How Do I Change Boot Drives?

[nasttcar]

I have hard drives in my new computer. One is an older 40gb running on an IDE cable. This is currently the boot drive c:/

I just installed a new 10K Raptor and partioned it such that one section is for the Operating System and another section for Program Files.

The disk management software mirrored everything on my C:/ drive over to my new Raptor drive. All of my programs seem to run just fine from this mirrored drive. I would plan to move them to the Program section on that same hard drive.

I would estimate that Apps are loading 2x as fast from the Raptor than they did from the current boot drive

How do I now make the Raptor the boot drive?

 

[Slikkster]

Personally, I think you're asking for problems, particularly once you have to persuade XP to reset all your installed programs to a new D: partition.

Can it be done? Sure, why not? Is it worth the possible hassles? If it were me, I'd start with a fresh install of XP on the Raptor and reinstall the programs.

Otherwise, you'd probably run into boot.ini issues with the Raptor, and possibly a SATA driver issue upon swapping the drives. The Raptor might even need a special boot.ini switch; I don't know as I don't have one, but it's possible.

This is the type of thing that a fresh install would take care of for you.

If this were just a straight drive swap, that's one thing. But a drive swap (of different types) with the intention of moving installed programs to a new partition? Dicey, man.

Just my 2 cents. I'm sure others might be able to assist.

 

[RebateMonger]

I recommend either leaving the applications alone or completely re-installing them. I've never seen a truly successful "move" of programs from one drive to another. Usually it just leaves a mess.