I want to change 2 harddrives on my computer, what to do?

[dukeoflions]

Ok, I have got a 6 gig c drive and a 40 gig d drive. Now I have bought a new one of 80 gigs. I want the c drive to be my 40 gig drive and my d drive to be the 80 gig one.

I know the 40 gig one should be 'master' and the 80 gig one should be slave. But can I just change the drives and reinstall windows? Because I think my Master Boot record is on my 6 gig one? And what about my BIOS do I need to change some values before it recognizes my new disks?

Also I would like to make an extra partition for an freeBSD partition on my c drive. would that give any problems?

 

[0105Quircus]

First, install the new drives. If you have data on the 40GB one, I suggest you make it the slave because you will have to erase the master one.

Then go into the bios and make sure all drives are set to auto-detect.

Then use FDisk to make the new HD have a primary partition. You MUST install the operating system on the active primary partition.

Then format the new one

IF YOU DONT UNDERSTAND, READ THE MICROSOFT HELP FILE ASSOCIATED WITH FDISK (which i shall post in a moment)

 

[0105Quircus]

Go here for how to use FDisk:

http://www.newlogic.co.uk/kbase/fdisk/page2.htm

 

[0105Quircus]

Or you could go here:

http://www.compguystechweb.com/troubleshooting/fdisk/fdisk_scr.html

 

[dukeoflions]

Thanks very much,

But I have backed up my data so I think I'll reformat my new c: (40 gigs) and then install windows reformat d: (80 gigs) and then get my backed up data from the network.

The auto detect in BIOS is a very usefull tip. And about the FDISK i think I'll just use a FAT32 partition again, In case my OS get's ****** **. Or you prefer the NTFS?

Duke

 

[0105Quircus]

Everybody says NTFS is better, but both have their strengths and weaknesses (eg. NTFS is bad with large directories...etc.)

If you are using Windows 95, 98, 98SE or ME you must use FAT32. If you are using Windows 2000 or XP....i suppose NTFS is better, but not by much. The only reason I would say that NTFS is better in your case is that the HDD is over 32GB and you are not (presumably) going to partition it up.