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Hard drives ME+XP

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chrome100

chrome100

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Hello i am building a new pc with a ASUS A7V8X-X motherboard athlon barton 2800 cpu and 512 sdd 400mhz ram and a 120 gig hard drive i intend to run XP Pro and want to know if i can also use the 40 gig hard drive out of my old pc that is running ME and keep all the data so i dont have to copy it all to CD and and install to new hard drive.
So in short can i run two hard drives and not loose everything on my old hard drive
thank you
 
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Just connect both drives but make sure the new 120 is set to master and the old one to slave.
Set first boot device as CDrom in the bios
Start the PC with the XP disc in your CDrom drive, it will load all the necessary files.
It will show both drives, one already partitioned with your ME etc, the other (NEW) unpartitioned, so create partition on that drive, then NTFS format followed by the new XP setup.
Just make sure that you have the new drive highlighted when partitioning and formatting.
Set first boot device to IDE0 (When restarting)
Once into windows XP and the mainboard drivers have all been sucessfully installed, it should be a simple case of using windows explorer to copy over important data from the old drive to the new before formatting the old drive (in windows, just right click and format old drive to NTFS)
Then if you want, copy the same files back over onto the now virgin 40gig)
Note* you don't have to do the latter but it is nice to clean and tidy things in such a way, and start fresh.
Martin

Replying helps further our knowledge, without comment leaves us wondering.
 
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Thank you very much ill give it a go
 
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Personally I'd do the XP install with just the new 120GB drive connected - then connect the older drive when that's done (just to avoid chance of wiping old drive by mistake - I've done worse myself!)
 
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I know what you mean wolluf,
But as long as it's not rushed there shouldn't be any mistakes over which drive is which.
Big smiles.
Martin

Replying helps further our knowledge, without comment leaves us wondering.
 
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Wolluf, I hear you (and am looking at a point on the wall trying to be inconspicuous)...

chrome100 - what paparazi said is correctomundo (very good advice)...

Ben

"Life is to short to be taken seriously, so go out and have a party, then work your ass off..."
 
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