Another Dual boot seperate drives?

Hi

I usually build my own system and install an oem windows OS on one drive.

But I've never done a dual boot system with separate drives before.

Current Main drive is kinda full so no partition, hence the separate drives.

My current OS is Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit that's on drive C

I plan on adding Windows 7 Pro 64bit on it's own drive so that I can ad more memory and get past the 4 gig memory limit running some 3d apps nicer.

I need to keep old OS to run some older apps, But I plan on the new 64 Bit OS to be my main drive, but must have occasional access to older OS

Here's what I planned on doing to accomplish this.

1:With comp off, Unplug drive c ( I don't want to mess that up)
2hysically add new drive
3lace Win 7 disk in dvd drive and start Comp.
4:Install new 64 bit OS to new harddisk.(I would like to assign the letter C to this new Drive)
5:Turn off comp and reattach old OS drive

Now the rest is where I'm lost.

I'm not sure what to do next?

I don't know what to do in the bios and I don't know what is the most convenient way to

switch back and forth between Operating System.

I don't know if I should change the name old C drive letter to D so that my new main Drive can be named C ( i don't think I can run 2 Named C)

Can someone give me a step by step process to pick up at step 5 where I left off and let

me know if steps 1 though 5 look ok?

I'm just not geeky enough yet.

Thanks
For any help
Frank



Current system
CPU Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
MOBO ASUS P5K Deluxe
1X Nvidia Geforce 8800 GT
MEMORY 4 GB Corsair DDR2 @ 800 MHz
OPERATING SYSTEM VISTA ULTIMATE 32

After planned upgrades
SAME CPU Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
SAME MOBO ASUS P5K Deluxe
SAME 1X Nvidia Geforce 8800 GT

NEW MEMORY ( 4 more gigs) 8 GB total Corsair DDR2 @ 800 MHz
NEW OPERATING SYSTEM Windows 7 Pro 64 on added new drive.

 

Your motherboard will happily detect the two different operating systems, and automatically ask you to choose which one you want to load during boot-up (normally with a countdown timer before jumping to default).

I have dual boot system atm, and I didnt remove any drives before installation. I installed the new hdd (for the second OS) and let the current OS recognise it, restart, then format the drive and set it as D:/. Windows 7 can install while running Vista, and allows you to choose which drive you want to install it onto. Therefore, after installing the second drive, boot up into Vista, and run the Win7 disc and just follow the steps. Make sure you select drive D:/ for installation, and if needed the disc can format the drive for you if you forget.

Thats about it.

If you are absolutely paranoid of making mistakes, by all means you can remove your C:/ drive and do a clean install onto the new drive. Don't worry about the possibilty of two C:/ drives, as that cant happen. Vista will only recognise the drive its running from as C:/. Any other drive will be labelled seperately (D,E,F,G etc). Same applies to Windows 7

Hope this helps, shout me if you want a play-by-play, i tend to confuse myself while writing!

Alex

 

Great, I was hoping to hear something like that.
Sounds like I can do that. I should have some time to try that late next week.
If I have any problems with that I'll post here.

Thanks for getting back to me so quick.