[jasonculp]

I should know the answer to this but I don’t…

I would like to do a fresh install of XPsp2 on a new drive but keep my old one as a slave. Can I set the new one up as a master and install windows, then add the old drive back in. Set the old drive as a slave to then move all of my files over to the new drive? I don’t want to keep any of the software; I will install it fresh. Will it try to boot to the slave? I have done many hard drive swaps after failure, but never trying to keep data on the old drive. After the the files are moved to the new drive I will format the old one and use for storage.

Thanks

[Advertisements]

If your new drive came with a software CD it will let you do exactly that, and it's quite easy, they practically hold your hand to prevent you from making any mistakes. I've done it a number of times and it works very well.

[Tyger]

If your new drive came with a software CD it will let you do exactly that, and it's quite easy, they practically hold your hand to prevent you from making any mistakes. I've done it a number of times and it works very well.

[jasonculp]

I really didn't think it would be a problem. My drive didn't come with a disk, but moving files (pictures, money data, excel, other data files, etc) will not be a problem. I have just filled up my drive, and installed and uninstalled so much it is time for a new start!

Thanks

Jason

[Samm]

Hi Jason

You have two options here:

Method 1:
As you've already described, you can remove the old drive from the system, install Windows on the new drive, then add the old drive back in as a slave. The system will not try to boot from the slave drive unless you change the boot order in the bios so that the old drive is given higher priority than the new one (most newer bios's allow you to do this if you wish).

Method 2:
Add the new drive as a Master & leave the old drive connected as well (but as a slave obviously). Boot from the Windows CD & select the new drive to install Windows to. During the installation, the boot menu (boot.ini) will be changed to contain both Windows installations. The default will be the fresh installation but you will also have the option to boot the old installation if you choose. If you wish, you can manually remove the old installation option from boot.ini later.

Which ever method you choose, it will not affect your ability to copy across the documents etc from the old drive.

[jasonculp]

Thanks!

You have helped me out a lot!