options running XP on newer PCs?

You've got the open SATA connection and open drive bays, so you're covered.

And I'd still recommend going the virtual route for XP - you're simply not going to get the best out of the computer or the OS trying to run a 13 year old OS directly on modern equipment. Like that hard drive you were pricing, little if anything in a modern computer is going to be fully compatible with XP. Current computers simply aren't designed with XP in mind, and you're not going to find XP drivers for your parts. You'll be stuck with low resolution - 640x480 or 800x600 - and no sound, and probably no network connection. You may be able to install XP directly on a modern system, but it won't be all that useful.

Virtualbox or VMware will translate the components of your system into something XP will work with, and you'll get the benefit of some of the security advances of the host system. Just set the VM for full screen, allocate at least a Gig or two of RAM and you'll barely notice a difference. My XP virtual machine in Virtualbox actually runs a lot faster than my old dedicated XP machine from 2006.

can you tell from the pic if the PC superficially ready for a 2nd hdd? Looks like the power cable has an additional plug. How would I know if that last open socket (I assume for a data cable) is wired in?  How would I know about the controller card, and if the power is enough?

I was looking at hdd on newegg, and the Western Digital blue 1TB is on sale. It has similar specs as mine - 7200 rpm, 64 mb cache. 6 gb/s. W7 should run as well as it does on my current hdd. The only downside would be if I wanted to install XP on either hdd

• apparently it's not very compatible with those hdd specs.  

If you went that route, I'd install 7 home on the small drive, make sure you can access all of your data first, and then delete the Windows folder from your original drive. Since the old install wouldn't be "live" at that point, it can be deleted like any other file. But make sure you can access your files before you do!

It might be a good idea to change the security settings/file permissions for your files so that "Everyone" has Full control, at least until you get the new system in place. That way your new user account in the new install should be able to access the files and work with them. When I moved my data drive from my old Win7 system to my new Win8 system I had a lot of problems with file permissions. Since the files were "owned" by a user that didn't exist on the new machine, I had trouble accessing them. But that might just have been the tougher security in Win8. You might want to read up on file permissions before you do anything, just in case.

I'd still suggest putting your VM on the same drive as your OS - that way if either the host or client OS get messed up, you can blow away the system and restore, and your data should be ok.

And if possible, a backup is still a very good idea for safety's sake. You're messing around with the file system, and there's always some risk in that.  The other precautions will help, but the safest thing is still to have a second copy of your stuff. That's the only way to be sure you won't lose anything.

I'll check the PC innards later. I imagine HDD specs indicate their power supply requirements. Have you had good luck with a particular HDD?

I was thinking that instead of getting a 1TB HDD to move my data to, I get a smaller one to load and run W7Home on. Would that work? Could I uninstall W7Pro from the 1TB hdd without needing to backup data, or is there still a risk?

Also, would I need to uninstall W7Pro(anytime upgrade) before installing W7Home on the small HDD, since they would share the same license? Or would this new reinstall disc key be different than whatever they used for the first instal?

someone suggested 2 hdd for 2 OS, but I hadnt considered separate drives for OS and data. Sounds like a good idea. Does having them separated change the processing speed? Do you need to change your power supply and/or hardware or software? Is it expensive?

I've never noticed any change in processing or access speed, and there's no need to change any software - Windows recognizes the second drive, lets you format it and gives it a drive letter with no problem.

Depending on what your computer has built in, you might need to buy a controller card for the second hard drive, but most systems these days have connectors for multiple drives. My current Dell has a connector for another drive beyond the two I already have installed, should I need more space. There's a chance you might need to upgrade your power supply, but that's not an expensive or difficult upgrade. I've only needed to upgrade the power supply to support addons once or twice, so you're probably safe. If the computer has the extra bays for more hard drives, it probably was designed with a little room to grow in the power supply as well.

Another advantage to using multiple drives is you wouldn't have to keep all your data on the virtual machine - stick it on the second drive, let the virtual machine see that drive, and you'll have your data accessible to both the guest OS and the host. Then you could have the host OS back up the virtual machine and your data. If something corrupted your virtual machine file, your data would be unaffected, you could restore the virtual machine and get back to business with no data loss.

Basically, I'm suggesting you do a two hard drive system, with your host OS and virtual machine on one drive, and all of your data on the second drive. Back up your data on a weekly basis at least, and back up the virtual machine when you make a change - adding a program for instance.