2 Hard drives, one new, one old

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subnet_rx

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Ok, so I have just built my first computer. I bought a new hard drive and set the old one as a slave. At least, I think I did this correctly since in the BIOS, it says something like this:

IDE 0 Master --- None
IDE 0 Slave --- Old Hard drive
IDE 1 Master and Slave -- two DVD drives
IDE 2 Master --- New hard drive

I have the new hard drive setup to boot over the old hard drive, but the floppy, then CD-ROM boots before the hard drive.

I have a couple of problems. First, when I boot up, it won't boot without the CD. When I do put in the Windows CD, I get a choice of Windows Home (new installation) or Windows Pro (old hard drive). I chose Home and and it boots up fine. I thought about just deleting the partition on the old hard drive with Windows Pro, but when I try to copy data files to my other partition on the same drive, Windows just restarts. I'm unsure what to do at this point.
 
Hey

So as i understand you your trying to copy files on the old hard drive to another partition on the old hard drive.Is this right?I think you may have better luck if you delete the old windows from the old drive first.
 
sounds like a corrupted partition.

edit: to me it sounds like your xp pro partition is damaged or your xp pro installation is dameged. your hdd is configured to boot the xp pro partition. that would explain why you can't boot xp pro and why it doesn't work without a boot disc. use some partition software to change your active partition to your xp home partition.
 
nitestick said:
i would put your hdd's both on IDE 0 and your dvd drives IDE 1

One important piece of info I'm leaving out. The new drive is SATA, so it is on SATA 1, and the old drive is on the main IDE drive, with the ROM drives on the other one.
 
I have also just tried unplugging the old drive, formatting the new drive and installing Windows. It boots fine, but there are random restarts such as when Windows starts up or there is a lot of disk activity. From what I've read, I should check the PSU, but it's a 430W and the drive has it's own SATA power cable(not split).
 
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