Help me understand a 2 harddrive setup - both jumpers set as Master

[CPA]

I have a 60GB ATA harddrive that I'm using as my boot drive. It was pulled out of my old system and put into my new system. It contained all of my email settings, anti-virus software, anti-spam software and a bunch of other applications that I did not want to re-download/install onto the new harddrive.

My second harddrive is a 250GB SATA drive. WinXP is installed but not updated with SP2 or any other XP update. I have couple things on there, but none of the drivers or component installations (all of which are on the boot drive).

Because one is ATA and one is SATA both are set up as Master drives.

If I install, say Far Cry or HL2 on the SATA drive, will the games use the proper drivers that are installed on the ATA drive or will they look for video and audio drivers off of the SATA drive? I'm trying to figure out if I need to install the video, audio, Directx9 and any other applications on the SATA drive, as well.

 

[D1gger]

Any new games that you install will use the video, audio and directx drivers that are installed on the "boot" hard drive.

 

[dtboos]

Yup. You install all drivers ect only on the operating system drive. All your programs from all your drives will use Windows and all its drivers from the boot drive.

The other drives are just places to store your information. When you boot up in windows, thats what is running all your programs, wherever they may reside.

 

[CPA]

Thanks, that's exactly what I wanted to hear.

I assume to, then, that I don't need WinXP on the 2nd drive. I could uninstall if I wanted to?

 

[atiyeh]

You could reformat the 2nd drive if you wanted to and get back all of your space.