I have been using an older PC with XP for my music. It is now on its way out and I will need to get a new PC. I have tons of music related programs, files on my old PC. Will a new Windows 8 computer let me boot from that old hard drive? I will never be able to reinstall all of whats on the old hard drive, so Im wondering if most newer computers will let me dual boot to the old eide hard drive. If so tell me what to look for.


Thanks

 

You will need to either get an external hard drive and copy all of you files to the external drive and then transfer them to your new machine or you can get an external hard drive enclosure, which supports IDE drives, and put the IDE hard drive in there and then transfers the files to your new machine. I transferred from XP to Windows 7 on my studios machine last year and good majority of my programs were not compatible with Windows 7, so I doubt a lot of them will work in Windows 8.

There may be another option or 2, maybe someone else can chime in and help you out.

Good luck!

 

pc's use sata not ide nowadays so you will need some form of adapter, external hdd usb caddies will get your new puter to access your old drive. Unfortunately you probably won't be able to run the programs as they have not been installed onto the new pc, (windows registry)

don't forget that XP is only 32bit, most pc's now will ship with windows8 64bit, so another reason your programs won't work (win8 also available as 32bit but most readymade systems are only 64bit)

You should be able to set-up dual boot, however your old XP will not recognize your new puters hardware / drivers / etc, so you may struggle, start XP in safe mode and see if you can get it going from there. A good winter's project I think.

Personally I would go for a new puter with Windows 7 and duel boot that. Windows8 is a bit of a shocker at first to get to grips with.

 

You can try a dual boot option: Both XP and Windows 8. I recommend a solid state disk for the sofware.

Suc6

Gnib

 

Hello;)

Some motherboards still have one IDE channel connector, so you can connect your old HDD to the new PC and in case of UEFI, you need to have legacy boot option enabled. But since it's Windows XP, I really doubt that it will be able to boot correctly, because of the missing drivers in the system, but I think there are people that can do it successfully. There is another way, depending on the size of your HDD, you can try to make a virtual machine from your XP HDD and that way you will have access to both Windows XP and Window 8 at the same time.

Hope it helps;)

Have a nice day;)

 

Try to run your programs under XP mode or using backward compatibility mode? This doesn't work all the time but it could make them work under 8.

If not, instead of using dual boot, wouldn't it be simpler to run XP in a virtual machine instead? You could use Microsoft VirtualPC or Oracle VirtualBox, both are free.

Also note that Microsoft will drop support for XP on April 1st of 2014 which is in just a year or so. They will stop to patch the OS, so no more security updates after this date. This will make your system at risk, I would recommend not to connect it to the Internet or to a network after this date. But if it runs in a virtual machine you could just disable the virtual network card and transfer your data by disk-to-disk (virtual tunnel) between your host OS and virtual OS.

Or, try this: Dual boot w8 & xp

 

Not sure why you would want to use XP anymore.XP is limited to 4Gb RAM usage where x64 win 7 or 8 is 128Gb.Surprising to see anyone still using an x86 OS.

 

Lets see??

How many programs do you think is coded for more then 2 gb ram?

Except for dedicated x64 programs like PT 11/Samplitude/Sequoia/ they need 4 gb ram or more to work

Samplitude/Sequoia has 32 bit version that only need 1 gb

Cubase and Sonar and many other only need 2 gb ram even 64 bit version..

XP b.t.w is limited to 2 GB NOT 4 GB

But i see your confusion as 32 bit system is limited to 4 GB but that not means that XP or other softwares can handle the limit.

Although there is 3 GB BIOS solution floating around to get XP to accept 3 GB i really wonder if anyone succeeded in using that one?

I tried but did NOT notice any improvment..

Anyway the ONLY program to my knowledge (atleast when it comes to music)except those 64 bit DAW:s you could take advantage over 2Gb ram is NI Kontakt

Now IF you DONT use that one there is absolutely no need to have so much ram as 99% of all programs is really written for 2Gb ram or less.

A better or faster cpu or an ssd disc is a much better choice if you want a faster computer..

 

I went from XP to Win 7 64bit OS (but all programs and vsts 32 bit-humougous amount) and all worked.

 

xp has a 64 bit version

 

Thanks for all the replies. So, if i get a machine with win 8 it will probably be 64 bit and all my software wont work even if i reinstall it ? DAWs and such that dont support 64 bit? How about vsts, they should all work right? maybe? So if you have a lot of audio recording software, you dont want a machine with windows 8 64 bit on it. Better choice is windows 7 ?

