Two hard drives with Windows XP, will that be a problem?

[O3Chaos]

I'm rebuilding my existing system. One of my changes is to add a fast SATA HDD as the OS/boot drive. My old IDE drive already has WinXP on it. Will I have a problem if I connect both to the mobo?

 

[shadowduck]

I'm rebuilding my existing system. One of my changes is to add a fast SATA HDD as the OS/boot drive. My old IDE drive already has WinXP on it. Will I have a problem if I connect both to the mobo?

Lol.. ask all your questions in one post! XP will most likely blue screen and require a reinstall. XP does not like having new hardware thrown at it, especialy a new chipset. However, there is a way to maybe get around it.

Before moving the hard drive, get into the registry editor (regedit) and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG then the System folder then CurrentControlSet and Delete the ENUM folder. This controls the device manager. By forcing windows to redetect everything, you can often make windows work without a reinstall. Onlydo this before you move the drive over, not before.

 

[O3Chaos]

I think you misunderstand. I'm installing XP fresh on the new HDD. I'm just wondering, if I plug the old IDE drive into the mobo too, will the two OS installations conflict and cause problems?

 

[shadowduck]

I think you misunderstand. I'm installing XP fresh on the new HDD. I'm just wondering, if I plug the old IDE drive into the mobo too, will the two OS installations conflict and cause problems?

No, because the boot.ini (how Windows decides where to boot from) won't have a record of the new drive. You will be just fine.

 

[O3Chaos]

Can tell me how to use all my settings from the old drive in the windows set up in the new drive. Basically, I want to use the documents & settings folder from old install. Also, how can I make the install on the new drive recognize all the programs on the old drive?

 

[Mondoman]

I got the impression he wants to reinstall Win XP on his new SATA drive, but also install the old IDE drive as a data (not-boot) drive. If this is not right, follow the advice above.
If that IS what you want, things are simpler: Just disconnect the IDE drive for now. Do a clean install of WinXP on the SATA drive, and make sure the boot order in the BIOS has SATA ahead of IDE/PATA. Make sure your system boots OK with the new drive, then go ahead and reconnect the IDE drive and you should be good to go. As long as Win XP finds a boot partition, it is happy, so as long as it looks at the SATA drive first, your "extra" old boot partition on the IDE won't cause any problems.

 

[Mondoman]

Can tell me how to use all my settings from the old drive in the windows set up in the new drive. Basically, I want to use the documents & settings folder from old install. Also, how can I make the install on the new drive recognize all the programs on the old drive?

Ah, now you're asking for something different. The short answer is that there is no foolproof way to do this besides reinstalling all your software from scratch.
There are some programs out there that claim to do what you want, but I haven't heard of any that work 100%. Settings are in the docs & settings folder, but also in the windows registry, and some in the program files directories. Most, but not all(!), of the files referred to in those places are now on a different drive letter (the IDE drive has changed drive letters, as the boot will be assigned C: ), so *every one* of those files needs to have each path in it examined to see if the drive letter in the path needs to be changed.
It's much easier just to reinstall the software you still want to use.

 

[sailer]

Can tell me how to use all my settings from the old drive in the windows set up in the new drive. Basically, I want to use the documents & settings folder from old install. Also, how can I make the install on the new drive recognize all the programs on the old drive?

One thing you may have to do is to set the ide hardrive as a slave. Otherwise it might try to fight with the sata drive as to which is the first drive. I've seen some ide drives go as a second drive with no problem, others have caused so much trouble that I got a headache for a week. You might try it with stock settings and see what happens. If it works, then fine, if not rest it as a slave drive and see what happens.

 

[O3Chaos]

Okay, just to be on the safe/easy side, I jumpered the IDE drive to a slave. BIOS recognizes it, system boots to the SATA drive no problem. The problem, however, is that XP says the IDE drive isn't formatted. Obviously, I don't want to format the dang thing...any suggestions?

 

[shadowduck]

Okay, just to be on the safe/easy side, I jumpered the IDE drive to a slave. BIOS recognizes it, system boots to the SATA drive no problem. The problem, however, is that XP says the IDE drive isn't formatted. Obviously, I don't want to format the dang thing...any suggestions?

Install the motherboard IDE drives on your motherboard CD if you didn't already.

 

[sailer]

Do as Shadowduck said.

Another thing to try if that doesn't work. Disconnect the SATA drive. Jumper the IDE drive to master and start the system using it alone. Back up everything that you want to keep to CD or DVD. Turn off the computer, reset the IDE drive to slave, reconnect the SATA drive and restart.

If the computer allows you into the IDE drive, don't worry about whether or not you get an instruction to format the ide. If it won't allow you to access the IDE drive without a format, then go ahead with the format and then reinstall everything that you backed up.

 

[Alyarbank]

Can tell me how to use all my settings from the old drive in the windows set up in the new drive. Basically, I want to use the documents & settings folder from old install. Also, how can I make the install on the new drive recognize all the programs on the old drive?

You can use the "File and Settings Transfer Wizard" in windows to do this.
Click "Start" then "RUN" @ the RUN dialouge type "migwiz" without the quotes. Run the wizard to collect your data and settings to a "folder" on the old hardrive or a network share, you could even format the new one and store the files there(Note you can't reformat during fresh install or you'll lose this data). The old drive would be best for this if the free space is there.

Then install to the new drive and once you have your Programs installed on the new installation. Run the wizard on the new install to import the old data and settings to the new OS Profile.


Another option would be Symantec Ghost or another drive imaging solution, which would simply copy your old disk image to the new disk. Then repair the drivers for the SATA using the recovery console.
But I think the Wizard would be your best bet though. Much less complicated.