Hi all! bare with me on this question, I haven't found the magic combination of search terms for Googling this. I currently have a dual boot system with Win98 on a 30 GB drive (C, and WinXP Pro on a 80 GB drive (D. I just bought a 120 GB drive. I want to remove the 30GB drive, leaving the 80 GB drive with XP intact, and have the 80GB drive be the primary drive. Can I just yank the 30 GB drive? Will the PC detect the OS on the remaining drive and boot from that? (after which I can hopefully install the 120 GB drive as an audio storage drive only). I don't want to have to reformat the 80gb drive, I have lots of crucial audio files on there. Everything on the 30 GB drive is expendable, but I did hope to just pull it and leave it alone, just in case there is some old file I need someday. Am I nuts? Or is this feasible? TIA, Wally
Re: removing dual boot and adding new hard drive to clarify my murky question, my ultimate goal is to simply have the 80Gb drive as my primary drive with my OS (Win XP Pro) and have the 120 GB as the second drive, just for file storage, without having to reformat the 80GB drive. Wally "Wally Hooker" <> wrote in message news:... > Hi all! > > bare with me on this question, I haven't found the magic combination of > search terms for Googling this. > > I currently have a dual boot system with Win98 on a 30 GB drive (C, and > WinXP Pro on a 80 GB drive (D. I just bought a 120 GB drive. I want to > remove the 30GB drive, leaving the 80 GB drive with XP intact, and have the > 80GB drive be the primary drive. Can I just yank the 30 GB drive? Will the > PC detect the OS on the remaining drive and boot from that? (after which I > can hopefully install the 120 GB drive as an audio storage drive only). > > I don't want to have to reformat the 80gb drive, I have lots of crucial > audio files on there. Everything on the 30 GB drive is expendable, but I > did hope to just pull it and leave it alone, just in case there is some old > file I need someday. > > Am I nuts? Or is this feasible? > > TIA, > Wally > >
Re: removing dual boot and adding new hard drive Wally Hooker wrote: > to clarify my murky question, my ultimate goal is to simply have the 80Gb > drive as my primary drive with my OS (Win XP Pro) and have the 120 GB as the > second drive, just for file storage, without having to reformat the 80GB > drive. There are 2 problems: 1) The 80G will need to become the primare drive on the controller, replacing the 30G drive. If your drives use jumpers, you'll have to fiddle with it to make it the master drive. If, however, the 80G is the primare on the 2nd controller, then you can just move it over to the 1st controller. 2) and the biggest problem: To boot XP requires 2 files that you will currently find on your C: drive. ntldr and ntdetect.com. No matter where you install XP, these 2 files show up on C:. The NT boot loader is idiotic. You'll also need boot.ini on your _new_ C: drive (the 80G). You can try putting a copy of those three files onto the 80G drive, and edit boot.ini to indicate that it should boot rdisk(0)partition(1). The real problem is getting the master boot record on that drive installed, which, once you rearrange drives, requires the Recovery Console I believe. But if you're using NTFS, forget about booting DOS and using fdisk /mbr. DOS doesn't understand NTFS. IIRC once you switch out the drives, you can probably just reinstall XP onto your new C: drive, and all will be well. Whatever you do, _make_a_backup_ of _everything_. Install the new drive as the slave on the primary controller, create a FAT32 partition and copy all of your data from both drives onto it (just in case you missed something). If for some reason you blow away the 80G (accidentally) you'll have an accessible copy. _Then_ muck about with the hardware. -- Gary R. Hook ________________________________________________________________________ Vocatus atque non vocatus deus aderit
Re: removing dual boot and adding new hard drive thanks Gary! You rock. That points me in the right direction. I found some good instructions on using recovery console to fix the mbr. thanks again, Wally "Gary R. Hook" <> wrote in message news:ubNjc.2373$... > Wally Hooker wrote: > > to clarify my murky question, my ultimate goal is to simply have the 80Gb > > drive as my primary drive with my OS (Win XP Pro) and have the 120 GB as the > > second drive, just for file storage, without having to reformat the 80GB > > drive. > > There are 2 problems: > > 1) The 80G will need to become the primare drive on the > controller, replacing the 30G drive. If your drives use > jumpers, you'll have to fiddle with it to make it the > master drive. If, however, the 80G is the primare on the > 2nd controller, then you can just move it over to the 1st > controller. > > 2) and the biggest problem: To boot XP requires 2 files > that you will currently find on your C: drive. ntldr > and ntdetect.com. No matter where you install XP, these > 2 files show up on C:. The NT boot loader is idiotic. > You'll also need boot.ini on your _new_ C: drive (the 80G). > > You can try putting a copy of those three files onto the > 80G drive, and edit boot.ini to indicate that it should > boot rdisk(0)partition(1). The real problem is getting > the master boot record on that drive installed, which, > once you rearrange drives, requires the Recovery Console > I believe. But if you're using NTFS, forget about > booting DOS and using fdisk /mbr. DOS doesn't understand > NTFS. > > IIRC once you switch out the drives, you can probably just > reinstall XP onto your new C: drive, and all will be well. > > Whatever you do, _make_a_backup_ of _everything_. Install > the new drive as the slave on the primary controller, > create a FAT32 partition and copy all of your data from > both drives onto it (just in case you missed something). > If for some reason you blow away the 80G (accidentally) > you'll have an accessible copy. _Then_ muck about with > the hardware. > > -- > Gary R. Hook > ________________________________________________________________________ > Vocatus atque non vocatus deus aderit
