Old OS to new hard drive

I'm going to ask this in a new post because I wouldn't know where to began searching in the archives.
I have a newer slim line PC tower that came with vista, and I would like to be able to either over-write vista with the windows xp of my old hard drive, or have the ability to duel start both of them. I have a rocketfish file transfer system that runs from the new hard drive to the old, and I just don't know what to do from here:-o
I'd prefer to be able to duel start them, but I'll take xp over vista any day. the new os is vista 86 if that helps. Thank you in advance for any information that will help.

 

Okay, update, I found the old windows xp disc, but I don't know what to do to be able to keep both OS, since installing the old xp will over write vista

 

You would need to get a partitioning program to shrink your Vista partition and create a new partition for XP, and then install a boot manager that can hide Vista while it boots XP and vice versa. I use Grub4DOS for this, but it is no five minute job and I don't think I would recommend going down this road to anyone unfamiliar with such procedures.

Just what do you expect to gain anyway? On the same hardware there is NOTHING XP can do that Vista cannot, and LOADS Vista can do that XP cannot. It's a very retrograde thing to do imo.

 

The biggest problem will be finding xp drivers for your new PC. Sadly they can be hard to find sometimes. I suggest start looking around for them before you even start to install xp.

Don't be surprised if you dont find them.