Question on Swapping HDD & backing up Data

[BDS]

I currently have two HDD in my computer. One has my OS (Win XP PRO SP2) in the primary partition and I will be replacing this drive in an upcoming rebuild. The second HDD has partitions for games, music, movies and programs. I will be reusing this drive.

My question is, will I be safe to leave all my data, documents, driver updates and program patches on the drive I am reusing? After doing the rebuild and installing the OS on the new drive, can I just plug this drive in and have access to all my data and such?

I'm assuming I will need to reinstall all the games and software, but not having to move all the data to CDs or flash drives would be a big help.

One other thing. Since my new drive will be larger than 137 gigs, if I create a partition for the OS and then install SP2, will Windows then see the drive at it's true size, enabling me to partition the rest of the drive, or is there some other way I need to do things?

Thanks

 

[pscowboy]

Leave your "fun" drive attached as "Slave" to your new drive (Master). As you're doing the install of the new OS, XP will pick up the drive. Just make sure you leave it alone when the partitioning & formatting phase comes to you. Just work on the new drive. I'm assuming the reused drive was formatted NTFS? This is the most efficient file system. If it's FAT32, you would be better off to do the same with the new.

One thing though, why partition the new one? Just format the full drive. XP SP2 will "see" all the capacity. (I'm making another assumption here that your BIOS has 48bit LBA support? You must have this for the full capacity of these big drives to be recognized by XP. Your mobo manual will have this info.) Partitioning a bunch of letters on the same physical drive doesn't save you if it becomes problematic. To compartmentalize, create well-named folders, and use them as separators.

When you're all done, you should have two happy drives.

 

[BDS]

Maybe I should have been more specific in my first post.

I have Win XP PRO on one CD and SP2 on a separate CD. When doing my initial OS installation, SP2 will not be present to provide 48bit LBA support. That is one reason for the OS partition. Another reason I like to partition large drives is to make system maintainence easier. I can run CHKDSK or defrag part of the drive as needed. Much quicker than having to do the whole thing everytime.

Also, this will be a full system rebuild: MOBO, CPU, GPU, RAM, PSU & HDD. The new HDD will be SATA while my old drive that I will reuse is PATA.

So, my original question about the new HDD is still, if I format a 10gig partition when installing Win XP PRO (which doesn't provide 48bit LBA support) and then install the SP2 update, will I then be able to go back and partition the rest of the HDD and have it recognized at the correct capacity?

 

[pscowboy]

Yes

 

[RichPLS]

You could also slipstream your XP install disk to create a new XP SP2 disk, I did so now when installing XP I can have 250gig drive as one partition that I install to.

 

[BDS]

Thanks guys. Thought it would work, but wasn't sure.

RichPLS, How would I slipstream my XP install disk to include SP2? If that's a dumb question, then I guess I am.

 

[CAMS]

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