[7ken]

I have two hard drives installed. One 250GB with two partitions, C and D. C has XP Pro OS, and D is used for storage. I have just added a 1TB HD and have four partitions on it, G, H, I, and J. G is the smallest of the partitions at 200GB. I would also like to install XP Pro on this partition (G) and eventually format the C drive with the original XP Pro OS. After I install the second OS on G, can I go into the disk manager and make sure that the G drive is the "active" drive and format C? I realize I could just format C and reinstall but I would like to get the OS on the other drive and use C for storage. Thx

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Hello,

What you're trying to do sounds like a bit of wasted effort. The best approach would be to remove the active drive containing C drive from the computer. Then reformat the 1TB drive and partition as you want, then install XP onto the drive. Once you reformat/repartition, the active partition will be C drive again. After this, you can connect the drive you removed, transfer your data, then format the drive into whateever partitions you want, or just format them as they are. I recommend you use the hard drive manufactures formatting utility when you do this. It's so much faster than windows.

[makai]

Hello,

What you're trying to do sounds like a bit of wasted effort. The best approach would be to remove the active drive containing C drive from the computer. Then reformat the 1TB drive and partition as you want, then install XP onto the drive. Once you reformat/repartition, the active partition will be C drive again. After this, you can connect the drive you removed, transfer your data, then format the drive into whateever partitions you want, or just format them as they are. I recommend you use the hard drive manufactures formatting utility when you do this. It's so much faster than windows.

[7ken]

Thank you for your reply Makai.
I was just concerned about doing it that way, I wasn't sure if I put the old drive back in after installing the OS on the new drive if it would cause a problem with the two OS's or if it would boot from the new OS or the old. Will I have to change the boot order in my bios to make sure that it boots from the new drive? I certainly don't want to end up with a multi boot system and the problems I have heard of with them. Thank you again

[makai]

Unless something really weird happens, you shouldn't have any problems. I've been doing things like this forever, and currently my slave drive still has an active Winxp partition on it... I've just been to lazy to get rid of it.

Yes, after you connect the drive again, its advised you check the boot order to ensure the correct drive boots first.

[7ken]

When you say slave drive are you talking IDE or just slave drive in general as in not the boot drive? My drives are both SATA but running in IDE mode. I am not running RAID. Thanks again

[makai]

"Slave" drive normally just refers to the drive that doesn't contain the OS. It's also used when we tell the OP to "slave the drive in another computer". Sorry for the confusion, its a carry over from IDE days and it's just easier to say "slave" drive than Sata Channel 1, Sata Channel 2, etc.

[7ken]

lol, I hear ya! I got it up and running this morning. The only problem I had was with my outlook express mail accts. but I got that all straightened out now too. Thanks again for your help.

[makai]

I'm glad everything worked out! Take care!