Toshiba A205-S5859 2nd Hard Drive options or re-partition?

I am somewhat tired of Vista, and I would like to install XP, but I just don't want to lose the Vista just in case if XP is having issues.

First question is, if I wipe the drive and re-partition it into two drives, do you think I can still use the factory restore dvd to install the vista to smaller partition? I wouldn't be surprised if factory restore DVD checked drive ID or drive information to match the DVD to system?

Second question is, I checked Toshiba store, but I could not secondary hard drive information, and it looks like it requires swapping it with DVD drive. I may have to buy external DVD drive, but it should be OK.

Toshiba A205-S5859

 

If you wipe the entire harddrive clean, you will format right over the factory installed partition. However, if you just format the partition which your current operating system is on, you can still use the recovery partition at a later time. I am pretty sure that the recovery files would only be for vista and not for xp. The manufacturer usually only installs recovery files for the operating system with which teh computer was purchased with.
The only way you can install a secondary harddrive is to buy a optical drive bay to harddrive caddy.
These are expensive and are bottlenecked by the speed of the ata interface with which the optical drive connects to the system.

You can simply bypass this all, by formatting your current operating system partition, and creating two partitions in that space, so you can have three partitions in all, (1, the recovery partition, 2 - the xp operating system, and 3 - the vista operating system.)

K-TRON

 

K-Tron,
Thanks, but Toshiba does not keep the recovery information on HDD partition (I think HP does that) . Toshiba gives you DVD with recovery information that allows you to just wipe the drive and re-install.

Other than that, my concern is that if I just re-partition the HDD (by using Windows 2000 installation CD, or something else) that Toshiba recovery DVD may not recognize the computer as "authorized" computer and may claim "This DVD is only intended to use on Toshiba XXXX series computers".

Similar to what happens when you put recovery media to another computer and try to boot.

 

Update, well it turns out there is "Shrink" option with Vista, but a few people reported that they could not install OEM version of XP to that partition. I think the best bet is still to format and re-partition the drive, then install XP OEM, and then Vista from recovery, if it allows.

 

I am not sure what files are on the toshiba recovery cd.

You bring up a good point about formatting and the cd recognition. I am not sure what to say to that. Hopefully someone knows.

Your best bet is to format and partition the drive. I think you can still use the toshiba recovery cd even on a formatted harddrive, so I think you are good to go.
I am not 100% sure with the cd recognition of the drive, so take it with a grain of salt.

K-TRON

 

I bet if I call Toshiba support, they will not know what I am talking about.
The best thing to ask them would be "If I replace my hard drive with a new one after this one is damaged, can I still use the recovery DVD to install the OS back?".

I just hope their answer is not "Recovery informatino and OS is on the Hard Drive under Recovery partition".

Ouch. Anyway, like you said, let me check the DVD/CD whatever came with the PC first, then consider it.

Do you know if there is anyway to disable Vista boot animation to see what is going on, like errors, etc.. Also it looks like F8 has disappeared from Hibernation screen.