Question about dual hard drives

I am getting a Toshiba X205 (has dual hard drives)with windows vista. i need windows xp for my job because vista is not compatible with our programs. Are there any issues with having vista and xp on a system and is it hard to do? I have NO knowledge on dual boot systems at all so any input would be GREATLY appreciated.

 

You don't need dual hard drives to have 2 operating systems. But if you want it that way you can. It can be hard to do if you have no idea what you are doing. Also, if Toshiba may not supply windows xp drivers for you which will make it really hard to get your laptop fully functioning under xp. Saying it does, you would boot to your xp disk, install it on the 2nd hard drive, yada yada like you normally would. But the issue lies now that your boot loader does not see your vista boot loader, it will boot strait to xp. So you will have to plop in your vista dvd and run a repair on the master boot record to bring up the option of selection at the boot screen for what operating system you would like.

Dell still sells laptops with XP to its customers. That may be an easier route for you to travel.

 

Also, your laptop may come with both drives configured as one large drive in a RAID0 array -- as mine did in my Sony AR670. If you prefer to split them up into separate physical drives, as I did, you'll wipe out your OS and all files which requires a reinstall. I recommend something like Acronis True Image to image the factory partition (and restore partition, if yours comes with one). Then after you split the drives, you can restore the image much quicker than going through a reinstall. That's what I did with my Sony.