Vista - need to set up a 2nd Hard drive with XP in my computer

my Vista64 problems have worn me out, i need to have access to an XP program due to incompatible hardware problems/software, such as i need to use voice recognition Dragon10 and they will be a while to upgrade to v64.

i want to get a bigger HD, 1 Tb, put XP on it, and later when Vista64 problems are resolved, i can put my Vista on as a dual boot on the new big HD, i hear it is better to ad Vista to XP.

there are just too many things i need to do that are not compatible with Vista64

i need to do this as simply as possible, like changing the 2 HD's in the BIO's if necessary if i cant easly dual boot, i can not afford to crash the Vista, which i hear can happen with setting up a dual boot on the same HD, if one is not knoledgable about the technical details.. i am not.

my other question is if i will run into a lot of problems if i use XP64, i have 8 Gig of RAM. i need to run Dragon10 voice recognition.. takes a full Gig. and I'd like to play competition Multiplayer games..i have a 1Gig GPU, but i will settle for XP32 to avoid problems, that is why i parking the Vista to begin with as the particular games i am playing now have some problems with some people's Vista.. like mine. i have a home built computer, that may be it. i may just have to take it to the shop.. which i'd rather not do.

i am not familiar with the details of tweaking things in the Matrix, i build Avionics control circuit boards for the F22 and the Delta3 Rocket.. but i dont mess with their programs. I'm just learning this part of it, and the learning curve is really steep.

if anyone has some links they know of that would help me out, i appreciate the info

The first thing I would suggest before modifying anything is a method to get back
where you started. I would try to find an image backup software that works on the particular PC and OS you have. Don't just read the Copy on the product website. Go to the support forum and see if you notice a lot of unresolved problems with setups that seem a lot like yours. Give yourself the best chance of being able to recover.

It always helps if you have a "guinea pig" machine to try things out on first. In my case I googled around, found products.. read the support forums and finally decided on Paragon Drive Backup Personal edition. The "guinea pig" machine had been recently hosed by malicious software and restored.. so I didn't have a lot invested in program customization. I installed 1/2 dozen apps I knew well so I could tell if anything was weird, then I deleted the OS partition and did a restore from the image backup I made with the software.

After that I was confident I could restore my Vista PC if I need to. It helps a lot if you know with a couple hours work you can undo a big mistake. Much less paranoia about making a major setup change.

I wouldn't do anything like you are pondering for the first time without such a backup unless the machine is expendable. Once you have confidence in the backup you can try a few approaches. No need to panic.

I have Vista 32 bit but I used the Vista disk partitioning stuff in the Administrative Tools. First I defragged the drive. Then I deleted the recovery partition(I had the burned recovery DVDs plus an image backup or two made with Paragon to rely on.)

I followed a guide I found online for adding XP to a PC that already had Vista installed. The main "gotcha'" is you need an install disc for one OS or the other... or a Boot CD that has Repair Console. Once you do all the setup for the multiboot, XP won't boot from the Vista Boot Manager because ntldr and ntdetect.com are not in the XP boot partition. The XP installer puts them on C: To undo the damage, you boot the XP install CD, press R to get into the Repair Console. Then you copy the 2 files from the install CD to the partition where XP is installed. After that you can boot XP from the Vista boot manager program.

It's not as difficult as it sounds if you go step by step. But I wouldn't just wing it unless you've installed multiboot a bunch of times in the past. 2 separate physical drives has its own set of issues. For one thing if you don't already have them both in the machine and working, you won't be quite sure if things are configured correctly when you first put the new drive in. Adding that in to the uncertainty of setting up multiple OS for the first time is a lot of pressure. OK if the machine is expendable but if you really don't want to risk your install I'd take a more conservative approach.

Multiboot using a boot manager type program is pretty stable and has been around a long time so I'd tend to go with that for your first time around.

Oh yeah.. one other consideration. Before you go too crazy resizing partitions or adding drives, make sure you can get XP drivers for all the hardware on your system. It's a real drag if you get the OS installed only to find out the ethernet or modem driver doesn't work! No internet to go download the XP drivers you need etc...