XP drivers in safe mode

[scifier]

I posted on Monday about having problems with Oblivion in Vista. Solved the major problem but from what I've read the game just runs better in XP and I've got some other programs I use all the time that wont run in XP (like Office 2003. What's with Microsoft not even supporting a product they put out five years ago). So I've decided the best option is to do a dual boot. Now I already have Windows XP (latest version with service packs) on my secondary hard drive which came from my no defunct HP. I can boot it up in XP on safe mode but it crashes from regular boot up. Already have the proper driver for the ATI Radeon X1600/X1650 Series Video Card on XP because that was the card I was using from my HP. The question is, can I load the chipset driver (which I already got from AMD) into the XP setup from safe mode? And is that all I need to put in to get it up and running into regular mode so I can get the rest of my drivers off of the internet (Optiarc DVD, Realtec Sound, etc)? This would seem like the best solution instead of installing from disks, still having to get the new drivers, and then repairing the installation of Vista from the discs I created on the Gateway.

Computer is a Gateway GT 5674
AMD Phenom 9500 Quad-Core 2.20 Gz
3 GB Ram

Is there a good tutorial somewhere on doing what I want to do? Thanks to anyone who can help.

[glc]

A HP load of XP won't run on a Gateway. You will need a generic copy of XP with a legal key (not the HP or Gateway key) and do a repair reinstall.

Office 2003 runs fine on XP, by the way. So does every version of Office back to Office 97 and up to Office 2007.

[scifier]

Actually the copy of XP on the secondary harddrive is a regular copy that was put on by a friend who tried to fix my computer and put in another hard drive to replace the one that died (so the repair didn't work). It's doesn't display any HP stuff on bootup, just Windows. I want to try my solution if I can get some advice. If it doesn't work then nothing is lost and I can do the repair with XP disks.

[glc]

To move a drive from one machine to another, you HAVE to do a repair install unless the hard drive controllers are EXACTLY the same or you prepare the drive BEFORE moving it - refer to the sticky thread in Tips and Tricks regarding repair installs. If you can do the prep in safe mode, it may work.