I'm looking into installing Snow Leopard on my girlfriends Dell Inspiron 1720 laptop. I'm trying to figure out where to start. What is the easiest way to get started and ensure that everything will work properly? I'm planning on replacing the existing HDD to a newer, faster model, with more space, and partitioning it to load Windows on one partition, and Snow Leopard on another.

More info.

Have Leopard install disc. Some of the things I have seen say it is better to upgrade to Snow Leopard from a succesful Leopard install. Any thoughts?

I have an older iMac G5 available to do any of the customizing of the boot disc I need to.

Dell Inspiron 1720 has 4GB of ram, so I'll probably want to take advantage of Snow Leopards 64 bit capability.

What else do I need before starting down this road?