Win 7 on new drive with XP on old drive

[skeedo]

Will there be any issues with installing Win 7 on a new HD, setting to that to the primary boot and leave XP HD in tact so I am able to re-activate that as the boot drive if necessary? I want to begin using Win 7 and start copying files over from the old drive, but it would be nice to be able to reboot into XP as I will not have all programs available for Win 7.

 

[ViRGE]

Yep, that will be fine. Win7 will see XP during the install and create an entry in Win7's bootloader to allow you to boot up XP if you wish.

 

[tren001]

Yep, that will be fine. Win7 will see XP during the install and create an entry in Win7's bootloader to allow you to boot up XP if you wish.

In a related question, I'm planning to fresh install XP and Win7 on two different partitions. Does it matter which order I do it, or either way it will allow me to dual boot?

Thanks

 

[lxskllr]

Yep, that will be fine. Win7 will see XP during the install and create an entry in Win7's bootloader to allow you to boot up XP if you wish.

What I would do is unplug the XP drive during install, then use BIOS boot order to pick which drive to boot from. That way each O/S has it's own bootloader, and can work independently of the other O/S. It's a little more trouble when switching O/Ss, but most people spend 90%+ of their time in 1 O/S, so it ends up being easier in practical use.

Edit:

In a related question, I'm planning to fresh install XP and Win7 on two different partitions. Does it matter which order I do it, or either way it will allow me to dual boot?

Thanks

The install order for sanity is old Windows-new Windows-Linux. You can do it in a different order, but you'd be creating more work for yourself.

 

[Scotteq]

Will there be any issues with installing Win 7 on a new HD, setting to that to the primary boot and leave XP HD in tact so I am able to re-activate that as the boot drive if necessary? I want to begin using Win 7 and start copying files over from the old drive, but it would be nice to be able to reboot into XP as I will not have all programs available for Win 7.

Sure thing: How to Dual Boot Win 7 and XP

 

[RebateMonger]

What I would do is unplug the XP drive during install, then use BIOS boot order to pick which drive to boot from. That way each O/S has it's own bootloader, and can work independently of the other O/S.

That's what I'd recommend, too. It avoids any possible issues with bootloaders and booting is no more difficult than selecting from a boot menu in Windows.