My external USB HDD is 1 Terabyte, so there is plenty of room for the install.
My objection to installing Win 7 on one of the 250 Gigabyte internal drives is that I would have to disconnect the other internal drives in order to install Win 7. Then, I would have to reinstall my group of programs that I normally use because I do not know if I can reconnect the disconnected internal drives after the Win 7 install.
I am afraid that the BIOS would get confused (since I cannot select which internal drive to boot from) and try to load both Win 7 and Win XP Pro. If that happened, I would get the dreaded "BLUE SCREEN", and I am afraid the FAT would become corrupt, then I would have a real mess on my hands, and have to reformat both the XP drive and the Win 7 drive and start over. Believe me, I have been there before in previous editions of Windows OS (think Win 95 to 98, or 98 to Win Milennium), and it is no fun.
Also, I don't know what would happen if I were able to have all internal drives connected, be running under Win 7, and try to run a program that is on the XP drive. I don't know if the program would work, crash, or corrupt the drive.
I have a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate. My whole purpose is to try out Win 7 to see if I really like it before converting over to Win 7. My son has Vista installed on his box and really hates it. It is real slow, and not very user friendly. I have tried it on his box, and would not put Vista on my Box. I understand that Win 7 is simply an improved version of Vista. If I don't like Win 7, I want to be able to go back to XP without having to reinstall everything all over.
Bottom line, there seems to be no good or easy way to test out Win 7 short of having only a single hdd with Win 7 installed on it, and loading all of my programs on that drive to try them out. My biggest objection is databases in Outlook 2003 (which are not that easy to transfer, even though MS says they are), Pinacle Studio Plus 14, which is a killer to install and configure, and WordPerfect X4 which, like Pinacle, is a killer to install and configure.
Thanks for your discussions. If anyone has been through this before, let us hear from you.
Ed