I have stared to use Gobbler a little more. Makes a nice place to store a song you don't want to loose,only store the entire song audio and all... in my last hard drive change my MOBO didn't see my boot disk...so I had to resort to backing up with Acronis through my SATA connections.
 
I am seriously considering putting another HDD in my machine connected by SATA and putting a switch on the power connection so I can power it off unless I want to clone a disk, that way the drive doesn't spin up with the others every time I boot up...otherwise the back up drive is wearing out right along with the others.

I have an XP computer sitting here, although I have not turned it on lately. It is SATA and NTFS in XP because without looking I am pretty sure. I had an old harddrive which was 160Gb I bought a new harddrive which was 500Gb both SATA on the motherboard. The only difference I think is that the SATA runs at 3Gb/second whatever it is transfer rate, and the new boards including my Windows 7  runs at 6Gb/second whatever it is for transfer rate of the bus on the mother board. The memory is faster and the processor is faster, otherwise besides the OS, that is about it for the last 7 years on a computer.
no A floppy drive on either computer and DVD drivers are one master drive and on a different interrupt and the harddrive is on the other interrupt as a master.
 
(I do have a ms-dos partition on my old XP computer for some old ms-dos games and that can not be done with Windows 7, that is why I still keep my XP computer around). I have games and some programs that I could run on either one, and some games that will not.
I took computer courses, but that was years ago now.So all I am saying is check out both computers take it into a place and pay to have it done. It is called an economy!.
(before I turn my amp and guitar way up in volume and wake up the dead with it blaring out into the neighborhood).
(no, not really!)
 
Oh, I have a couple maybe of USB 3 ports on my new computer, otherwise the USB ports are 2.0 version just like my old computer. I took my USB audio/interface, plugged it into my new computer from my XP computer (it does not have a sound card now until I put one in) and it works in Windows 7.
 
I can take the new old harddrive out of my XP computer and put it in my Windows 7 computer as a slave harddrive, but since I also bought a new one (same size) I still have to do that, because I may yet use my XP computer, and if I don't I can take out the fairly new harddrive and stick it in my Windows 7 computer and have three harddrives in it, and the DVD recorder/player. I can take the DVD (since it is newer the old one bit the dust) out of my XP computer and stick it in my Windows 7 computer also since it is a standard device, Windows 7 will have the drivers for it included with the OS.
 
Windows XP (64-bit) and Windows 7 (64-bit) and Vista (64-bit) are all based on the original 64-bit computer OS system, which is that funky Windows 2K. Of course they had 32-bit also which is my old computer, but Windows 2K was the first actual 64-bit instruction OS.
 
And even on my Windows 7 computer I have 32-bit programs running like Firefox and anti-virus, because not all the programs are 64-bit programs.
Think I will go and eat!
 
 
 
 
 

Actually I can run my ms-dos old games in Windows 7 because DosBox like version 0.74 (free download ) can run in Windows 7, except on my XP computer I actually have a  ms-dos FAT16 partition for those games which I can not have in Windows 7. Yes, in XP you could have a FAT16, a FAT32 (Windows 98), or a NTFS file system. In Windows 7 you can only have a NTFS file system.
Okay, no harm, no foul, just gonna rain today.
 

In the end, new hardware comes out, a newer OS has to be made to handle it. If not using an external drive (XP may not handle that - I do not know - have to check) and I am only using standard devices (current harddrive and DVD units) then if not using something that has to require a new OS, I really do not need one. Windows 7 has a run life till 2020 being supported and look at how long XP ran before end-of-life came up, and if I am not using USB 3 or Thunderbolt or whatever is coming out and my USB 2 device works fine, then only those that want that newer stuff probably need a newer OS for the technology anyway.
 
I have other things to consider also and to do.
 

My gaming PC was just re-setup from scratch with XP Pro so that all the old games that are on it still run they way there were meant to.  Actually, my DAW is still on XP Pro as well.  Only the new machines are using Windows 7 (and NOTHING is using Windows 8!).

Actually it looks as if Windows 9 is coming out in 2015, because microsoft gave up on Windows 8, 8.1, 8.2 whatever it is. It will still be similiar to Windows 8.1 and have a Start button I guess, but when it comes out - not sure.
Actually though, still another OS I don't need, after all I had Windows 98 first edition, and had to get Windows 98 Second Edition, and once is enough.

 

To make a harddisk a slave drive instead of the usual master as it probably came is jumpers on the back and a sleeve that connects the jumpers. Long fingernails or a small needle-nose pliers can pull it off. Usually helps to have the manual for the harddisk to know which jumpers to use to make it a slave device. Say the connector is on the middle pin and the right pin that makes it a master device, then sticking the connector on the middle pin and the left pin and connecting those may make it the slave. However it works, best to check in your manual or look it up to see pretty pictures and such.
 

spacealf
Actually it looks as if Windows 9 is coming out in 2015, because microsoft gave up on Windows 8, 8.1, 8.2 whatever it is. It will still be similiar to Windows 8.1 and have a Start button I guess, but when it comes out - not sure.
Actually though, still another OS I don't need, after all I had Windows 98 first edition, and had to get Windows 98 Second Edition, and once is enough.

 

I still have an old Dell Inspirion laptop with Windows 98 on it... 

In our "museum" at work I have an HP desktop "thing" dating from around 1980. I wonder if it still works....

(It didn't run windows)


(Or ms-dos)

Done.
Surprisingly easy.