XP on to new drive

[Johng]

Hi all

I have a PC running XP Home

I have fitted a new drive and want to install XP onto it

My first thought was disconnect old drive boot from CD and install

Then I thought I might end up with two C: drives

I really want my old drive out of harms way before new install just in case

What is best way to proceed with this?

 

TIA

[Durks]

I'm not entirely sure what your plan is.

 

Are you planning to keep both drives in your computer?

Use the new one and keep the old for safe keeping (back up)?

 

If i can understand what your planning to do i can help you out.

[Plastic Nev]

Hi and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help.

As Durks asked, we could do with a little more information as to what is the reason for changing hard drives?

If it is to increase the storage by fitting a larger drive but the old drive still works OK, I can recommend creating a system image to transfer to the new drive, which although similar to a new install in one sense, it will also transfer everything on to the new drive in one go.

Please let us know a bit more as to why you are changing and we can help further.

 

Nev.

[KenB]

Just to add my welcome ( and my two-pennyworth ) :)

 

It is never a good idea to keep the second drive ( not the main drive ) connected when installing a new OS.

Just have the master drive connected > then connect the second drive after installation.

 

Are these IDE Drives ( broad grey cable ) ?

[Johng]

Just to add my welcome ( and my two-pennyworth ) :)

 

It is never a good idea to keep the second drive ( not the main drive ) connected when installing a new OS.

Just have the master drive connected > then connect the second drive after installation.

 

Are these IDE Drives ( broad grey cable ) ?

 

No they are Sata II

As to reasons for changing

Old drive has been running for 5yrs OS has become less and less stable and slow

So I want a clean install of XP on new drive and then will format old drive as extra storage

But I want to keep the old drive as a bootable backup for the moment in case install goes wrong

 

Hope this makes things clearer Nev Durks and KenB

[Johng]

Hi all

Sorry forgot my manners in previous post

thanks for the welcomes

 

PS should I not have received email telling of these replies

Edited October 5, 2012 by Johng

[KenB]

Hi,

 

Take the old drive out and put the new one in.

Install XP on the new drive.

 

You will need to format and decide how many partitions you want on the new drive.

 

If you create more than one partition make sure you install XP onto C:

 

When you connect the old drive again ( you now have 2 drives connected ) you may be prompted on boot-up to select the drive to boot from.

If you want to leave Windows on the old disk you should be able to select the New drive in the BIOS as the first in the boot order.

[RandyL]

Hi John.

 

PS should I not have received email telling of these replies

Click on "Thread tools" and select "Subscribe to this thread".

[KenB]

Hi John

I have changed your profile to "Instant email Notification" - hope this works for you.

[Johng]

Thanks all

[KenB]

Have you managed to install the OS on the new drive and format the old one ?

[Johng]

Have you managed to install the OS on the new drive and format the old one ?

 

Not yet

I am awating a DVD drive old one is knackered

Why ?

Do you foresee a problem ?

 

John

[KenB]

No - not at all.

With you saying "Thanks all" I thought you may have fixed it :)

[Johng]

Hi all

I am back needing help

I have finally got round to doing this but not going well

I have disconnected old drive

Set bios to boot from cd

Am stuck at 'Setup is inspecting your computer's hardware configuration...'

Any help appreciated

[Johng]

Hi

I cant seem to edit my post

But instal is not sticking at inspecting now

goes to blue screen with 'Windows Setup' at top

'Press F6 if you need to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver...' at bottom

[KenB]

Is your hard drive SATA ?

 

Does the blue screen suggest that the installation could not determine the type of mass storage device ?

[Johng]

Hi

I have managed to get through the install

I now have 2 drives with XP on them

I need to work between them for now

Going into BIOS to change boot drive is a pain

Is there anyway I can get them to offer a choice at bootup?

TIA

[KenB]

I now have 2 drives with XP on them

It sounds as if the drive was not formatted but you elected to have another version of XP installed alongside the first.

 

Going into BIOS to change boot drive is a pain

Do you have to go into the BIOS before you can boot up the machine?

If so - what do you do each time ?

 

Can you post a copy of the BOOT.INI file please.

 

Start > Run .....type in .....msconfig ......Enter

Click on "BOOT.INI" from the tabs along the top.

[Johng]

Hi

I went with your post #7

No I dont have to go into bios to boot only to choose boot order

I have a boot.ini on each drive

What I need at the moment is some form of dual boot

 

 

Thanks

Edited October 25, 2012 by Johng

[KenB]

I have fitted a new drive and want to install XP onto it

This is what confused me from your first post.

 

I have a boot.ini on each drive

So - you have 2 drives installed with XP on each.

 

What I need at the moment is some form of dual boot

How are the drives connected ?

IDE / SATA ?

Both on the same IDE cable ?

One as Master other as Slave ?

 

When you boot up off the main drive ( C: ? ) what drive letter is allocated to the other drive ?

 

I still think you need to alter the BOOT.INI of the primary drive.

[Johng]

This is what confused me from your first post.

 

 

So - you have 2 drives installed with XP on each.

 

 

How are the drives connected ?

IDE / SATA ?

Both on the same IDE cable ?

One as Master other as Slave ?

 

When you boot up off the main drive ( C: ? ) what drive letter is allocated to the other drive ?

 

I still think you need to alter the BOOT.INI of the primary drive.

 

Hi

As I have said before my drives are SATA

 

Depends what you mean by main drive

The old drive still has C: when I boot from that the new drive is K:

When I boot from the new drive it is H: not sure what the old drive shows then

Do you want to see the boot.ini files from both?

I am pretty sure both will be identical and refer to a partition 1

[Johng]

Hi

Here are the ini files

Apart from Timeout they look identical

 

Boot.ini New Drive

[boot loader]
timeout=1
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

Boot.ini Old Drive

[boot Loader]
Timeout=30
Default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[Operating Systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN /FASTDETECT

 

Thanks

[KenB]

As I have said before my drives are SATA

This is getting to be a long thread - sometimes it is easier to ask than to read the whole thread again just in case the question has been asked before.

 

With SATA - if there are 2 Operating Systems to choose from normally you will be given a choice.

From what you say this doesn't appear to be happening.

 

The "Timeout" in the first ( New Drive ) BOOT.INI is 1.

If this is the first in the boot order it will only wait for a second before loading that one.

 

Is this what is happening ?

 

Also both Operating Systems are "Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" - which is the default.

The second may need to be changed.

[Johng]

This is getting to be a long thread - sometimes it is easier to ask than to read the whole thread again just in case the question has been asked before.

Well you had asked this before and I had answered

 

With SATA - if there are 2 Operating Systems to choose from normally you will be given a choice.

From what you say this doesn't appear to be happening.

Sorry I dont think this is correct but am happy to be proved wrong could you elucidate

 

The "Timeout" in the first ( New Drive ) BOOT.INI is 1.

If this is the first in the boot order it will only wait for a second before loading that one.

 

Is this what is happening ?

No it is booting from the drive with 30 sec timeout

 

Also both Operating Systems are "Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" - which is the default.

The second may need to be changed.

This is just text technically does not mean a thing

 

Thanks

[KenB]

Well you had asked this before and I had answered

I asked it again - and explained why !

 

You need to add a line to the BOOT.INI of the old drive if this is first in the boot order.

But you seem to know more than I do - so I will leave it in your capable hands.