I'm about to do a full install of Windows Vista, and I'm currently running XP SP2.

My question is, as i have two hard drives (80 Gb & 300Gb) I'll be installing Vista on the small one, and then re-load all of my programs on the same small drive. Would I be able to store everything I want to keep onto my bigger drive, and re-use this 'As-Is' with the re-installed Vista OS smaller drive? (if that makes sense?) Will it work OK, or will it need to be re-formatted for the new OS?

 

Also, if the answer is yes, can I transfer some program files onto the bigger drive, and then back onto the smaller drive to be re-used?

 

TIA

Dave

Don't go with Vista - there are still too many problems. Just the other day I heard about someone plugging in a USB microphone and the PC hung - and wouldn't re-boot at all until the mic was physically removed!

dont go with Vista bud .. i changed over to it a month or so ago .. utter rubbish, system was so unstable and from what i hear, its in need of a lot of developement

Don't go with Vista - there are still too many problems. Just the other day I heard about someone plugging in a USB microphone and the PC hung - and wouldn't re-boot at all until the mic was physically removed!

But surely that's simply a compatibility problem? Would it of been Vista approved? Did it come with drivers? Or is there an update driver available from the vendor web site? (God, i sound like someone from Microsoft ;) )

I've done my research as to whether my programs and components are compatible with Vista, and I'm happy with the result. Nothing of any real problem was noted, a few updates are required other than that nothing to worry about ;)

The answer to your original question is yes you can ;)

The answer to your original question is yes you can ;)

Cheers bud :bow: :bow: :bow:

If you know how it may be a good idea also to partition your smaller drive so that you can put your vista on a seperate partition. This way in the future when they eventually sort out all the bugs in vista you may not have to go through all your prog. instalations again.

 

I believe this is what they now do with new computers so that they don't have to send out recovery disks etc.

 

Darrell

yeah you can dave, im runing vista and all my programs on a 80gb drive. before you upgrade to vista

yeah you can dave, im runing vista and all my programs on a 80gb drive. before you upgrade to vista check to make sure you have drivers for your hardware. hope that helps mate

Cheers guys, thanks for the help :bow: :duffer:

I won't bother to share my general views on Micro$haft but they have sold 40 million copies of Vista so far. It must work at least some of the time.

I'm about to do a full install of Windows Vista, and I'm currently running XP SP2.

My question is, as i have two hard drives (80 Gb & 300Gb) I'll be installing Vista on the small one, and then re-load all of my programs on the same small drive. Would I be able to store everything I want to keep onto my bigger drive, and re-use this 'As-Is' with the re-installed Vista OS smaller drive? (if that makes sense?) Will it work OK, or will it need to be re-formatted for the new OS?

 

Also, if the answer is yes, can I transfer some program files onto the bigger drive, and then back onto the smaller drive to be re-used?

 

TIA

Dave

 

In answer to your original question:

 

You do not need to format the second drive for vista as it still uses the same NT filing system that XP used, so no problems there.

 

You can copy your data (photos, music movies etc) to your bigger drive to use on your new system. However some of your applications may not work for one of two reasons. Firstly 'some' applications don't run on Vista at all, not many but some. Secondly when you install a piece of software it often installs DLLs into the windows system directory and adds information to the system registry. Without this information 'some' applications won’t work without being reinstalled from the original discs.

 

As for the opinions expressed on Vista here. I've used Vista since it came out and provided you can find the drivers for your hardware you really shouldn't have any problems. It is a resource hog and if you play any games on your PC I would stick with XP just for the frame rate / performance benefits alone. Many of the early problems people had with Vista were related to MS rolling the OS out before the manufacturers had rolled stable drivers out. Nvidia being the worst of these with almost no chipset/graphics support for nearly 6 weeks after the Vista release. This is all sorted now and really shouldn't cause you any problems. Vista also likes to run a few applications in the background by default which can really hammer the system. If you do nothing else I would disable the windows defender software. There are some other bits and bobs you can tweak to improve performance but it's way past my bedtime and I didn't get this beautiful by typing on forums at midnight!

 

Goodnight...and good luck!

In answer to your original question:

 

You do not need to format the second drive for vista as it still uses the same NT filing system that XP used, so no problems there.

 

You can copy your data (photos, music movies etc) to your bigger drive to use on your new system. However some of your applications may not work for one of two reasons. Firstly 'some' applications don't run on Vista at all, not many but some. Secondly when you install a piece of software it often installs DLLs into the windows system directory and adds information to the system registry. Without this information 'some' applications won’t work without being reinstalled from the original discs.

 

As for the opinions expressed on Vista here. I've used Vista since it came out and provided you can find the drivers for your hardware you really shouldn't have any problems. It is a resource hog and if you play any games on your PC I would stick with XP just for the frame rate / performance benefits alone. Many of the early problems people had with Vista were related to MS rolling the OS out before the manufacturers had rolled stable drivers out. Nvidia being the worst of these with almost no chipset/graphics support for nearly 6 weeks after the Vista release. This is all sorted now and really shouldn't cause you any problems. Vista also likes to run a few applications in the background by default which can really hammer the system. If you do nothing else I would disable the windows defender software. There are some other bits and bobs you can tweak to improve performance but it's way past my bedtime and I didn't get this beautiful by typing on forums at midnight!

 

Goodnight...and good luck!

