HDD conundrum

[Mzee]

Hello All
Having searched PPRune and the web without much success can I ask if you chaps can steer me in the right direction.

I have two internal HDD's (OS is Win2K), one 120Gb formatted into C:, D: & E: partitions. The other 74Gb is I:, D E & I all have data on them, OS is on C:

I would like to swap drives and upgrade to XP on the 74Gb drive (ie to be the new C:) and use the 120Gb drive as the major data holder.

Here's the Q, as I can get all my data on the 120Gb drive for the changeover, will the newly created XP OS on the 74Gb in be able to read the old 120Gb (now a slave) drive partitions D: & E: whilst the Win2K OS still resides in C:? if so then I can reorganise the data before formatting the 120Gb to a single partition in XP.

Phew that was difficult:eek:

There is a solution - buy another HDD, but can't justify that right now, this is an interim solution.
Any help most appreciated.

[BOAC]

I'm sure better advice will come along soon, but I would think, at first glance, that your problem is going to be changing the "C:" drive from one disk to another? I would have thought that the Windows HAL will throw a wobbly:eek: .

Why not, for simplicity, just install XP on the 74GB drive ("I:")?

Leave W2k on "C:" and, if you wish, set the system up to dual-boot W2k or XP.

Unless there is a particular reason for wanting to swap the "C:" drives around I would leave them alone. As long as the DOS system is on "C:" plus the "boot.ini" I would think you'll be OK.

[vapilot2004]

Yes, MZ, you can do this easily - XP will pick up all of the partitions - their letters may be changed however.

Once you have the OS running and updated - just Right Click your My Computer icon, Left Click Manage and open the Disk Management Snap-in to change your drive letters if you need to.

If your new XP disk is non-SP2, the entire package is available from MS - filename WindowsXP-KB835935-SP2-ENU.exe. It's mighty big - 266mb but will be faster than using Windows Update.

I would have thought that the Windows HAL will throw a wobbly .


Had this happen and it's not Fun ! :eek:

[Mzee]

Thanks guys,
BOAC - I don't think I explained the reason for swapping clearly enough, apologies. All I want is to upgrade from Win2K to a clean install of XP, and changing over the HDD's would a) streamline my storage problems and b) hopefully make it a fairly straightforward process.

VAPilot - Sounds very promising thank you.

As it happens I have an unused computer that I'm rebuilding for a charity and I'll try it as an experiment before I mess with my data, will keep you posted.

Thanks

Just a thought I guess it would be better to do a clean XP install on the smaller HDD Pri Master (as I want) and then install the larger HDD as the Sec Master and let XP find the drives on reboot.

[Mzee]

VP
You were spot on! - I tried an experiment to prove just that and XP picked up all Win2K partitions with the OS in the first one.
Had to make sure the HDD was Sec Slave obviously.
Many thanks