"jbm" wrote

........

It's very likely that drivers are available for XP, but you
have to check. The specs are he

http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/p...r_na-c02586254

The motherboard is Asus. M826-LA. You can check
with them for drivers. The NVidia graphics will also
need drivers, but since it's all onboard those drivers
will come with the board drivers. You might want
to check with HP first, but they're not likely to offer
drivers for an OS they don't install.

For what you want to do it's a good idea to use
a disk and imaging tool. I use BootIt. Macrium has
a free version that a lot of people seem to like.
Personally I don't think it make sense to cut corners
on disk imaging and partitioning software.

If it were me I'd do the following:

* Back up all data.

* Re-install Win7 fresh from the restore partition,
clean it up, install any needed drivers and maybe
software, and make a disk image of it. Copy that
to DVDs and/or USB sticks.

* Wipe the disk and install XP. Install SP3. Install
all drivers and maybe software. Make a disk image
and copy that to external backup.

* Resize XP to about 10 GB.

* Restore the Win7 disk image behind it, at
60-100 GB.

* Partition the rest for data.

* Copy your disk images to data partitions for
future use.

* Dual boot with 3rd-party software.

With a fresh disk image of Win7 you won't need the
restore partition.

Optional: Upgrade the power supply and add a second
disk for redundancy. The box is probably about 7 years
old. The disk will probably last a few more years, but it
wouldn't be a big surprise if it died.

| a currently
| redundant Canon photo scanner, which will not run under Win 7.

Are you sure? I just dealt with an HP printer last
week. HP had no drivers and offered no help.
Microsoft, however, has a website where you can look
up Win7 support. They had the drivers. That might be worth
checking.