Hard drive help IDE & SATA

[chitchat_34]

Hi

My setup;
XP on my C-drive with 2x SATA drives as slaves.

My requirement;
I want to take my drives out and just use one of my SATA drives to install WINDOWS 7. If i tell my BIOS that my new C-Drive is that SATA drive, will i have to tell it again that my old drive is an IDE when i put that back in without the new SATA drive plugged in.

My reason;
I have got the new WINDOWS 7 and want to install everything and update all my programs also have a good look and learn before i start having my work on it. It is easier for me to just unplug the power leads on each drive before i start then to have to redo all my work if i mess WINDOWS 7 up and have to format. I cant afford to loose everything.

Yes i could back everything up but i need to work while this is happening if you know what i mean.

Thanks in advance

 

[Jonmor68]

Once you have Windows 7 installed on your new drive, you can shut down and reconnect the XP drive.
To choose between XP and W7, enter bios on startup, set the drive containing the required OS as the first boot drive, save settings, exit and reboot the system.
There is no need to disconnect the drive each time.
Should you prefer to do this, set drive order to W7 first XP second, disconnecting W7 drive should force the XP to start as it's next in line.
"XP on my C-drive with 2x SATA drives as slaves"
There is no master slave with SATA, all drives are master drives. The drive and boot order determine which is first.

 

[chitchat_34]

Thank you

 

[Jonmor68]

You're welcome.

 

[ulysses35]

SATA drives dont have master / slave settings...

 

[chitchat_34]

Yes i know but what i ment was they are just used for storage and not for operating system but now want to use one to have WIN7 on to get used to first.