3rd Hard Drive and Vista

hello i currently have 2 hard drives. the os and program files are on the c: drive which is 20GB and all my media is on the F: drive which is 120GB
both of these are IDE drives...now when vista is ready i am going to get a 300GB+ SATA drive and im going to partition 50GB from it to replace the old C: drive so it then becomes to OS hard drive, now to do this i will have to
1. parition the 300GB+ drive to to make a 50GB drive
2. clone the C:/ to the new 50gb drive
3. remove the c: drive or format it to use it as another hard drive
4. install vista on top of the parition

now i do not want to loose my settings and program files, now is this possible when installing vista and how will i got about cloning and making partitions for this setup?

thank you

What OS is on the 20GB? And do you have the specs (yours) for Vista?

I would...

- Unplug your current drives and put them aside for safe keeping.
- Plug in the new drive and install Vista on it (partitioned the way you like).

If ever you want to go back to the older setup, just unplug Vista and reconnect your old drives.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Virtualbody1234

I would...

- Unplug your current drives and put them aside for safe keeping.
- Plug in the new drive and install Vista on it (partitioned the way you like).

If ever you want to go back to the older setup, just unplug Vista and reconnect your old drives.

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yeh but i want to keep my settings and programs that were on my 20GB
its windows xp pro sp2 so can you choose an 'upgrade' option when installing vista?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by trajillo

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Virtualbody1234

I would...

- Unplug your current drives and put them aside for safe keeping.
- Plug in the new drive and install Vista on it (partitioned the way you like).

If ever you want to go back to the older setup, just unplug Vista and reconnect your old drives.

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yeh but i want to keep my settings and programs that were on my 20GB
its windows xp pro sp2 so can you choose an 'upgrade' option when installing vista?

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I highly recommend that you avoid going the upgrade path.

You're much better off with a fresh install.

Also be aware that software that works in XP may not work in Vista.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Virtualbody1234

Quote:

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Originally Posted by trajillo

yeh but i want to keep my settings and programs that were on my 20GB
its windows xp pro sp2 so can you choose an 'upgrade' option when installing vista?

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I highly recommend that you avoid going the upgrade path.

You're much better off with a fresh install.

Also be aware that software that works in XP may not work in Vista.

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ok then thats a good idea then...when do you think i should convert to vista? i was thinking after the offical release.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by trajillo

...when do you think i should convert to vista? i was thinking after the offical release.

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Assuming your hardware is good enough to run Vista (a rather large assumption actually) then the final release should be worlds better than the Betas or RC1.

One hopes.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by clocker

Quote:

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Originally Posted by trajillo

...when do you think i should convert to vista? i was thinking after the offical release.

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Assuming your hardware is good enough to run Vista (a rather large assumption actually) then the final release should be worlds better than the Betas or RC1.

One hopes.

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Haven't you heard? The final (RTM) has been out for quite some time now.

There was even RC2 a really long time ago.

I just use EZ-Swap drive caddies with a different os on each HDD (98SE/2000/XP/Vista). Whichever one goes in the master slot is os of the day and the others are slaves so the data is always accessible. Makes sense to me and keeps life really simple!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Virtualbody1234

Haven't you heard? The final (RTM) has been out for quite some time now.

There was even RC2 a really long time ago.

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Yes, of course I know that, but I don't have them.:pinch:
Sooner or later I'll get ahold of a copy and see what's what. till then XP Pro is fine.

Anyone get Vista to run on an external hard Drive?

When I installed Vista, I used a similar strategy as VirtualBody. I physically unplugged the old drives from the motherboard and PSU, and then I installed the new SATA drive. I installed Vista, allowing it to use the whole drive for itself. From there, I plugged in the old drives and Vista automatically recognized them, so I can get data from them.

HOWEVER, if you have any desire of dual-booting, I recommend you keep the OS drive of your old system plugged in (just put it as a slave or secondary HD), as Vista will automatically detect and install an entry for it in the boot loader. It isn't a huge deal if you don't do it this way (I posted a link to a guide that let's you dual boot if you had your drives unplugged during the Vista install or if you install another OS after Vista is already installed in this site's guide section), but it's not really worth the hassle if you can avoid it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Virtualbody1234

I would...

- Unplug your current drives and put them aside for safe keeping.
- Plug in the new drive and install Vista on it (partitioned the way you like).

If ever you want to go back to the older setup, just unplug Vista and reconnect your old drives.

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Yeah i agree with you that is what i would also do