Yes, you definitely must have a separate big enough hard drive or partition.
Also, don't go trying to move the drive or partition around after installing.
That would cause different drive letters to be applied and Windows
[anyversion] doesn't like that.
Tony P said:
I'm confused Andre.
I have a 400Gb SATA hard disc 95% unused and unpartitioned on which sits XP
home SP2.
If I install Vista beta, on said drive, it will overwrite XP ? but can I
uninstall Vista & revert back to XP?
If I do install Vista on said drive, should I partition it first so Vista
sits in seperate partition from XP, if so will I be able to dual boot into
the OS of my choice??
I also have an old hard drive lying around , If I use this to install Vista
on, at 6gb capacity will it be big enough to run Vista if not what is minmum
size hard drive necessary for Vista Beta?
Thanks
Tony P
As to the size of HD for installation of Vista:
The Microsoft documentation states that there must be a minimum of 20gb free
on the drive just to install Vista. It needs this to be able to unpack its
installation files. Once Vista is installed, it will only need a minimum of
10gb. But this won't leave enough room for media files (especially larger
ones like videos of various kinds) and program files.
So, a 6 GB HD is not large enough, since it won't meet the minimum of 20gb
just to install, and it is not large enough to run the OS anyway.
Plan on at LEAST 40gb for a reasonable HD.
Face it, my friend: Vista is a HUGE OS, and needs HUGE amounts of memory
and HD space. It's definitely not an OS to play around with. It's a
professional OS for developers and other professionals (first), and for
general home users (second).
I would plan on these BASICS:
1) The LATEST, most powerful logic board (motherboard to Wintel users) you
can purchase which is Vista-capable.
2) Pentium 4 CPU, preferrably 64bit or Dual Core (a FAST, FAST one, not a
Celeron, as in "stay away from cheepie Dell $599 machines")
3) A MINIMUM of 2gb FAST ram ( I mean FAST ram, not SLOW ram. In fact, get
the FASTEST ram your money will buy and your machine will allow). I don't
advise doing any over-clocking, either, unless your CPU and logic board
(motherboard to Windows users) are designed for over-clocking.
4) A late-model CD (at least 32x) or DVD (at least 8x)
5) 19" LCD (best quality you can afford)
6) a newer (as in less than 1.5 years old) keyboard and mouse.
7) and last but definitely NOT least, a 250gb HD (7200rpm). (VERY CHEAP
right now. Get one for about $199 (probably less)
Heck, man, just buy an AlienWare game machine for 3 or 4 grand, and you will
probably get a fair machine for Vista. Get the BIGGEST, GAUDIEST, FASTEST,
HOTTEST bazomba you can find. 'Cause that's what you'll need.
Or, buy either a new Intel MacBook Pro 15" or an Intel iMac 17"(a 20" would
be better of course) for less than $1495, with memory slots "maxed out".
Either of them will run Vista quite well in a BootCamp partition on your
Apple HD, since they are both pretty much the same machine. By the time
Vista goes gold, BootCamp itself will include the ability to dual boot with
Vista. It's already able to be installed on an Intel Mac with little or no
trouble, but currently, you must delete the EFI partition on your Mac disk
before it will install. This, of course, makes it impossible to return to
OS X, if you decide Vista is not for you, without reformatting your entire
HD and reinstalling OS X. (NOTE: Vista will NOT install on a Mac disk
without OS X installed, since a Mac has no BIOS (just a little boot-loader
ROM and the TPM chip.) (Another NOTE: I advise creating a FAT32 partition
rather than an NTFS partition, since you won't be able to drag and drop
between OS's, since NTFS is totally invisible to OS X.)
Eventually, Microsoft will enable EFI partitions in Vista. But that's
another story...
Or, build your own, if you're that type. But it MUST be put together very
"tightly", or it won't use its "stuff" right.
And FORGET about parts and software which are NOT "Vista-capable" (and I
mean not "just Vista-compatible").
I know this might sound daunting to a home user, but that's the way it is.
Now, some will say "that guy's crazy!!! I did this...or, I had that..., and
Vista ran ok". Those guys are trying to "sell" the IDEA of "Vista"
("OOOH!!! AAAH!!!, the LATEST and GREATEST...blah, blah, blah"), not the OS
itself, which is quite a different matter. And Microsoft will sell you
whatever your money will buy. They don't care if it works for YOU (oh,
yeah, they SAY they do, but really, do they? Think about it. They just
care that it works for SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE, SOMEHOW. And it does, as is
evidenced by all the estatic posts and news blats everywhere.
Personally, I advise all home users to stay away from Vista altogether
(maybe the Home version will be ok, with Windows Media Center, but not the
Pro Desktop), unless they plan on buying or building new machines (or have
already).
Anyway, that's my take...
Now, blast away, folkies.....
Donald L McDaniel
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