Hard Drives

[GHouse]

So I have two hard-drives, one I am using and the other is just collecting dust at the moment, and I was thinking about putting vista media center edition on it, but I also want to be able to use it as a mule just in case I need extra space, so I was wondering if I could put vista on it and still use it with my current os Windows Media Center Edition 2k5. Can I do it or will I have to leave it without an os to have as a mule?

 

Just a side note my current drive is 320(gigs) and the one that isn't being used is 640(gigs).

[Girish]

Err...what's a mule? From what I collect, you want to dual boot your PC. I don't see a problem then. You can easily keep your current OS on the hard disk that you're using and connect the other hard disk and install Vista on it.

[GHouse]

A mule is something that holds sh*t, but I was just wondering if I would have to use a converter or if I wasn't possible because they are 2 different os's and they wouldn't be compatible.

[Picolini]

You can. I have a secondary OS install on my secondary hard drive and the drive it's on shows up in Vista for me.

 

However, what you can do is install Vista on a partition, enough to install Vista on it. Anything after Vista Basic includes Windows Media Center, fyi. I think you need 20GB partitioned to Vista.

 

So you can install the HDD in your PC. I just booted up after physically putting mine in and my PC recognized it right away, not sure if that's how it always works.

Anyways, after you have the HDD in partition 20GB. I did that with the Computer Management program built into Windows, not sure if it's in XP but my guess is it is. But, I had to use a program I downloaded called Paragon Partition Manager to turn it into a primary boot disk instead of a general Volume disk (not sure if that was 100% necessary, just did it anyways). I also named it the OS I was installing to make recognizing it easier.

 

Then boot up the PC from the Vista installation disk and select to install it on the partition you made. One thing though, you might have to go through a "custom" set up to select the drive it goes on. Not 100%, but throwing it out there.

 

After that you should be able to easily access videos, music, and pictures across both OSs with ease. Programs mostly do not work across OSs though. I can access the "c:/" drive from Vista in a different OS, but when I go to it's Program Files folder and try to run programs from there I usually get an error. Assuming it has to do with registry files missing (as it's looking in the current OS's registry and not Vista's).

 

On my next PC I plan on doing a several boot set up and I'll set it up right away, partitioning space for the OS on each drive and leaving the rest of the space for files. Probably end up getting 2-3 1TB drives for that. I use LOTS of space

[GHouse]

Thanks for the help, but I think I'd rather just have it as a no os mule.

[Fozzy Fozborne]

Plug it in, boot up your PC selecting the OS you want to use. Open My Computer and right-click the new hard drive and select "format'. Select NTFS and quick format. Now, the hard drive will be just a hard drive useful for storage. Caution, everything will be deleted from the 640GB drive!

 

If the new hard drive doesn't show up in My Computer, you'll have to format it another way. To do this, click start, right-click my computer and click manage. Now click "Disk Management". Now, right-click the 640 GB drive and click format. Caution: everything will be removed from the 640GB disk! Now, click next until it asks for quick format or regular format, select quick because it takes only a few seconds compared to the few hours to fully format a disk.

[GHouse]

Thanks for the input Fozzy but I already formatted it once-it was delivered I was just asking if I could have my cake and eat it too but it looks like a long and painful process so I didn't really want to do it.

[Fozzy Fozborne]

Oh if it's already formatted, all you need to do is plug it in and Windows will recognize it right away. I was just saying how to make it work if it doesn't show up at all.