Tech Question: I'm going to be upgrading the HDD on my desktop to a 640 gb WD Black drive on tuesday in order to finally upgrade from Windows Vista 32bit to Windows 7 64bit as part of my pre-Starcraft 2 computer cleanup and basic upgrade session! I want to maintain my old drive as it has a bunch of data i don't want to spend the time to organize and transfer (no its not full of porn... atleast not all of it -er) I know if i put it back into the computer using IDE (yes its a really old HDD) it will constantly prompt me to dual boot. I'm thinking the better option will be to just put it into a USB 2.0 external enclosure and plug it in to the comp. If i do this will it promt for dual boot? (which is what i don't want to happen) or will it just load up after as a data drive without any mention of the OS? I'm thinking the OS loads before the computer checks USB ports, so this means i won't get prompted for dual boot, however im also worried about getting BSOD'd. Has anyone run a USB external HDD with an OS on it before and what were the results? headbang2
I'm not really sure, however, I have seen some comp sci students in the lab boot up windows from an USB external HDD. But wouldn't that only happen if you set it to boot from the external HDD?
so are you trying to install new os while still being able to keep your original files? because I would like to know how to as well.. or would it be a lot easier to upgrade 32-bit to 64-bit...
@Fearless: You can choose your boot up options in BIOS, it should be able to detect the master drive and secondary hdd, install the new OS on the hdd you want and then in bios set it to boot from that HDD, disable the other one from appearing on the boot list. or if you use the external enclosure option, as long as the boot priority list (mentioned above) doesn't have the FLASH/USB boot option before the HDD you shouldn't have any problems, as the HDD will just act as a regular data drive. @Ecko: You can install multiple OSs on a single Hard drive or over two hard drives and etc. Partitioning! it means to break apart your hard drive into their own separate portions of data capacity.... so a 1Terabyte drive and be partitioned to 2 500GB portions and you can install an OS on each partition. And essentially if you break it into thirds the same rules apply.... there are limitations however, but idk if you would run into them..... btw... if you are upgrading from Vista.... you wont have to worry about losing your files...
Just to add to akki's post, though I think it's kinda redundant but w/e. The boot priority list usually has HDD listed as the first one by default so you shouldn't really be running into problems.
yea I know about partitioning.. but then once you boot into the other os, your files aren't going to get recognized right? I suppose I'll do a fresh install when the time comes..
hmm.. that tells me what i need to know thanks! I might not bother with an external drive enclosure in this case. I'll just set the BIOS to my primary hard drive and to ignore the OS on the secondary.
you will still be able to access them.... as there will be two separate disk drives displayed in the My Computer window......
i'm confused.. so the path of installed files would get recognized aswell? alright lets put it like this.. new harddrive.. 64bit os installed. Boot from 64bit os and all files, registry will remain the same from the other harddrives?
if you have two OSs on a single hard drive, your C: drive will be automatically assigned to your current partitions given space, anything other than that your OS will recognize as another drive with a different letter.
tried so that plan wouldn't work out as I would actually need to partition the c drive.. i'm just gonna come back to this when I'm ready to build n need help..
just cause it sports one of the crappy end psu and has a buncha wires sticking out of it not doing anything shouldnt scare people. and lol at the coolermaster tag.....
