate or WD and do 2 partitions, one for Vista, DX10 etc...and one for XP Now, I've never done dual boot before...and doing dual boot on 1 physical drive with 2 partitions is something that I know nothing about (no saying I can't learn, but...) It seems to me that on the occasions I will play DX10 games (bioshock, crysis, etc...) it would be easy enough to hid DEL key on POST go into BIOS and change boot... Has anyone done dual boot? What's your take on this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragonfly September 8, 2007 Share dragonfly Member September 8, 2007 I have and it gave me the option to select my OS when I did it on one disc (if I remember correctly). I needed win98 for protools free, and xp for everything else. I'd just put vista and XP on separate drives, but that's just me. I THINK xp is smaller than vista, so I'd put vista on the larger drive since you'll be using it for games that usually are around 5gb each. Scenario 4 Buy a WD 320gb for ~$70 and use as backup for your extra files (movie, music, whatever you dont always need access to) and also do scenario 2 but put vista on the 150 and xp on the 74. Why wouldnt you buy a p35 mobo? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tek-Almighty September 8, 2007 Author Share Tek-Almighty Member September 8, 2007 4th option is already sorta in play. I have 2 x 250gb that I use for all file storage. The only thing that stays on my compy's raptors are games and program files. All music, pics, video, documents, installers, downloads etc...are on a drive that is not OS drive. Safer that way. I think good idea to install on two separate physical drives...and putting vista on larger HDD makes sense. Anybody else? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragonfly September 8, 2007 Share dragonfly Member September 8, 2007 Didnt you get the memo? I'm your only friend! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZeroDamage September 9, 2007 Share ZeroDamage Member September 9, 2007 In the case of dual booting xp and vista, it is best to use a hard drive for each of the OS's. It is easier than going through the dual boot setup where you need to first have XP installed before Vista before it will even work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragonfly September 22, 2007 Share dragonfly Member September 22, 2007 FYI Tek, I've been running vista/xp for about a week now. I did one per HDD and it works just fine. It's a little bit of a hastle to go to bios and change HDD boot order, but it literally takes less than 20 seconds, so it's not bad. I just dont like the way UT feels with vista, so I cant play it in there. Piece of cake to install though. Runs great too. Thanks cujo for the Business 64bit recommendation, i love it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kruten September 22, 2007 Share Kruten Member September 22, 2007 I did one per HDD and it works just fine. It's a little bit of a hastle to go to bios and change HDD boot order, but it literally takes less than 20 seconds, so it's not bad. Boot Menu? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragonfly September 22, 2007 Share dragonfly Member September 22, 2007 I just change primary hdd's, there's an easier way? (little experience = very teachable ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
appalachian_fox September 22, 2007 Share appalachian_fox Member September 22, 2007 You could always pick up one of those hard drive switches. The Romtec Trios is the most famous but I don't think they make an SATA version. However, there's plenty of articles peppered over the Internet about how to make your own hard drive switch. Google can turn something up for you. The advantage here is both hard drives will be switched on the primary channel, so you can put a third HD on the secondary channel for media you want to share, etc. Of course, that's an extra hard drive to buy. And, of course, there's something to be said for an appropriately-configured boot loader. GRUB works very well for this sort of thing, it's well-documented and there's plenty of knowledgeable people out there who are willing to help you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragonfly September 22, 2007 Share dragonfly Member September 22, 2007 Heh, sounds like it's almost easier to stay with what I have and spend the full 20 seconds choosing the right HDD for boot priority. (little experience + university = lazy ) I'll probably look into it in my spare time though. Thanks for the direction point guys! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bushwack September 23, 2007 Share bushwack Member September 23, 2007 I have an older ECS K7S5A Socket A motherboard that has a boot menu on the startup screen. Pick your drive without going into the BIOS, would be great for multi boot systems. Any new motherboards out there that have this feature? When I upgrade and buy vista it would be nice to have this option. All you people making the jump to Vista, any reasons why? In reality I think it will be a while for me. Someone once told me it would be better for me to buy hardware for my computer then fix my car window since it was broke in the up position. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragonfly September 23, 2007 Share dragonfly Member September 23, 2007 1 - I wanted to. 2 - When I do want it for dx10.1 early 2008 I'll like that I already understand how vista operates. 3 - I wanted to. 4 - I wanted to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VooDooPC September 23, 2007 Share VooDooPC Member September 23, 2007 1 - I wanted to.2 - When I do want it for dx10.1 early 2008 I'll like that I already understand how vista operates. 3 - I wanted to. 4 - I wanted to. Those were my top four reasons as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
appalachian_fox September 24, 2007 Share appalachian_fox Member September 24, 2007 Heh, sounds like it's almost easier to stay with what I have and spend the full 20 seconds choosing the right HDD for boot priority. (little experience + university = lazy ) I'll probably look into it in my spare time though. Thanks for the direction point guys! Cool, as long as you aren't switching too often it's not like it's that big a deal, and it's certainly a neat, inexpensive and low-effort way of solving the problem. I looked in to the HD switches and while they are very easy to operate they also cost a good bit of money, so I cheerfully withdraw that solution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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