Hi Jonno,

 

Cheers for all of that, much appreciated :bow:

What i neglected to mention in the original post, mainly as I didn't think it would matter, is that I'm upgrading the processor, the motherboard and the ram all at the same time. I'll be installing a Intel Pentium D 3.2 Ghz (6.4Ghz) and 2 Gb of ram, so hopefully I shouldn't be short of power. The new motherboard is Vista certified, and I've already downloaded all the drivers that were recommended following a 'Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor' scan (although I'm going to do a full clean install, I'll still be using all my old stuff)

Your info is really helpful, and I fully appreciate it, thanks.

 

And to the 'knockers', I also appreciate your views, as I don't expect everyone to agree with Mr Gates, or even his software, but thanks for your input anyway ;)

Someone's going to pull you up on it so it might as well be me. The Pentium D 3.2Ghz may be dual core but you don't get the equivalent of a 6.4Ghz chip, sadly. I've noticed many eBay shop selling these 6Ghz+ systems and they simply don't exist. It's either a ploy to get you to part with your hard earned for an uber spec rig or simply ignorance (which is ok).

 

If you haven't already bought your processor I would look at the Intel Core2Duo range. Even the E6300 processor 1.8Ghz (retails around £120) will knock spots off the older Pentium D 3.2Ghz. Last benchmarking I did showed the E6300 running superpi (benchmark software) at almost twice the speed of the Pentium D. If you've already bought your processor, then not to worry cos it's still a great processor and you'll not be disappointed. Either way you're on the Socket 775 platform which will allow you to upgrade to Core2Duo later if you so wish (assuming the motherboard you bought supports Conroe).

 

If you haven't already bought your components I'd be happy to give you the benefit of my I.T experience

 

Best of luck with the build.

Vista, hahaha, Vista 32 bit is ok as its supported quite a bit by manufactures, but if you have vista 64, dont even install it, nothing is support! wait till the end of the year for that. I would stick to XP! Plus Vista drains your system compared to XP!

I've installed Vista 32 and Office 2007 on one of my test systems and it took about 3 days to get all of the hardware and legacy applications working properly. Having said that, I've been quite impressed with the stability and features. I would recommend 2GB system RAM to accomodate its resource requirements ;)

 

HTH

 

Steve :)

Again, thanks for the input, all appreciated.

Yes I already have the components, and I'm now back on-line after installing everything. It's working pretty well as I expected so far, it only took about an hour and half to install the Vista OS (no other progs!!) I've re-installed my second hard drive with 100% success :D The only problem I had was trying to get into the bios, which was probably my fault anyway ;)

 

Again, thanks guys

Glad to hear it all went well for you. Now you need to use your 1337 PC skillz to hack into the Nissan mainframe and get us all parts at cost....GOGOGO!

Nice one!

 

For other users:- Unless you have a router for your ISP connection, DON'T INSTALL VISTA. Most DSL modems will NOT work AT ALL under Vista. If you're using a router which is wireless or has RJ-45 LAN port/s, provided that your PC has a LAN/WLAN card, then you'll be fine. The prompts are very annoying and there are some compatibilty issues, but I haven't had any complete show-stoppers yet lol!

You can disable the prompts (which I agree are very annoying) by disabling user control, which you will find under user accounts in the control panel.

I've been playing with Vista for a while now - i was one of the original Beta testers.

 

The heart of Vista there is a very capable opperating system. Limited only by PC hardware. Combined with Windows Server 2008 it will be a great combination.

 

True that third party vendors took a while to catch up but that was not Microsoft's fault. The release of Vista was given plenty of advanced warning.

 

I must admit Vista is still a bit buggy - i managed to crash my laptop yesterday so it came up with NTAuthority\system shutdown - which i found quite amusing at the time... as i was in a meeting with our MD planning a roll out of the OS in our company.

 

Enjoy Vista Dave - it takes a while getting used to it but its a good system.

 

J

Thanks James.

I'm finding my way around it, although there are a few things I'm not happy about...... 1) My new 'All singing, All dancing' motherboard, with built-in 256 graphics adaptor, isnt all it's cracked up to be, as most of my files requireing this don't run properly (in fact Vista tells me most of the time) and my old graphics card isnt supported for Vista(and it was only 128Mb), which means that I've just had to order a new GeForce 512Mb Vista ready one, so that should sort it out.

2) Where the hell is Windows Areo???? :confused: I can't find it anywhere! Or is this because it knows I haven't got a Graphics adaptor that will run it, so it's turned this feture off? (Yes, I'm running Vista Home Premium)

 

I do like the Sidebar fetures, got the Clock, Date, Local Weather, network Meter and both single and dual processor meters running :D Just got to fit my new Artic Cooling processor fan tomorrow once I pick it up from my dads house. The Intel one seems OK, but I had a AC one fitted to my last board, and I really liked it.

 

Anyone interested in a 3.0Gb Pentium 4 processor (socket 478) with an Artcic Cooling processor fan, a Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000-G motherboard, 1Gb Kingston Ram and a Sapphire Radeon 9250 128Mb graphics card? It's all in top working order and came out of my PC this weekend and are all matched together.

When you installed it first time around it probably detected that your system wasn't capable of running Aeroso didn't install it. strange though bevause a 64 MB integrated graphics processor, combined with at least 1 GB of system memory, will be able to run Aero at certain resolutions.

 

Might be worth re-installing Vista with the new graphics card.

 

Aero isn't a progam per say - its how Vista displays its Interface - really a "cool factor" it includes new transparencies, live thumbnails, live icons, animations and eye candy.

 

J

BTW if you want some training CD's on Vista - drop me your address in an e-mail to Jamesbell41 AT msn DOT com and i'll send you a couple of CD's