Dell Inspiron Hard Drive Question

Question

Hello Everyone,     I have a Dell Inspiron E1505. I have had it for over a year. I have a 60GB Hard Drive in it at the moment. I was thinking if I bought another hard drive for it. If I do, do I need to install the operating system? And if I do, can I change Hard Drives every so often? Is that alright on the computer?  I am running XP Media Center on it now. I was thinking of buying another hard drive to put Vista on. My Hard Drive is full already.                          Thanks for any replies                                       Rinkerwolf

ejn63 · Answer

Yes, you would have to install the OS on the new drive.

You can change drives, but to make that more convenient, consider buying another carrier for the second drive (pull the old one out and you'll see).

Otherwise, you'll have to dismount and remount the drive with each swap.

The drive is standard, 2.5" 9.5 mm SATA; the carrier is proprietary to Dell.

Dell Spare Parts 1-800-449-3355 ext 7269937

Rinkerwolf · Answer

Thanks for the reply. How would you install the OS on the new hard drive? If I was going to put Vista Home Premium on the hard drive do I need full version or upgrade version. Also, what do you mean by using a different kind of drive for easy switching with the 2 hard drives? Thanks      Rinkerwolf

b7d7935319c147a · Answer

Hi

Getting a new hdd and then installing a OS separately will be a difficult process while booting.. instead what i will suggest is get new hdd and then partition the hdd into two equal parts and then install the Windows XP Media Center in one partition and Windows Vista in another Partition now connect the old hdd to the sys and boot with the help of new hdd. make the new hdd to be master. now u will have the option to boot into Windows Vista or MCE and then u can access the contents in the old hdd from both the OS as well.

Ram

Rinkerwolf · Answer

That sounds like a good idea. If I portion the new hard drive, how would I install 2 OS on it and how would I change to which OS I would like to boot in? Would I beable to acesses the information from both operating systems? Thanks for answering my questions.

b7d7935319c147a · Answer

Welcome

ya it is possible for u to access ur info from both the OS. fine if u r going to partition ur hdd into two say C: and D: then first boot ur sys with either Vista or MCE cd and while selecting the partition select C: and then install everything fully and then after setting up this OS once again put the other OS disc inside and then boot with that disc and while choosing partition to install choose D: and start normal installation thats it.. after this os installation u will have dual boot option in the initial screen and u can choose OS which u want to access....

Ram

Rinkerwolf · Answer

Thanks for helping. I have to buy a Vista Home Premium disc. I do not have a Windows XP Media Center disc. Will I have to get one? Also I have Media Direct. When I get a new Hard Drive do I need to get a Media Direct disc and install that on a portion of the drive or is that on its own drive? Thanks again

b7d7935319c147a · Answer

Well Installing media directiect is a bit difficult process if it is a dual boot....!! but let me tell u try this if this works fine... all u have to do is first put the media direct disc and install that and then it will ask u to insert the os disc that time insert the os disc. and install the os that is enough..!!

Rinkerwolf · Answer

I should not have a dual boot if I install Media Direct? Can I just get a 120GB hard drive and have 3 sections on the drive? Is that possible? Thanks, Rinkerwolf

Storage, Drives & Media

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