Can i install windows on separate internal drive

[Loyalpalm]

Hello folks I am a software engineer and love to do some testing with the computer system. Currently I am having an iMac at my home with a one old computer that I have kept for testing. I want to know that can I use one extra internal drives to add Windows XP on it. Or since I am having a 500 Gb hard disk so it would be better that I install the Windows Xp on two separate partitions. Can any one tell me that is which one would be better and will consume less electricity and performs faster. I am having 1 GB ram on my PC .

[Glenny]

First of all why do you want to install windows on the hard disk that also has windows on it. Also if you really want to do it I guess the 50: 50 approach would be beneficial. Since you are having a 500Gb Hard disk and since this your old computer and I don’t think so that there would be too much of data on it as you are using iMac, so it is better to use 50:50 partition approach. I have a windows xp and Mac os on my hard disk. Also having two os on the same hard disk will be more faster then having it on other hard disk. So go on and install it on the same disk.

[Loyalpalm]

Sorry for the wrong interpretation of my problem , I wanted to install the Windows xp on hard disk that has a Mac Os on it. My old computer also has a mac os on it. So I want to have a Windows on a external device. So the question is does having windows on the same hard disk as Mac is better or having Mac and Windows on two separate device could be useful. I am in a hurry to perform my test so can you provide me with an accurate answer.

[Raine]

If you want to take my opinion then I would request you to install the Windows xp on the same drive which also has a Mac Os on it. You really have a large space vacant for it and installing it into the other disk is of no use. Windows xp relies upon EFI to BIOS emulation and Apple uses it for Bootcamp, so I guess both of them can go along very good if it is installed only on one external hard disk. I have tested this myself and it is quite useful and the CPU can able to perform the transition faster on two OS on the same drive rather than OS on two other drives.

[Macarenas]

According to me if your data partition is on two separate disks rather than on the same disk than it boosts the computer performance. Also having Os on 2 separate disks reduces the risk of total pc failure. If one of the disks that contains both Windows and Mac os fails then all your data is gone and you have to buy a new one. But if you have got two disks then you can put your data in both the disk as form of a backup. So even if one disks fails then you can use the other one to retrieve the data. So its better to ----have Os on one specific disks.