Migrating to P 173X-FX

My new gateway P 173X-FX just arrived at my home today though I won't be there to see it until tonight. I upgraded from an overworked gateway 7422gx that I had for almost 4 years now.

Here's my issue:
The new laptop has a 200gb HDD with Vista Ultimate (which I'm eager to move on to), and I want to install a second HDD with a copy of my old data.
Is it reasonable for me to be able to completely copy everything with my XP home OS from my old 80gb HDD onto a second fresh 200gb hd and expect to be able to dual boot in the new laptop?

I know I'd have to find drivers and things, but it would save me alot of valuable time as my previous laptop is suffering from mobo failure and I need to still be able to operate out of XP sometimes in case I run into compatibility issues with Vista.

 

I'm not sure you can use the OEM XP from your old computer. For one thing, I don't think it's legal. Also, I'm not sure if the registration code will activate. However, you could try to put it in and use EasyBCD to create a 2nd OS. If you do a search, there's a guide. Just skip the steps about installing XP and go straight to the part about setting up the 2nd OS from EasyBCD. You can try it to see if it works but no guarantees.

Does your second HDD have a SATA port?

 

best way to do this is to Setup both over a local network and transfer files from a shared folder. Yes it does take some time but it's idle time you can make dinner, or whatever as it transfers.

One other way to do this without a network would be an external USB or firewire Hard drive.

However if your laptop is suffering from mobo problems and will not turn on at all then you are going to have an interesting process ahead of you. I wish you luck either way

 

Unfortunately, just copying the data from one drive to another, will not allow a boot. You will need to image it with a program such as Acronis, or Norton Ghost and even then you would run into compatibility/driver issues, as XP would think its still in the old machine for which it has drivers for and could possibly refuse to boot. There are times, far and few, that xp will boot and just install the new drivers and all is well. However, there is usually something that pops up down the line as a gotcha. I simply recommend you backing up your data(ie word docs, music, pics, etc) and doing a complete re-install of XP(That is if you absolutely cannot live with Vista only, it actually works great for me) to the second drive, then transfer the data portion back over once you are up and running. Keep in mind when you do this, XP will overwrite the Vista boot file, so you will need to Insert the Vista cd and tell it to repair the install at which point you will then be prompted to dual boot. It really is a hassle and I think once you cleanup the startup garbage and mae a few tweaks, you'll find Vista works just fine.

 

first try vista, if you have problems consider xp migration.
i think you waste energy on problems that do not exist anymore.
just copy your data and work with vista, if in pain find a cure.