windows 7 on an x41 base drive

[topmahof]

can someone please tell me if this is doable. i already put windows 7 on 3 x32's and everything worked out fine.
i want to put windows 7 ultimate upgrade on an x41 non tablet. it will have xp on the 60 gig hard drive in the machine. i have an ultrabase with a sata hard drive adapter in it. i'd like to put 7 ultimate on a 250 gig sata hard drive in the base. i have an external usb dvd burner i can boot to to install 7 onto the base drive. the x41 recognizes the base drive and i can save files to it. will there be any activation issues because it is in the base drive? i will have xp installed in the base drive to use the upgrade disc.

i already put 7 on an x32 machine drive and xp in the base drive and i haven't had any problems at all. both os's boot and run with no problems.

windows 7 is just a different animal and i don't know whether it "has" to be in the machines primary drive or whether it will work okay as the secondary os. i just don't want any activation or validation issues. i just think windows will work much better on that sata drive than it will in that 4200 rpm drive. and please don't suggest ssd's coz i just don't trust them yet.

thanks in advance for all your help
dave

[Harryc]

I don't think you'll have any activation issues. If it were me I would remove the primary drive while installing W7 though. It may want to write to the MBR on the primary drive...not sure but why take a chance.

[topmahof]

thanks for the quick reply. yeh, i was going to do that, anyway. i don't want to get confused by 3 different drive letters. 10-4 on not taking a chance, thanks.

alright, great, i'm gonna try it. i'm waiting for the os to arrive so it'll be a couple of days yet, but i'll post back.

[GomJabbar]

I agree with Harryc regarding removing other drives while installing Windows 7. You can put them back after you install Windows 7.

As long as you can boot the drive you want to install Windows 7 on, you shouldn't have any problem with Activation or Updates. You don't want any setup that will change the drive letter of the OS you are booting though. I have Windows 7 on one hard drive and Windows XP on a different hard drive for my T42. I use one drive in the main hard drive slot, and the second drive in the Ultraslim Bay 2nd hard drive adapter. I choose the drive to boot by pressing F12 from the BIOS boot splash screen. Whichever drive I choose becomes drive C and the other drive D. Second partitions on the drives follow that.

For example, when I boot the Western Digital 160 GB drive (Windows 7):
Western Digital 160 GB drive
--Drive C: Windows 7
Hitachi 60 GB drive
--Drive D: XP
Western Digital 160 GB drive
--Drive E: Windows 7 common data partition
Hitachi 60 GB drive
--Drive F: XP Common data partition

For example, when I boot the Hitachi 60 GB drive (XP):
Hitachi 60 GB drive
--Drive C: XP
Western Digital 160 GB drive
--Drive D: Windows 7
Hitachi 60 GB drive
--Drive E: XP Common data partition
Western Digital 160 GB drive
--Drive F: Windows 7 common data partition

However, my setup is not exactly like that when I boot Windows XP because I disabled the Western Digital drive in XP so that XP would not delete the System Restore Points of Windows 7. This is not a problem in the reverse situation, so I do have the Hitachi drive available in Windows 7.

So this is what happens when I boot the Hitachi 60 GB drive:
Hitachi 60 GB drive
--Drive C: XP
Hitachi 60 GB drive
--Drive D: XP Common data partition
The Western Digital drive is not seen at all in XP.

[topmahof]

i understand what you're saying, my x32 is set up the same way. 7 on the machine drive and xp on the base drive. no matter what drive i boot it reads as c. i have no additional partitions the os is on the whole space on both drives. i like the idea of disabling the machine drive while using xp on the base drive. how do you do that?

what i want to do on the x41 is reverse. i want xp on the machine drive and 7 on the base drive. should i disable the machine drive (xp) when using the base drive (7)? as i said above the reason for this way is i want 7 on the bigger, faster hard drive that will be on the base.

[GomJabbar]

You don't need to disable the XP drive in Windows 7 (unless you just want to). You can disable the Windows 7 drive in XP from Device Manager (in XP) to prevent XP from deleting Windows 7 System Restore Points.

I have swapped these two drives between the main hard drive slot and the Ultrabay Slim 2nd hard drive adapter without any problems. Whichever drive is in the main hard drive slot will be the drive that boots if you do not choose a boot drive using F12.

[Harryc]

Whichever drive is in the main hard drive slot will be the drive that boots if you do not choose a boot drive using F12.

Alternately you can just change the boot order in BIOS.

[GomJabbar]

Alternately you can just change the boot order in BIOS.

I guess you could. I never really thought about it.

[topmahof]

You don't need to disable the XP drive in Windows 7 (unless you just want to). You can disable the Windows 7 drive in XP from Device Manager (in XP) to prevent XP from deleting Windows 7 System Restore Points.

I have swapped these two drives between the main hard drive slot and the Ultrabay Slim 2nd hard drive adapter without any problems. Whichever drive is in the main hard drive slot will be the drive that boots if you do not choose a boot drive using F12.

i see no option in device manager to disable the windows 7 drive. i right clicked it, only option is to uninstall it. i did that but windows reinstalls it every time i boot into xp. the only options when i right click the drive is, update driver, uninstall, scan for hardware changes, properties.

the only hardware in device manager that i can disable are the network adapters. what am i doing wrong.

[topmahof]

i was able to disable the other drive from xp. i had to be logged on as administrator. drove me nuts for awhile. thanks for that. i didn't realize that the restore points were being disabled.

[topmahof]

windows 7 ultimate upgrade is running happily on a 250 gb sata hard drive installed in the x41's base. it took 3 tries to activate it but i think that was just because of the goofy atheros card. i gotta get another intel card. i disabled the base drive from xp. (i'm glad you told me about that gomjabber.) at the end of the install chkdsk ran and changed some values because of compatability issues but afterwards it restarted and ran fine. i shut it down and booted it up and there are no issues that i can see. thanks for all the support, this actually runs very well on the faster hard drive.

if anyone else decides to do this i would suggest to let chkdsk run when it wants to. there is an option to not let it run, but it did change some values and it did work afterward. so i would let it do its' thing.

again, thanks for the support.