Question About Upgrading To New HDD's

[chap_cat]

Intel P4, 2.8Ghz (Northwood)
Abit IS-7
1 GB Crucial SD-RAM
Western Digital Caviar SE EIDE WD800 HDD
Viewsonic A91f Monitor
Antec True Power 430
ATI Radeon 9000
Antec Tower

I am upgrading my system with two new HDD's. I have purchased two Western Digital Caviar RE-2 SATA 500 GB internal drives. I am currently running Windows XP Home on the 80 GB WD EIDE HDD.

I would like to have one of the new SATA drives as the boot drive, with the second, a backup. I do not want to set them up as RAID. I would like to keep the current drive as extra storage also. I want to keep much of the data on the current HDD also, with the exception of the OS and program files. Once I have the new drives installed, I want to transfer those files I want to save to the new drives, THEN re-format the old drive.

What would be the best way to proceed to ensure no loss of data on the old drive until I am ready to re-format, and to ensure that I won't have any conflicts during boot-up. Will I have any problems having the OS still on the old HDD, and a fresh install of Windows on one of the new SATA drives? I am confused about this. Thanks for any advice on how to proceed under these circumstances.

 

[Trotter]

If you aren't going to use the OS and the program files, you have it easy.

Pull out the old drive, pop in the new one. Install your OS, drivers, apps, everything you plan on installing. Now, put your old drive back in as a second drive. Copy all the data you need to transfer to the new drive. Presto, mission accomplished!

Had you wanted to transfer the whole thing, you would have had to use a third party program, like Ghost or Acronis.

 

[chap_cat]

Thanks, Trotter. I was hoping there was a way to do it without having to pull my old HDD, then put it back in.

Also, if I do it the way you advise, would there be any problem with still having the OS on both HDD's until after I copy all the data files to the new one?

 

[Trotter]

Not really. When you put the old one back in you will need to check the BIOS and make sure the boot drive is still set for the new drive, but that's it.

Actually, you don't have to physically remove the drive. Just unplug the SATA cable from the motherboard.

 

[chap_cat]

I appreciate the advice. Thanks again.