Please forgive me if this has been asked (and answered) before ;-)

I have Vista Home Premium 32-bit (preinstalled on an HP a1720n bought last year) and I want to give 64-bit a try via dual boot

I have separate physical drive available to dedicate to the Vista 64 install, and I'd like to a have dual-boot config that:

uses C: as the primary drive letter, no matter which OS I'm booting into
allows me to access the data on the other drive
does not install or modify anything on the original Vista 32 installation (to make going back to single-boot just a matter of disconnecting the 2nd drive)

is this easily accomplished with VistaBootPro?

Thanks!

Welcome aboard jcottrill! As you already have a spare drive, just install V64 there and you'll get the normal Vista bootloader giving you the option to boot into either OS. If you don't like it, then just load VBP into your main install and delete the entry, reboot and you'll go directly into your 32-bit OS, you can then format your second drive and use it as you wish.

EDIT: After rereading your post, any Vista install will see itself as residing in C: and you won't have to disconnect a drive if you use VBP to alter the MBR. I hope that makes sense. Ask away if you have any other questions.

Just a tip for people that have many partitions, name your partitions to make sure of what is where. I got lost when I had 5 OS's loaded at the same time as depending which OS you boot to will change the order of the partitions that one is used to, just C will remain constant.

How should I proceed in order to minimize (or eliminate) the risk of doing anything to my V32 install?

Should I set the 2nd drive as primary in BIOS and install V64, and then use Vista's bootloader?
Or should I connect the 2nd drive by itself, install V64 and VBP, and then connect the original drive as secondary & add it to VBP?

or <insert>?

thanks again

jcottrill wrote:

How should I proceed in order to minimize (or eliminate) the risk of doing anything to my V32 install? Should I set the 2nd drive as primary in BIOS and install V64, and then use Vista's bootloader? Or should I connect the 2nd drive by itself, install V64 and VBP, and then connect the original drive as secondary & add it to VBP? or <insert>? thanks again

I see you're really paranoid and I can't blame you either if you have important info on your V32 install. Good reason to back those up anyway. Do you have SATA drives? If so, disconnect your main drive while your second drive is connected, it should be seen as main drive in BIOS when you boot, and load V64. This way your V32 install is totally insulated from anything that could go wrong.

However, as I've done what you propose to do, it gets to be a real PITA real quick if you want to reboot into the other OS daily. No need for VBP in this case and if/when you dump V64, just wipe the drive and you're good to go as neither OS 'knows' the other one.

Yeah, just a little paranoid. I deal with this stuff enough at work, I'd rather avoid it at home ;-)

I have SATA drives, so we're good there (also have the 64-bit drivers from HP and NVidia for the hardware).

I imagine there will be a bit of bouncing back n forth between the two versions, as I don't plan on installing all the stuff in V64 that I currently have in V32 until I'm sure I want to stick with 64. I don't mind throwing VBP on the V64 install if it will allow that boot control, since I'm just playing with it for now.

jcottrill wrote:

Yeah, just a little paranoid. I deal with this stuff enough at work, I'd rather avoid it at home ;-) I have SATA drives, so we're good there (also have the 64-bit drivers from HP and NVidia for the hardware). I imagine there will be a bit of bouncing back n forth between the two versions, as I don't plan on installing all the stuff in V64 that I currently have in V32 until I'm sure I want to stick with 64. I don't mind throwing VBP on the V64 install if it will allow that boot control, since I'm just playing with it for now.

VBP is not a bootloader, just a GUI way to easily change your BCD, which is the Vista bootloader. So, if you want to dual boot normally and then decide that V64 is not for you, then VBP will ease that transition, unless you want to learn the BCD, there's a sticky around here of the BCD commands.