I have a WD 500 AAKS and wanted to dual boot xp prof and vista home premium 64-bit. I also have a 74GB raptor, and I plan on formatting both hard drives before dual booting.

What I want to do is Partition my 500GB hdd and both operating systems on it. Can I do this? If so, is it better to make small partitions or better to half it or something.

well i dual boot...

i have Xp on a 20Gb partition and Vista 64bit on a 40Gb partition and install all other software, games and media else were.

on yours though i would say partition the 74Gb raptor into a 40Gb and 34Gb partition and install vista on that and the other half for games

Then have a 20Gb partition on your 500Gb for XP and leave the other 480Gb for media and apps...

its simple to install the OS's i installed XP first then vista and it all works fine

Unless there is some special need to have very large partitions you need nothing like 500MB (or 250MB each) for the Operating Systems. Suggest you start off with a 10 to 20 gig primary partition and install WinXP onto it first. Make sure you do this before installing Vista. When you subsequently install Vista to a second partition of an equivalent size it will set-up a dual boot menu to allow you choose between XP and Vista at start-up. Then partition the remaining space for data, programs, music etc.

Partition magic may be the easiest way for you to do that. XP also has a way to do partitions aswell. in control panel (in the classic view, not the catagorized view) go to administrative tools, click computer management. in computer management go to disk management (under storage) and the rest should be simple enough to do figure out on your own.

I agree with using the raptor for your OS drive
Remove all partitions
Then install XP and allow it to use 50% of the raptor
Then install Vista and tell it to use the remaining half

divide up the 500 in any way you like for data

Vista will create and install the boot loader for you

So say I reformat and partition my Raptor and put XP and Vista on to the partitions. I would then be using my 500GB HDD for applications.

My question is, when I install a program that is meant for XP and I load Vista as the OS will I be able to see that program, and vise versa?

Will I be able to view all of my media files on either OS?

My question is, when I install a program that is meant for XP and I load Vista as the OS will I be able to see that program, and vise versa?

Will I be able to view all of my media files on either OS?

Answer to the first one...maybe. Some programs will work, others will need to be reinstalled. It is hard to say which will/won't without trying them. If it runs, fine, create a shortcut to it and call yourself lucky.

Yes, you should be able to use the media files in both, but with Vista's excessive DRM it is just a WAG if they will actually be usable...

In Windows XP there is a feature where you can run a program compatible with an Older OS (like Windows 2000). Is there a feature like this in Vista to run in XP mode?

There is a compatibiliey mode (http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/using-windows-vista-compatibility-mode/) option in Vista for programs that are incompatible but that is a differnt thing than using the same installation which is then shared by two dual-booting operating systems because in that instance many programs will need the settings created at installation time in their own respective registries.