Running XP and Vista on One Laptop

Our computer Club has an aging Sony Vaio laptop with XP Pro.After Windows
Vista is released on January 30, 2007, we will face a dilemma. At some
point, users will be moving toward Vista but many will stick with XP and we
have the obligation to present the old and the new OSs to the membership.

We can either buy a new Premium Ready lzptop with an upgrade coupon or buy a
new laptop with Vista preinstalled. The latter will be more expensive and we
have a limited budget.
My plan is to load the XP and Vista OSs on separate hard drives and swap
them out as reuired. I would remove the screws to the hard drive panel and
swap them if I could find a compatible caddy or frame such as exists in
desktop models which have removable drives.

Do you agree with this or do you foresee major problem? . I would appreciate
any comments. Happy New Year.

Barry

"Barry" <> wrote in message
news:7OqdnaYbI-...
> Our computer Club has an aging Sony Vaio laptop with XP Pro.After Windows
> Vista is released on January 30, 2007, we will face a dilemma. At some
> point, users will be moving toward Vista but many will stick with XP and
> we
> have the obligation to present the old and the new OSs to the membership.
>
> We can either buy a new Premium Ready lzptop with an upgrade coupon or buy
> a
> new laptop with Vista preinstalled. The latter will be more expensive and
> we
> have a limited budget.
> My plan is to load the XP and Vista OSs on separate hard drives and swap
> them out as reuired. I would remove the screws to the hard drive panel and
> swap them if I could find a compatible caddy or frame such as exists in
> desktop models which have removable drives.
>
> Do you agree with this or do you foresee major problem? . I would
> appreciate
> any comments. Happy New Year.
>
> Barry
>
>
If you are going to purchase a new laptop that supports Vista but still want
XP available on a separate drive one option is to use an external USB drive.

Just make sure that the new machine has the BIOS option to boot from a USB
device. That way you just have to drop to BIOS, change the boot device, and
plug in the USB drive and finish the boot. No need to physically swap out
the drives in the laptop.

On Sun, 31 Dec 2006 00:38:07 -0500, "Barry" <> wrote:

>Our computer Club has an aging Sony Vaio laptop with XP Pro.After Windows
>Vista is released on January 30, 2007, we will face a dilemma. At some
>point, users will be moving toward Vista but many will stick with XP and we
>have the obligation to present the old and the new OSs to the membership.
>
>We can either buy a new Premium Ready lzptop with an upgrade coupon or buy a
>new laptop with Vista preinstalled. The latter will be more expensive and we
>have a limited budget.
>My plan is to load the XP and Vista OSs on separate hard drives and swap
>them out as reuired. I would remove the screws to the hard drive panel and
>swap them if I could find a compatible caddy or frame such as exists in
>desktop models which have removable drives.
>
>Do you agree with this or do you foresee major problem? . I would appreciate
>any comments. Happy New Year.
>
>Barry
>
>
>

You could partition the laptop, install XP first, the install Visa on
the second partition.
No swapping drives, a USB is really not large enough for either
system. Just splurge a little on a larger HD for the laptop.

samurai.

>>
>>
> If you are going to purchase a new laptop that supports Vista but still want
> XP available on a separate drive one option is to use an external USB drive.
>
> Just make sure that the new machine has the BIOS option to boot from a USB
> device. That way you just have to drop to BIOS, change the boot device, and
> plug in the USB drive and finish the boot. No need to physically swap out
> the drives in the laptop.


