John
Sun May 04 05:58:23 PDT 2008
Anna wrote:
>>>> On 2008-05-03, John hit the keyboard and wrote:
>>>> My existing hard drive is quite small so I've just got a new
>>>> Western Digital 500GB SATA II hard drive and want to make it my
>>>> "main" drive. The BIOS allows a choice of boot device, first one
>>>> being CD/DVD drive, second floppy drive, 3rd boot device is my
>>>> existing SATA hard drive and then it goes on to list SATA 2, SATA
>>>> 3 and SATA 4.
>>>>
>>>> I'd obviously like to be able to select my new drive as the first
>>>> boot device and have my existing drive active so that I could
>>>> transfer stuff like music, photo's etc., etc by drag and drop
>>>> between my old and new drives.
>>>>
>>>> This of course means that both drives would have a C: drive with
>>>> Windows XP on each of them, but, because I can select SATA 2 (my
>>>> new drive) as the first boot device in the BIOS, am I right in
>>>> thinking that it IS possible - or would they "interfere" with each
>>>> other and cause major problems?
>
>
>> Dragomir Kollaric wrote:
>>> I just wonder if you install XP on the new drive, at this time, you
>>> would already have to change the boot-order in the bios. You could
>>> just try it put the CD-ROM in, make it the first choice, and SATA
>>> 2, where your new HDD is. If this works then fine, and you can
>>> install it. If it doesn't work, then you'd have to change the drives
>>> as well. The old one has to be then SATA 2, and the new one SATA 1.
>>>
>>> As to the older version interfering, since its booting from the MBR
>>> of the old disk, and since you disabled booting from it, it can't
>>> interfere, and yes when you installed XP on the other drive, drag
>>> and drop would work as normal. (Unless you use different users).
>
>
> "John" <replyingroup@notemail> wrote in message
> news:-5qdnSAZmvrSSIHVRVnyuAA@bt.com...
>> That's great Dragomir, thanks very much for your help.
>> John
>
>
> John:
> Let me offer what I consider a more straightforward & effective
> approach to what you want to accomplish.
>
> Before doing so, I'm assuming that you're perfectly satisfied with
> the XP OS and the various programs & data existing on your present
> boot HDD. That's right, isn't it?
>
> Assuming it is...
>
> You can use the WD disk-copying utility (it's incorporated in the WD
> Data Lifeguard Tools CD) to "clone" the contents of your present HDD
> to the new larger HDD. That utility is included in the CD that's
> packaged with WD retail, boxed drives. If you've purchased an OEM
> version of the hard drive you can download the utility from WD's
> website -
http://support.wdc.com/download/
>
> Immediately after you've cloned the contents of your old HDD to the
> new one, disconnect the old HDD and connect your new SATA HDD to the
> first SATA connector on your motherboard (designated either SATA0 or
> SATA1). Boot to the new HDD to ensure all is well. Assuming it is,
> connect the old HDD to the motherboard's second SATA connector and
> boot, checking the BIOS to ensure the boot priority order does
> indicate (as it should) the new HDD as first in boot order (or
> following the CD-ROM/RW optical drive).
> Since you will be using the old HDD as your secondary, non-booting
> HDD for storage/backup, delete the Windows program & the system files
> you come across.
>
> Now that you have two HDDs in your system perhaps you should be
> thinking about a third-party disk-cloning (or disk-imaging) program
> that you can use on a routine basis to establish & maintain a
> comprehensive backup of your system. Theoretically that can be done
> with the WD utility mentioned above but it's a bit awkward and
> time-consuming to use that program on a routine basis. We generally
> recommend it only as a one-time venture as possibly in your case. Of
> course, we're assuming that the disk space on the old HDD will be
> sufficient to hold the contents (amount of data) on your new HDD.
> In any event, now that you have two HDDs in your system, give a good
> deal of thought to using a comprehensive backup program in which your
> old HDD can routinely serve as the recipient of the cloned contents
> of your new HDD. Anna
That's a very good idea Anna and one that I did consider, but for one thing.
The problem isn't just that my existing hard drive is running out of space
(still got 3.5GB on the system partition but other partitions are down to
less than 1GB) but it's also suffering from "Windows rot" and has gathered
an amazing amount of clutter over the time I've been using it, so I'm taking
this opportunity to clear off what I don't want or need, and also to
reorganize things better as well, which is why a straight cloning isn't an
option this time.
I've bought a copy of Acronis True Image as well so that I can create a
recovery image and backups as you suggest.
Cheers,
John