Is it possible to put two different OS's on one HDD? Like using a partition or something? What I want to be able to do is keep my Windows 7 Beta, but also have a 32 bit Windows Vista installed on my computer so I can play games (Only hoping it will workin 32 bit instead of 64 bit).
Huh? I have Vista Ultimate x64 (64 bit) and all my games work on 64 bit....
But yes, you can put two O/S's on one HDD...it's called dual booting. I did it with XP and Vista, but it should work with any Windows O/S's (note that it also works with linux but the setup and partitioning is different).
1) Partition your HDD. For instance, maybe you want 100GB for each O/S and maybe additional partitions for data
2) Rule of thumb is to install the older O/S first (I'm not sure if this truly matters...you could google it)
3) Install the newer O/S (supposedly it handles the boot loader better...for instance XP might not see "Vista" on the previous partition if you install Vista, then XP)
4) You should be good to go
(You can replace my XP and Vista references appropriately)
I haven't done this with Windows7 yet since it's just a beta. I'm going to install it on my External HD tonight and test it out so I can see how well it performs and maybe I'll get it and triple boot when they release it (or maybe I'll delete my Vista...hmm).
As with anything involving formatting and partitioning, depending on what you are doing you could/will lose files so back up anything of value and importance.
Zac