Adding 2nd 80gb HD

[21Outlaw]

I'm already familiar with how to physically add a 2nd 80gb harddrive. I'll be adding it as the slave drive, obviously.

My questions are... it already has an OS loaded on it, will that cause any problems? If so, how do I get around them? Formatting the drive is probably my answer, which brings up my next question

Also, my current disk is FAT32. Can I format my new drive as NTFS and run both on the same system? I'm not sure and I don't think its possible.

Please help.

 

[veggz]

It will be fine, maybe on boot Windows will ask you which OS to boot from, in which case you should choose the one on your present HD. Once you are in Windows you should quick format the new drive if you are just planning to use it for storage. Use NTFS, it will be fine even if your current disk is FAT32.

 

[new2AMD]

I thought fat32 disks couldnt see NTFS but NTFS drives can see fat32?

Dont forget to put the jumpers to slave so it doesnt try to boot it.

 

[ghidu]

I don't think it will see the other operating system (as long it's slave), because windows nt,2000,xp (I'm guessing you have one of this installed) looks in the boot.ini file for operating system partitions.
You may have problems with the drive letters. I have 2 HDs, when I installed windows, the primary partitions it puts first, then the extended one, but this can be change in windows.
If you want to use the second operating system, I think a boot software will do the trick, but I'm not sure.
If you don't want to format, convert, at least, from FAT to NTFS.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Yeah, just change the jumper like new2AMD said and boot up. It will only ask you about which operating system to boot to if there is more than one operating system on a singel hard drive.

It should show up in My Computer. If you want to start fresh with it, right click and select format. As for FAT32 vs NTFS... I forget exactly how it works. I think windows 98 can't read NTFS disks while xp can read both types. NTFS is preferred. I think you should be fine formatting it to NTFS.

If you have a problem with the drive letters, go to manage under the My Computer options and go to Disk Management. It will allow you to change drive letters.

 

[21Outlaw]

And I do have Win XP installed on the primary harddrive. The "slave" drive has Win2000 installed.

 

[Navid]

It depends what you want to do. If all you want is to use the added drive for storage, you just go ahead and connect it. It will show up in windows and you can delete Windows 200 from it and use it as storage.

However, if you want to still use Windows 2000 on the slave drive, It will not be that easy. Drive C is currently your XP drive. But, where you used your Windows 2000, it was drive C too. Now, when you hook it up, the Windows 2000 drive will be given a different drive letter since C is taken. So, the Windows 2000 will not run even if you set up the boo.ini file to give you the option of booting to it.

The only way I know to fix this is to either hide the XP when you want to use the 2000 or to change the master physical drive every time. Neither of these two options is clean and straight forward!

 

[Navid]

I have never done this. But, if you have Windows XP running, it can access an NTFS file system regardless of the underlying partition characteristics that the XP itself is on (FAT32).

This would be very easy to test.

After you hook up the other drive to your computer, boot to XP and create a temporary partition and format it to be NTFS. Then, you will have your answer for sure if you can access it or not.

 

[21Outlaw]

I will only be using the 2nd drive as storage.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: 21Outlaw
I will only be using the 2nd drive as storage.

If that's the case, I think what I said above is what you want to do.

 

[21Outlaw]

Well last night I set the jumpers, plugged in the cables and it booted up just fine. It ended up being already formatted as FAT32. I reformatted it to NTFS without any problems last night. I'm currently moving all my personal junk and downloads to the new drive so I can use some of the password-protection features of the NTFS file system.

Thanks for the help you guys!

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Great. I'm glad it worked without a hitch