Help setting up dual boot

[RudeDawg]

Hello,
 I would like to set up a dual boot with XP/7. I will be doing a clean install on virgin (brand new) drives. If at all possible I would like for the 2nd HDD to be a bootable mirror of the 1st HDD. Is this possible? If so is it easy enough for a novice?  Here is my system specs: PS this is my first time building a computer.

Case:          Thermaltake Element G
Mobo:          Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P
CPU:           Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition 3.4 Gb
CPU Fan:    Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus
Memory:      2X Mushkin 2GB DDR3 1333
PSU:           Thermaltake Toughpower XT 750
GPU:           Sapphire Radeon HD 5750 1 GB GDDR5
ODD:          2X Samsung DVD-W Supermulti SATA 22X Lightscribe
HDD:          2X Western Digital Caviar Blue 320Gb
OS:             Windows XP Professional 32 Bit,Windows 7 Ultimate 32 Bit

[Geek-9pm]

Yes, you  can do it. But not as easy as you might wish.
Do you have lots of free disk space?
Do you have a third drive available?
One method is to install XP first using about 25% or less of the space you have. Install Win7  next. 
After that you can 'clone' the drive. But before you do that, make sure you have the recovery DVD for Windows 7. You make it inside of Windows 7. And backup Windows 7 onto  part of the third drive, if you have one.
The 'clone' process will likely fail. So you have to recovery the Win7 install using the recovery DVD.
This is based only on my very limited experience trying to do this.

I now have a system that boots Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Vista. I had to remove the Windows 7 install, but I will do it again later.

My other PC boots XP and Windows 7 after I did a repair from a 'clone' failure.
It gets complicated!

[RudeDawg]

Hmmmm, definitely too complicated..... Would it still be feasible to just set up a plain old dual boot with the 2 hard drives ? PS I have plenty of space as both 320 Gb drives are brand new and haven't even been formatted yet. (All I have at this point is the case, one of the optical drives, both hard drives, the CPU fan and the video card. The PSU and the Mobo/CPU/Memory combo have all shipped but haven't arrived yet.)

PS does this look like a decent build?

[Geek-9pm]

PS does this look like a decent build?

Looks great!
And YES. use two drives for your dual boot. With Vista and Win 7 the third party HDD clone programs are near useless.

Here is my current plan:
1 st Drive. IDE 160MB, partitions for Windows 2000, Windows XP, DATA, My Documents and Backup.
2 nd Drive. SATA  40 GB, partitions for Vista and Windows 7.

I have spare 250 GB drive and some other drives I can put in the Mobile rack and tray if needed. And yes, the BIOS will let you boot many sources.  I just discovered that mine will even find my new USB external DVD Burner and boot from it! And this is not a new machine at all!  Check your BIOS.

In my BIOS I can hit F8 and it will give me a boot menu.
If I boot the first drive, I get the standard XP boot menu.
When I boot the second drive I get the Windows 7 menu for
either  VISTA or Win 7 

The 160 GB has nuff free space for  backups. Windows 7 likes the backup to be on another physical HDD. Good idea.

So far I have put Windows 7 as a dual-boot on two computers and it works fine.

Hope this is of some help.

[RudeDawg]

My plan currently is  Drive 0: 25 Gb partition for Xp / 30 Gb partition for 7 / 130 Gb Programs /130 Gb Data
Drive 1: 100 Gb Music / 100 GB photos / 120 GB Misc. Does this sound like a good plan?

[Geek-9pm]

Looks great. Remember that XP goes first. If you ever have to repair the XP portion, you will also have to fix the Windows 7 boot loader. Other people  know how to do this, I am still learning. I think that is some way to make a backup of the boot sector. Not sure about that.

I know nothing about the Mac. Wish I had one.

[soybean]

Drive 0: 25 Gb partition for Xp / 30 Gb partition for 7 / 130 Gb Programs /

So, you're going to install programs for both XP and 7 on the 130 GB partition?  I guess I see no problem with that, although I think I'd probably make the OS partitions larger and install programs on the same partition as the OS.  That's just my opinion.  Otherwise, the plan looks fine.

[Geek-9pm]

So, you're going to install programs for both XP and 7 on the 130 GB partition?

Its worth a try. Some programs want the user data to be in the same directory tree as the program. So this would fix the problem of having two sets of user data for such programs.

[RudeDawg]

LOL, now I'm thoroughly confused...... Perhaps I would just be better off running 7 because Ultimate does have the XP Mode. My main concern is having my printer work and Office Xp (2002). Office 2002 I'm sure is a bit too old for Windows 7. Will XP Mode allow me to run Office XP?

[soybean]

Sorry if I and Geek-9pm caused some confusion.  Your partitioning plan would work fine if you want to dual boot. 

Per http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/GettingReadyforWindows7/thread/abbe2f98-569e-4123-b0c7-2eb785f13315, Office XP will run with Windows 7.

What printer do you have?

[RudeDawg]

Not a problem, I are easily confused. (lol) I'm thinking I'll probably just run 7 Ultimate and save my XP Pro for my old machine. If Windows 7 will run Office XP that is great! Presently I have a Canon Pixma MP830 but I'm seriously considering going to a black and white laser printer since I rarely print anything in color and this thing seemingly evaporates the color ink in no time.Each toner cartridge costs about 2 dollars more than I pay for each of my 5 Canon cartridges and will last probably 5 times as long.

Thank you for your input!!!

[soybean]

That Canon printer is not very old, is it?  You can get a Win 7 driver for it at http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&tabact=DownloadDetailTabAct&fcategoryid=334&modelid=12804.  Click the drop down box for OS and select Windows 7.

[RudeDawg]

Thanx Soybean, that'll make life bearable until I can afford a B/W Printer!