Yeah Barry I was told the exact same thing as above by an old
geezer at Comp/USA few days ago. Go to cmos and set the "boot" to
which ever usb drive your gonna use
Joe

Good advice samurai, but if the laptop goes it takes out both OSs. If I have
a the OS stored on another drive then I can abe upo and running. Any ideas?
Happy 2007 everyone! Barry
"samurai" <> wrote in message
news:...
>
> On Sun, 31 Dec 2006 00:38:07 -0500, "Barry" <> wrote:
>
>>Our computer Club has an aging Sony Vaio laptop with XP Pro.After Windows
>>Vista is released on January 30, 2007, we will face a dilemma. At some
>>point, users will be moving toward Vista but many will stick with XP and
>>we
>>have the obligation to present the old and the new OSs to the membership.
>>
>>We can either buy a new Premium Ready lzptop with an upgrade coupon or buy
>>a
>>new laptop with Vista preinstalled. The latter will be more expensive and
>>we
>>have a limited budget.
>>My plan is to load the XP and Vista OSs on separate hard drives and swap
>>them out as reuired. I would remove the screws to the hard drive panel and
>>swap them if I could find a compatible caddy or frame such as exists in
>>desktop models which have removable drives.
>>
>>Do you agree with this or do you foresee major problems? . I would
>>appreciate
>>any comments. Happy New Year.
>>
>>Barry
>>
>>
>>
>
> You could partition the laptop, install XP first, the install Visa on
> the second partition.
> No swapping drives, a USB is really not large enough for either
> system. Just splurge a little on a larger HD for the laptop.
>
> samurai.

I think you are asking for mechanical problems, damaged connectors, etc.
going as you suggest with frequent drive changes. It is possible to
dual boot XP and Vista on the same drive, although there are some issues
(XP's system restore won't work being the major one). You could also
use an external USB drive. If you go that route, I'd still recommend
that you don't change the plug at the computer, but rather at the drive,
to avoid destroying a connector (USB in this case) from very frequent
drive changes.


Barry wrote:
> Our computer Club has an aging Sony Vaio laptop with XP Pro.After Windows
> Vista is released on January 30, 2007, we will face a dilemma. At some
> point, users will be moving toward Vista but many will stick with XP and we
> have the obligation to present the old and the new OSs to the membership.
>
> We can either buy a new Premium Ready lzptop with an upgrade coupon or buy a
> new laptop with Vista preinstalled. The latter will be more expensive and we
> have a limited budget.
> My plan is to load the XP and Vista OSs on separate hard drives and swap
> them out as reuired. I would remove the screws to the hard drive panel and
> swap them if I could find a compatible caddy or frame such as exists in
> desktop models which have removable drives.
>
> Do you agree with this or do you foresee major problem? . I would appreciate
> any comments. Happy New Year.
>
> Barry
>
>
>
>

On Sat, 6 Jan 2007, Barry Watzman wrote:

> I think you are asking for mechanical problems, damaged connectors, etc.
> going as you suggest with frequent drive changes. It is possible to dual
> boot XP and Vista on the same drive, although there are some issues (XP's
> system restore won't work being the major one). You could also use an
> external USB drive. If you go that route, I'd still recommend that you don't
> change the plug at the computer, but rather at the drive, to avoid destroying
> a connector (USB in this case) from very frequent drive changes.
>
>
> Barry wrote:
>> Our computer Club has an aging Sony Vaio laptop with XP Pro.After Windows
>> Vista is released on January 30, 2007, we will face a dilemma. At some
>> point, users will be moving toward Vista but many will stick with XP and
>> we
>> have the obligation to present the old and the new OSs to the membership.
>>
>> We can either buy a new Premium Ready lzptop with an upgrade coupon or buy
>> a
>> new laptop with Vista preinstalled. The latter will be more expensive and
>> we
>> have a limited budget.
>> My plan is to load the XP and Vista OSs on separate hard drives and swap
>> them out as reuired. I would remove the screws to the hard drive panel and
>> swap them if I could find a compatible caddy or frame such as exists in
>> desktop models which have removable drives.
>>
>> Do you agree with this or do you foresee major problem? . I would
>> appreciate
>> any comments. Happy New Year.
>>
>> Barry
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
Barry is right about this however there is another way thats safer I
think. Install VPC (Virtual PC), then add as many systems as you
want and there will be no intermixing of the different os's
Joe