Two hard drives

If I configure and buy a computer with two hard drives, 500GB and 250GB and Vista Home Premium is pre installed OEM on the first hard drive can I install an older OS which in my case would be XP Pro on the other hard drive? I know you cannot install an older OS on the same disc.

Please just simple yes or no replies as my mind is unable to cope with more.

You can, but it can be a fiddle. You have PM which I think has a boot manager with it, so you could accomplish it with that without too much hassle.

If you are considering buying a Dell or similar, you may wish to talk to your friendly local shop. You will be surprised how well they will be able to match prices and of course, they will be able to do the dual boot for you from the get go.

Thanks Noo. It is not too important as I already have machines running XP but I wondered whether to go for one really big hard drive or two smaller. I am aware that by having one drive I am putting all my eggs in one basket should it fail and it might be a good idea to use one as a mirror if I do get two.

I don't think my local shop can begin to match the deal I have found at Mesh! For £810.75 and free delivery but no monitor as I have one already that I like I get

System Base Price: £ 680.00
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6750 Dual Core Processor(2.66GHz,4MB Cache,1333MHz)
Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium Edition
New MESH Midi-TowerATX Case + 550W PSU
PCI-Express Mainboard - SLI nForce 650i SLI(C55) - Intel Core 2 Duo/Quad-Core - ATX
4GB DDR2 667MHz Memory -( 4x 1GB )
750GB (1x 500GB + 1x 250GB) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer
LightScribe Super Format 20x Dual Layer DVD Writer +R/-R/RW/RAM
LightScribe Super Format 20x Dual Layer DVD Writer +R/-R/RW/RAM [upg £ 25.00]
2x 256MB nVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT - SLI Configuration [upg £ 30.00]
Without 22" Widescreen Monitor [upg £ -100.00]
Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Sound Card (oem) [upg £ 55.00]
Logitech Cordless Keyboard & Cordless Optical Mouse
Free Microsoft® Works® 8.5 + 60 Days Microsoft Office Trial
Free Cyberlink Video Editing Suite - 7 titles (oem)
6x USB 2.0 Ports (8x possible on motherboard)
2x IEEE1394 Firewire (onboard)
1x Gigabit LAN (onboard)
Multi-format Memory Card Reader (matx)
Free Upgrade to 1 Year On Site* - UK Mainland Only (Repairline Ltd Warranty)

The base price quoted is before VAT.

I built a non SLI machine with SATA Raid and Vista Ultimate including VAT and sold it for £800 with a nice profit. Really, check with your local business - you said you liked them, give them the opportunity to match it!

Actually with the newer motherbopards and the ability to hit F11 or F12 and get to what device to boot from, it makes much simpler sense then useing a boot manager. Also if one or the other messes up it doesnt take the whole thing down.
The only thing to get used to is Pressing the F key to get to boot devices then chooseing what device to boot to.
Personally I have no use for boot managers if they are avoidable at all.
And new motherboards offer the ability to avoid them.
Set the boot order to what system you want ot use mostly then use the F11/F12 boot device key to go ot the other OS.

I am NOT trying to be a criminal here, BUT, were it me, I would buy two identical drives, have Vista xxx installed on one as the OS, get my disks and whatnot, and when I got home, disconnect the first drive, connect the second as master, install the OS again, and then have a handy-dandy pre-installed drive.

Then I would buy a backup external that stored all my critical stuff and would also use cd/dvd backups as a redundant file saver.

I mean, if I had anything worthwhile to back-up or save.

:)