1.) Did the drive survive? If not then the data's lost and you''re looking at a fresh start. Hopefully you had backups if that's the case.
2.) Was that a pre-installed copy of Windows XP? If so, you cannot (legally and usually technically) transfer it to another computer and expect it to work. You can connect the drive to the new computer to copy off your data, but not run that copy of XP.
3.) If it was a retail version of XP, you can connect it and see if it's bootable. If not, you'll have to perform a repair installation on it.
4.) Assuming you can run XP off that drive on the new machine (see above), the simplest dual-boot would be to use your system BIOS to switch between drives at boot time. Otherwise you'll need a repair install to adjust the new drive to be the primary, and then a repai of Vista to make it bootable again. (There are complications with adding XP to a Vista machine.)
5.) Yes, if you can run XP on the new computer you could wipe the new drive and use it as storage. Personally, though, I bet that's an OEM copy of XP, meaning Vista is your only option.
John
I lost my faithful old 1.2 GB Win XP machine to a power spike and decided to make the leap to a faster machine (AMD Dual 64). My question: Is there a way to add my old hard drive with all its files and pictures to my new machine? Is it possible to have a dual boot? Can I just forget about the Vista OS and use the old HDD and OS and format the new drive for storage. Any ideas on the best way to go?
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