Yes i was hoping a machine would have an eide connector and i dual boot that old drive, changing drivers etc. wow what a pain in the ass.

thanks

 

I have a lot of audio apps on the xp drive. The thought of reinstalling all of them on a new computer would be a nightmare. Dont have enough xanax. I thought if i could dual boot, at least i could use the xp drive while i build up the new windows 7 or 8.

 

Yeah I use Kontakt and yes I have 32Gb RAM.Kontakt is not the only VST that uses alot of RAM.Pretty much most sample based VSTi's req high RAM like Superior Drummer.I also tested XP vs 7 and the moment I switched to all x64 plugins I noticed a large improvement in performance in CPU usage.Win XP x64 didn't support alot of plugins and you are confined to use x64.Win7 and 8 can run both x86 and x64 side by side.If you are just recording audio then sure,knock yourself out with XP.When I presented the question I was not referring to DAW's and normal plugs.My rig is an MSI GT60....4th gen i7,256Gb SSD,32Gb RAM,1 Tb secondary drive for samples,4Gb GTX680 GPU.I have tested XP/XP64/Win7 x64/Win8 x64.The winner was Win8 x64.Maybe in desktop realms none of this matters but in the laptop world every little advantage is needed.

 

If I have understood question you need to install your new chosen operating system, then after that done you shut down pc, add your ide drive and reboot. get a boot manager and it will assist you to configure your OS choices at boot up e.g. Xp and Window 7. This will give you a dual boot system with your XP install intact and a clean Windowa 7/8 install to fine tune and install all audio apps as you feel you need. One cautionary note. If you are using a library for a vst, you will need to install on new operating system in different location to original install as you may suffer corruption of files otherwise.

 

A few points:

Windows 8 is available in 32bit. Most 32 bit programs should run in 64bit, but 64 bit DAWS need bridging to run 32bit VSTs. native 64bit VST would work also. 16-bit programs will not work in 64bit windows. There's also Windows 7 32/64 bit.

There is a windows XP 64 bit, but i herd it sucks, not much (driver) support, etc.

You can use 4GB of RAM in 32bit windows with "PAE" hacks (but it may or may not work 4 u). You could also use a sever version of windows in 32 bit, that has PAE enabled natively, like server 2003 instead of Windows XP, etc.

 

Yeah i forgot the drum sample lib:s like Superior and BFD but they both WORK with 1 GB Ram recomended is 2 Gb or more..

But for those that not use Kontakt or a Drum sample lib:s they really dont need so much ram..
Hey there is still people who make music using REAL instruments and a REAL drum-kit

Anyway i am on Win 7 64 bit now

But damn do i miss XP

It is much more user friendly and way easyer then Win 7 but i have configure it so it is more like XP well it looks more like Win 2000 than XP *yes*
What i really hate all this "everything has to be on internet" solutions all computer developers are into nowadays..

I´m not surfing the net when i make music

But my main point is computers nowadays are so fast and powerful that the majority of people who use them for music making seems to have forgotten that the computers they used to make very good records with 15 years ago is on a dump yard now..

I also think that music is going the WRONG way hell nowadays most records have 60 or more tracks in it (how are you gonna perform that live? use 20 person?)

The most hilarious examples is dance music where they use drummachines playing snare rolls so fast that even superman cant´keep up with the tempo not to mention that they never ever miss a beat or loose the tempo of the song..

Then you see a s.c LIVE performance on the TV of the mention track using a REAL human sitting behind a REAL drum-kit trying to mimic what is recorded using drummachines or drum-samples vsti like BFD2 SD 2 or s.c a guitarplayer with no cord pluged in

And absolutely no CHORDS or lines being played with the frethand

Hell sometimes here is NO guitar recorded in the song at all yet still there is a person "playing?" guitar on stage or in the video.

When Black Sabbath record their first album it took 8 hours it was more or less LIVE only a few overdubs and most likely everything was less then 16 tracks on every song it was done on 4 or 8 track machine and if it was more than 4 or 8 track they have to bounce all 4 or 8 track to one track to "free" up 3 or 7 more tracks..

Anyway they where more then capable to reproduce the record LIVE that is almost impossible nowadays..