I have a DELL XPS M140 Laptop, with 1.73 Ghz Pentium M processor and 1 gig of
ram, 80 gig hard drive. I dont want to risk loosing data on my hard drive.
Can I install a copy of Windows Vista on my 80 gig external hard drive and
create a dual boot system.

No, Vista does not support installing on external hard disk. Sorry.
--
Andre
Extended64 | http://www.extended64.com
Blog | http://www.extended64.com/blogs/andre
http://spaces.msn.com/members/adacosta
"Sid" <Sid@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:39CF9E6B-15F2-4269-9CCC-786653F73B6D@microsoft.com...
>I have a DELL XPS M140 Laptop, with 1.73 Ghz Pentium M processor and 1 gig
>of
> ram, 80 gig hard drive. I dont want to risk loosing data on my hard drive.
> Can I install a copy of Windows Vista on my 80 gig external hard drive and
> create a dual boot system.

That's disappointing. What in your opiniion would be the least risky way of
isntalling vista on my laptop? I was thinking of partitioning my hard disk
and installing a copy windows vista on the new partition, thus making a dual
boot system. How do I go about configuring my system as dual boot?

"Andre Da Costa [Extended64]" wrote:

> No, Vista does not support installing on external hard disk. Sorry.
> --
> Andre
> Extended64 | http://www.extended64.com
> Blog | http://www.extended64.com/blogs/andre
> http://spaces.msn.com/members/adacosta
> "Sid" <Sid@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:39CF9E6B-15F2-4269-9CCC-786653F73B6D@microsoft.com...
> >I have a DELL XPS M140 Laptop, with 1.73 Ghz Pentium M processor and 1 gig
> >of
> > ram, 80 gig hard drive. I dont want to risk loosing data on my hard drive.
> > Can I install a copy of Windows Vista on my 80 gig external hard drive and
> > create a dual boot system.
>
>
>

The best bet is probably to just repartition your hard drive in your laptop,
and make a dedicated partition for the Vista install. The best and easiest
way I've found to repartition is to use GParted.
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/
You can download a very tiny CD iso from them. It makes a bootable Linux
disc which automatically boots into X and run the GParted utility. Pretty
simple GUI. I did this with both of the machines I'm using to test Vista,
and it worked like a charm.
-joe


"Sid" wrote:
> That's disappointing. What in your opiniion would be the least risky way of
> isntalling vista on my laptop? I was thinking of partitioning my hard disk
> and installing a copy windows vista on the new partition, thus making a dual
> boot system. How do I go about configuring my system as dual boot?

Use GParted to repartition your laptop drive and make yourself a dedicated
Vista partition.
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

"Sid" wrote:
> That's disappointing. What in your opiniion would be the least risky way of
> isntalling vista on my laptop? I was thinking of partitioning my hard disk
> and installing a copy windows vista on the new partition, thus making a dual
> boot system. How do I go about configuring my system as dual boot?

Use the "GParted" bootable ISO to repartition your laptop drive and make
yourself a dedicated Vista partition.


"Sid" wrote:
> That's disappointing. What in your opiniion would be the least risky way of
> isntalling vista on my laptop? I was thinking of partitioning my hard disk
> and installing a copy windows vista on the new partition, thus making a dual
> boot system. How do I go about configuring my system as dual boot?

Sorry about the multiple posts. I kept getting told there was an error
during posting, and they weren't working... but it appears they were.

Thanks for your replies, but I am currently running Windows XP Media Center
Edition . Can I still use Gparted to partition my drive ??

"jreiter" wrote:

> The best bet is probably to just repartition your hard drive in your laptop,
> and make a dedicated partition for the Vista install. The best and easiest
> way I've found to repartition is to use GParted.
> http://gparted.sourceforge.net/
> You can download a very tiny CD iso from them. It makes a bootable Linux
> disc which automatically boots into X and run the GParted utility. Pretty
> simple GUI. I did this with both of the machines I'm using to test Vista,
> and it worked like a charm.
> -joe
>
>
> "Sid" wrote:
> > That's disappointing. What in your opiniion would be the least risky way of
> > isntalling vista on my laptop? I was thinking of partitioning my hard disk
> > and installing a copy windows vista on the new partition, thus making a dual
> > boot system. How do I go about configuring my system as dual boot?
>

Yes. GParted is run from a fully self-contained boot cd. (You just download
the ISO file from the GParted website, and burn it to cd.) You then boot
onto that CD, and it will boot into a self-contained environment and
automatically run the GParted tool. That tool allows you to resize your NTFS
partitions. You just shrink one or more of your existing partitions to give
you enough space for another partition on which to install Vista. Not sure
how big of a partition Vista requires, but I gave myself a 20 gig partition
just to have enough space to play around a bit.

The repartitioning is super easy, and works like a charm.
-joe


"Sid" wrote:
> Thanks for your replies, but I am currently running Windows XP Media Center
> Edition . Can I still use Gparted to partition my drive ??

I downloaded and looked at the GParted program, but it seemed to indicate it
could not create an NTFS file system. Am I correct and if so, how do you
create a partition for Vista?

"jreiter" wrote:

> Use the "GParted" bootable ISO to repartition your laptop drive and make
> yourself a dedicated Vista partition.
>
>
> "Sid" wrote:
> > That's disappointing. What in your opiniion would be the least risky way of
> > isntalling vista on my laptop? I was thinking of partitioning my hard disk
> > and installing a copy windows vista on the new partition, thus making a dual
> > boot system. How do I go about configuring my system as dual boot?
>