Install Win xp/vista on IDE or SATA

rajivphoto

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Hi Everyone,

i m new on this wonderful forum, please help me out.

I have 7 Yrs old Samsung IDE 80 GB Hard disk which i was using as a secondary disk for data backup etc etc, just got a new Hitachi 1 TB SATA hard disk , have Asus Motherboard with IDE and SATA compatability

Now the problme is ......

I have to install windows xp or vista ( Which is best ? )

Which is best/fast to make Primary hard disk IDE or SATA

I m thinking to make IDE (80 gb hd) as primary (Operating system) and 1 TB Sata hard disk as a secondary storage,,,

I am goint right ....

Thanks


thanks
 
The SATA hard drive will almost certainly be a fair bit faster and so it's probably the better choice. The only thing to watch out for is that XP doesn't include SATA drivers out of the box so you'll need to have a disk with the drivers handy so that you can add them during the install. That's not an issue for Vista or Windows 7, though.
 
SATA drives are faster. If I were in your shoes, I would use the IDE drive as a paperweight, or perhaps to back up key documents.

<oops! I just checked, and I assumed that by xp or vista you wanted dual-boot. If you want dual boot, go to the long rant at the end. If not,
Disconnect the IDE drive
Partition the SATA drive into one big partition
Install the OS of your choice.>

I would partition the SATA drive:
If you want to share data between the OSes, three partitions. The first one will hold XP, the second Win7, the third data.
If you don't want to share the data between the OSes, but each OS will have its own set of data (like your music and photos), then partition the drive into two halves.
In either case, exact partition sizes depend on intended use. As a rough guess, I would go 100 GiB, 100 GiB, and the rest.

Assuming that the IDE drive is bootable, disconnect it from the system.
Install XP on the first partition.
Boot and apply all updates.
Now install Vista on the second partition. It should build an XP / Vista boot menu.
Boot Vista and apply all updates.
 

rajivphoto

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Thanks a lots for your reply, So than i'll try to install Vista.

Please again read my question above as i edited.
 

rajivphoto

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Thanks a lots Please again read my question above as i edited.
 

rajivphoto

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Thanks dear, infact i want to install winxp bit but that doesn't support 4 gb ram ( i'll install) so i have to install vista.

But my question is whether i install operating system on IDE HARD DISK or in SATA..
 

rajivphoto

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Thanks again. last questions.

1. Which is more reliable,,, SATA or IDE
2. Is there any problem if i used 1 TB Sata hard disk as my primary hard disk which have operating system and 4 parition ( 250 x 4= 1 tb apprx)

Thanks
 
Reliability is much more dependent on the quality of the mechanical components of the drive than to which kind of interconnect it uses.

I personally wouldn't use more than 2 partitions - one large enough to hold the OS and your programs along with some free space for growth, and a second one that uses up the rest of the drive for everything else. Lots of partitions tends to mean you run out of space in one and then have to spend time shuffling things around, and once you've got the OS in it's own partition at the beginning of the disk splitting up the remaining space into separate partitions doesn't really buy you any extra performance except under extremely specific conditions.
 

rajivphoto

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Thanks for your answer.