Multiple Hard Drives Question

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jason93

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Currently i have one HDD with everything on it (OS, documents, music, games, video, photos etc). I want to buy another HDD and put ONLY Windows XP on it. So my goal is to have 1 HDD with games, music, documents, photos, video and a 2nd HDD with only my OS (basically moving Windows XP from one HDD to another). The reason being is because i heard that this will make my system run much faster and more efficiently (is this even true?).

So what are the steps i need to take to do this, assuming that i will not lose any valuable information in the process.

thanks in advance!!

-Jason
 
What is the size of your current hard disk? You don't need a second hard disk unless your main hard disk is getting full. If your hard drive is full you will experiance slow down and remember you need to defrag your hard disk occasionally. If you want to speed up your computer there are many things you can do. Give us a list of your computer specs and we could better help you.
 
Built by yours truly:
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ OC'd to 2.8GHz
Memory: 4 GB G.Skill PC2 8000 DDR2 1000MHz
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 250 GB 7200 SATA
Video Card: ATI Radeon HD 3870 512mb
Monitor: Acer x193w+ 19" Widescreen
Sound Card: HT Omega STRIKER 7.1 Audio Device
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition SP3
Motherboard: ASUS M3N78 PRO
PSU: RAIDMAX HYBRID 2 RX-530SS 530 Watt

Edit:
and its not that my computer is slow, though it has gotten slower recently, its that i've heard from multiple people that an OS on a separate HDD from your programs runs faster. Also would this be a safe idea? I mean if your OS decides to get corrupt files, and you have to reformat, its on a separate HDD from all of your important documents and stuff.
 
Yeah, it's a good and safe idea, works very well (I have an 80GB for my OS and a 640GB for everything else.

It's more workable in WIndows 7 than XP, since you can easily change the default location for Documents, Music, Video, etc. to different drives (I had the same setup with XP, which while a little more hassle was still really easy).

Best way to do it, install the new drive. Install XP to it (clean install is great for performance). Delete everything Windows-related on the old drive (you'll need to reinstall all your programs).
Another option is to just install the new drive and reinstall all of your games and programs to it, and move your documents and such.
 
Well, on Windows 7 you can set the default locations for folders like My Documents, whereas in XP you need to do everything manually (i.e. you need to tell something to save to the storage drive, whereas in 7 if you've set the location there already then it'll save there automatically).

Doesn't really make much difference though.
 
jason93 said:
Built by yours truly:
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ OC'd to 2.8GHz
Memory: 4 GB G.Skill PC2 8000 DDR2 1000MHz
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 250 GB 7200 SATA
Video Card: ATI Radeon HD 3870 512mb
Monitor: Acer x193w+ 19" Widescreen
Sound Card: HT Omega STRIKER 7.1 Audio Device
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition SP3
Motherboard: ASUS M3N78 PRO
PSU: RAIDMAX HYBRID 2 RX-530SS 530 Watt
Click to expand...

well since my rig is posted up, and im thinking of getting a new graphics card as well, which card should i get? im looking for something in the low $100 range, that is better than my 3870.
 
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