Install Vista on separate HD from OSX on Pro Mac?

[Julien]

Looking at a Pro Mac and need Vista for now. Can I use the following setup for the Pro Mac's 4 HD's bays. Drive bay 1) 1TB HD for OSX drive, Drive bay 2) 1TB HD for Time Machine backup, Drive bay 3) 400GB HD for Vista and Vista programs to run under Parallel, Drive bay 4) 400GB HD for Vista backup.

Also for Vista can I use Norton Virus Protection and Vista Backup/Restore on a Pro Mac?

 

[aaronw1986]

Yes, you can have that setup. But, if you are just running Vista through parallels, it doesn't even need it's own hard drive. It will just be a disc image, not a partitioned drive.

 

[Julien]

Yes, you can have that setup. But, if you are just running Vista through parallels, it doesn't even need it's own hard drive. It will just be a disc image, not a partitioned drive.

I don't want Vista to take up valuable room on my main HD. I have a lot of music and HD videos so I will need about 750GBs to start with.

I'm lost on what you mean by "disc image". How do you install Vista if you don't partition? Does it just install sort of like another Mac program but can be directed to another HD?

 

[velocityg4]

Also for Vista can I use Norton Virus Protection and Vista Backup/Restore on a Pro Mac?

I would steer clear of any Norton products except Ghost. Norton Antivirus hogs resources. And I have seen many Windows installations that needed to be repaired or reinstalled because of problems caused by Norton products.

If you want a good and free anti-virus use Avast! Anti-Virus Home Edition (my favorite) or AVG anti-virus (another free one but I do not like as much as Avast). Both of these are very highly lauded, use very little resources and will do a better job than Norton.

At one time Norton made great products but now they added too much extra junk wasting system resources and deeply embed themselves in the Windows registry. Maybe they have changed their practices but one version of Systemworks had no uninstaller and the written procedure was several pages long to remove Norton Systemworks.

 

[Julien]

Trying to understand how Parallel and/or VMware work. Can I some how take my current PC (Vista 64) and make a virtual copy of it and then use a USB HD to move the virtual copy to the Mac Pro and use without reinstalling (just reactivate Vista 64) all my programs and settings?

If so this would be fantastic.

 

[aaronw1986]

I don't want Vista to take up valuable room on my main HD. I have a lot of music and HD videos so I will need about 750GBs to start with.

I'm lost on what you mean by "disc image". How do you install Vista if you don't partition? Does it just install sort of like another Mac program but can be directed to another HD?

When you use a virtualization program such as Parallels or Vmware, it does not partition the drive. It essentially installs the OS into a single file. An "image". If you were to go the bootcamp route, then it would partition the drive for Windows.