New HDD install ????

[jcarno]

I have a new Maxtor 120g 8mb cache that I want to install as primary master and do a fresh install of xp. I have a 60g seagate that os and everything(saved games,movies,music...) is on. Will it be ok to have the os on both drives and choose what I want to transfer over to the Maxtor by having the seagate as primary slave. I hope someone knows what i'm talking about here. :confused: :confused:

[Paragon]

Hi Jcarno,

I know exactly what you are talking about and you will run into trouble as long as the Seagate is configured as the primary drive and has XP on it, your system will try and boot from it. Your best best is to install the Maxtor as the secondary drive and partition it into two partitions minimally. Then copy your data files to one of the secondary partitions. Remove it and the Seagate and install the Maxtor as the primary drive and install XP, you can then format your Seagate and instal in as an extended drive and copy your data file to it. I've tried other ways with Partition Magic and the like and this way worked best for me...Hope this helps!

[jcarno]

Ok great.......we're on the right track here. But when I go to install xp on the maxtor, won't it wipe the drive clean??

[pointreyes]

A lot depends on your motherboard bios as for installing Windows.

e.g. I will use my P4C800E-D as a true life example of what I'm able to do with it.

I have two Seagates on the ICH5R and the bios is setup to boot from the ICH5R. However, I also have a WD 120 SE on the EIDE controller.

I did not have to switch jumper pins, cables, or disconnect any of the drives to install XP Pro on the WD drive while already having XP Pro installed on the ICH5R RAID0 configuration.

Reason: the bios allows me to pick which drive is bootable.
Importance of this reason: MS Windows (and I'm talking about NT and up) must be installed on the first drive with a primary partition.

By forcing which drive is bootable (You use cable select instead of Master/Slave on the EIDE drives), you have effectively made Windows be forced to accept which drive you selected.

Does this work? Well, I have Windows XP Pro on that second drive and I just recently upgraded it to Longhorn. The other installation in the ICH5R was never affected by the installation because Windows ignored that the other setup since it was not considered a bootable device due to the bios settings. :)

[pointreyes]

I forgot to mention that some motherboards will allow you to press ESC during the phase where the bios is displaying infomation before moving on to the booting up of whatever OS is on the 'puter. This happens to be a feature of the Asus boards but my P4C800E-D does not seem to work but previous Asus boards have worked for me.

What happens when you press ESC is that you are given a menu to select which drive you wish to boot from. This effectively makes the drive the master drive. I actually prefer the method of using the bios though because it ensures you have the correct OS boot up duing installation or when you have another using the computer and you don't want them to boot up the wrong OS.

[Paragon]

PR makes excellent points:D and I've tried what he recommended before and it worked on one MB using the CS method and failed to work on another. You may want to atleast try it and see, it will have you time if it does.

As far as your question is concerned, XP will let you select the partition to format and install the OS to, so it should not be a problem.

[jcarno]

Thanks for replies fellas. I wasn't patient enough to try new things and not have them work so I just popped out the Seagate and installed the Maxtor and put a fresh copy of XP on it. I've already noticed that the drive gets recognized as UDMA6 which I know isn't that big of a deal. I had all the important drivers and files backed up already so that wasn't a problem.
So now, if I slap the seagate on as primary slave and put jumper on CS and make sure that the maxtor drive is set to boot from in the bios, I will see the seagate in the os??.. I guess it wouldn't hurt to try. I just don't want a conflict at bootup as to which drive the mobo wants to boot from. Hmmmmmm.......:confused: :confused:

[jcarno]

Ok......so I connected the Seagate as slave. No problems. System boots up into windows with the Maxtor. No problems. I see the Seagate in "my computer" as drive "F". But when I try to open "my documents" in drive "f", it opens "my documents" in "c" which is the maxtor. How can I access the my documents folder in f so I can transfer a few things??? :confused: :confused:

[jcarno]

Never mind..........I figured it out.........I had to go in through the back door!!!!!:wave: :wave: