| Originally I purchased an older model MBOX 1 as it | | | | to give me a functional organization map for the |
| was being phased out and prices were quite | | | | drivers. For instance: "AudioDrivers", "VideoDrivers", |
| appealing. Unfortunately I had a particular model of | | | | "NetworkDrivers", "IODrivers", "ModemDrivers" etc. I |
| Dell PC that was using a proprietary memory format | | | | put what I believed were the best matching drivers |
| and as my PC was very old it was going to cost me | | | | for XP on these devices into each folder. |
| almost $700 to go from 512MB to 1GB. The memory | | | | The next major hurtle was to find a good way to |
| and processor limitations were quite apparent to me | | | | create a dual boot system when starting with a |
| and after several months of problems, I put my | | | | system already formatted with Microsoft Vista. |
| guitar down and stopped using the system, with the | | | | To do this I did some research on different ways to |
| intent of buying a new system down the road. | | | | do dual boot system. It had been years since I |
| About 14 months later, I bought a new PC, and it | | | | created a dual boot NT / Win 95 system and I |
| was a refurbished HP Pavilion Media Center with an | | | | needed a refresher course and I didn't want to |
| AMD quad core Phenom Processor and 3GB of RAM | | | | spend a lot of money on a commercial dual boot |
| and a 700 Gigabyte Hard Drive for less than $525. It | | | | system such as Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0, |
| was only available with Microsoft Vista Home | | | | which sells for about $50 and is well worth it if you |
| Premium but the price seemed great for the power | | | | are not comfortable with things like making changes |
| of the machine. Lots of connectivity, tons of USB | | | | to your boot files. |
| ports front and back, fire wire, lots of video i/o and | | | | As a technical professional and someone trying to |
| all sorts of removable media slots, fast DVD burner. | | | | operate on a tight budget, I was going to find the |
| Overall a huge step up in computing from my 2003 | | | | free way to do this as I'd done it years before and |
| Dell desktop. But there was one problem, digidesign | | | | knew that for my purposes that would be all I |
| did not write device drivers for the MBOX 1 for Vista. | | | | needed. After some research work on the Internet I |
| Being the IT Guy I am (pun intended), I wasn't ready | | | | followed the steps in an article I discovered entitled |
| to give up with my dreams at hand. So, I decided to | | | | How to dual boot Vista". |
| make my system a dual boot system with XP and | | | | As with any such potentially destructive process it is |
| Vista. That is when the second set of problems | | | | VERY IMPORTANT to back your system up prior to |
| occurred. HP did not support this system on | | | | doing this. I have a home network and I performed |
| Windows XP and there was no HP supplied device | | | | an image backup of my system to my wife's system |
| drivers. | | | | and also backed up my most important data to |
| Before starting my efforts to create a dual boot | | | | DVDs. |
| system on the HP Pavilion Media Center I wanted to | | | | With the cost of external backup storage being so |
| do as much research as possible for the device | | | | affordable and the many backup solutions available |
| drivers. To do this I went into control panel and then | | | | there is no excuse for not backing up your system |
| "system" to look at the device drivers. I wrote down | | | | except laziness and that doesn't count. |
| as much detail about the device drivers as possible | | | | So, I completed the Dual boot process and started |
| including the manufacture of the devices that the | | | | up Windows XP and then proceeded to go through |
| drivers supported, the driver version numbers and | | | | the driver installation processes. I had a few glitches |
| anything else that might be pertinent to trying to find | | | | with the drivers and had to boot my computer back |
| comparable drivers for Windows XP for the | | | | up in Vista and do some more research on the |
| hardware on board the HP Pavilion Media Center PC. | | | | device drivers and download some different graphic |
| Having done that I began going to the sites of the | | | | drivers but then everything was working great as far |
| chip makers, video, sound and other makers and | | | | as the HP and the XP working together in dual boot |
| searching their support sites for drivers that were | | | | environment were concerned. |
| the closest match for all the device drivers that I | | | | Now in theory I had a hotrod computer ready to |
| needed. | | | | work with my old MBOX 1 and ProTools LE. The |
| I put those all of the drivers and driver | | | | ground had been paved. But that was just the start |
| documentation that I had found on my USB drive | | | | of my challenges. In the next article I'll be writing |
| and then went about preparing the dual boot aspect | | | | about the challenges of getting the MBOX and |
| of the system. I created directors on my USB drive | | | | ProTools LE working completely with my system. |