Adding a hard drive

Electronics Computer Programming Q&A
Post Reply
psycho
Posts: 388
Joined: Thu Jan 10, 2008 8:13 pm
Location: Northwest Indiana
Contact:

Adding a hard drive

Post by psycho »

OK. This may sound like an odd thing to do, but, bare with me...

I have an HP with a 200 gig hard drive that is partitioned with an 8gig recovery part (D:) and the rest is drive C: with winxp on it. It's a SATA drive.

I am going to add a 500gig sata drive. No problem so far.

What I want to do is keep the old drive as is - i.e. bootable into the winxp that is on it. But, I also want the new drive to have win XP on it. The new drive will be a fresh xp install to speed things up. After I have moved around/installed and processed all of the stuff that is on the old drive, I will probably wipe it.

My question is, can I use a boot manager or something to do this without the two drive's registry files screwing with each other? I need both drives visible and I am thinking that if I can boot off of the "secondary" drive (the old one), will it try to use the registry of the new ("primary") one?

Thanks for the info,
Kevin
Bigglez
Posts: 1282
Joined: Mon Oct 15, 2007 7:39 pm
Contact:

Re: Adding a hard drive

Post by Bigglez »

psycho wrote: I have an HP with a 200 gig hard drive that is partitioned with an 8gig recovery part (D:) and the rest is drive C: with winxp on it. It's a SATA drive.

I am going to add a 500gig sata drive. No problem so far.

What I want to do is keep the old drive as is - i.e. bootable into the winxp that is on it. But, I also want the new drive to have win XP on it.
I'd start by partioning the new drive to have 200gig and
300gig, then mirroring the old drive on to the new HD.
Remove the old drive and keep it for back up, just in case...

Now you have a machine with only one drive and one OS.
With this you can use the new 300gig space as both scratch
area and to build the new OS HD as desired.

With only one HD in the mix the process should be easier
and less error prone. You'll have the old HD as a lifeboat
in case something is not going well.
SETEC_Astronomy
Posts: 582
Joined: Tue May 09, 2006 12:44 am
Contact:

Re: Adding a hard drive

Post by SETEC_Astronomy »

I'd first backup all critical data that you can't afford to lose. Second install the new 500GB SATA drive in your computer. Insert your WindowsXP install CD, when you get to the installation menu you can decide which drive and which partition to install windows to. Select your new HD, make any partitions you wanted, format one of the new partitions (NTFS) and select that partition on the new drive for installing Windows. When the installation has finished you will boot into the new XP install as it will have overwritten your MBR. To make both XP installs bootable you just need to edit your C:\Boot.ini file. You can find the file directly in the root of your C:\ partition or by going to Start -> Run and typing msconfig. Your boot.ini file will look like this

Code: Select all

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP" /fastdetect 
The part you're insterested in is

Code: Select all

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP" /fastdetect 
Copy that line and paste it under the existing entry. You will only need to make two changes for it to fit your setup. change it so you have an entry with disk(0) and the other has disk(1). Next change partition(1) to match whatever partition the first drive has Windows installed on. Numbering starts at 0 so adjust accordingly. The line with disk(0) must be the line with the partition number for the first drive.

You don't have to worry about the two installations bothering each other, they won't at all. Both installs of XP will be able to see each other just fine and should be accessible as drive E:\ or F:\ (in most cases).

Instead of writing a full book I gave you the Cliff Notes, if you need more help in an area or want something explained better let em know and I'll do my best to provide that help.
psycho
Posts: 388
Joined: Thu Jan 10, 2008 8:13 pm
Location: Northwest Indiana
Contact:

Re: Adding a hard drive

Post by psycho »

Thanks to both of you for your input. I will let you know how it works out. The drive won't be here until Friday, though.

Thanks again,
Kevin
User avatar
MrAl
Posts: 3862
Joined: Fri Jan 11, 2002 1:01 am
Location: NewJersey
Contact:

Re: Adding a hard drive

Post by MrAl »

Hi psycho,


If you could do a disk test for me i would like to hear how the speed on your old and new drive is.
I have been gathering data for various hard drives to do a compare. I am mainly looking at real
speed for SATA vs IDE.
I have a program if you need it.

Thanks.
LEDs vs Bulbs, LEDs are winning.
susanspy
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Mar 17, 2009 4:11 am
Contact:

Re: Adding a hard drive

Post by susanspy »

Hello all,

Susan here, well this is a cool place i had a issue like Physco but not the 500 i wanted to add it is a 200 gig, i followed instructions by all here & this worked just perfectly fine for me.

Thanks a million.

Cheers!!!
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Amazon [Bot] and 8 guests