From 1 hard drive to 2 hard drives...

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aaronkephart

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Okay, I currently am running a custom system with 1 200 GB hard drive. What I want to do is, get a 32 gb WDRaptor, and just install my operating system on that hard drive and then use the other one to store all my large files. I do know how to install an OS, but I want to save the files I already have on my 200 GB drive, so I don't want to format it. What I want to do is, install the OS onto the smaller HD, then start the computer up from that hard drive, and have access to my 200 GB one so I can delete all the Windows files and stuff, just leaving me with my files I need. What I am afraid of is the two OS's clashing at startup, how can I install it onto the smaller one and use it even though I have the windows XP on another drive?
Thanks.
 
Put the new (smaller) drive in your case, Set it to master plug it in and unplug your old drive. Now install the op sys and when your done plug your old drive back in set as "slave" and thats it.
 
You didn't mention whether you're running a PATA or SATA set up. If you're running SATA, just go into the BIOS Boot Setup, make the CD/DVD drive the primary boot device, boot off the Windows disk, choose which HD you want to install the OS on, then after thats done go back into the BIOS Boot Setup and set which HD you want to be as the primary boot drive. There is no "master" or "slave" drives with a SATA setup.
 
I want to install a SATA, is there master and slave with that? So just go into the BIOS settings with both drives plugged in, and the default was C, so just set that as secondary? and then just the other one would be the primary....are there Primary/Secondary in the SATA drives? Thanks.
 
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