Installing new harddrive and reformatting old. Need advice.

[maxxpowerr]

So here is the thing. I want to add a new harddrive(160). Meanwhile I want to format my old drive(40). While I'm at it I am taking the opportunity to upgrade to xp from 98se.

I've never done any of this but I have been reading over how-to articles. I have a general idea of how to do each particular thing. However my question is how best to do all three?

I can foresee there being multiple ways of doing this so I'd rather get some informed opinions. Thanks in advance.

 

[ScrapSilicon]

Originally posted by: maxxpowerr
So here is the thing. I want to add a new harddrive(160). Meanwhile I want to format my old drive(40). While I'm at it I am taking the opportunity to upgrade to xp from 98se.

I would not upgrade an existing install of 98/Me that has been running for any length of time more than a few days ...xp w/sp1 or better will have no trouble seeing 160gb or more...format the 40 using fdisk under xp (after setting and making sure the 160 install is doing well) will most likely result in an ntfs partition but ymmv.. if you have a 98/Me CD and xp upgrade cd you can still do a fresh install of xp ..gl

I've never done any of this but I have been reading over how-to articles. I have a general idea of how to do each particular thing. However my question is how best to do all three?

I can foresee there being multiple ways of doing this so I'd rather get some informed opinions. Thanks in advance.

 

[Navid]

Assuming you want to install XP on the 160G drive and use the 40G drive for storage and do not intend to use your 98 anymore, this is how you do it.

Disconnect the 40G drive from the motherboard. Install the 160G drive (connect it to the motherboard).

You must either have a retail, or OEM or upgrade version of XP.

Place your XP CD in the CD drive and reboot. Enter the BIOS give the CD drive boot priority over the hard drive.
Reboot again. You will see a note telling you to press any key if you want to beet from the CD. Press a key.

Now, follow the instructions for installing XP. If this is an upgrade XP, you will be asked to place the 98 CD in the drive at one point to prove that you qualify for an upgrade.

After XP installs, you can shut down and connect your 40G drive again. Make sure to make the 160G drive to be the master and give it boot priority over the other devices.

Now, when you boot, you will be able to see the 40G drive as well. You can now do whatever you want with the 40G drive including formatting it from XP.

 

[maxxpowerr]

Thanks...I should have stated more carefully that I would like to do a fresh install of xp.

Alright then...I think I just want to use the 40g drive primarily as storage. Can I assume that as a storage device it does not need to be formatted? I've read that reformatting on a regular basis(annually or sooner) keeps the harddrive in better condition. Would this apply in this case?

Thanks again.

Any little things that first timers tend to overlook? Do I necessarily have to do anything with the 40g other than make it a slave?

 

[Navid]

Originally posted by: maxxpowerr
Alright then...I think I just want to use the 40g drive primarily as storage. Can I assume that as a storage device it does not need to be formatted?

No, it does not need to be formatted.

Any little things that first timers tend to overlook? Do I necessarily have to do anything with the 40g other than make it a slave?

In the BIOS, make sure that it does not have boot priority over the 160GB drive.

What kind of XP do you have? Is it pre SP1, SP1 or SP2.
If it is pre SP1, you may want to download SP2 and slipstream it before you install. Otherwise, you may end up with a smaller hard drive and some left over space since pre-SP1 XP could not handle drives larger than 137GB.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B303013

You also benefit from doing some research and deciding if you want your XP to be on a FAT partition or on an NTFS partition. Then, you will not have to re-install later if you find out that you made a wrong choice.

You may also do some research on partitioning and decide if you want to keep the 160GB as a single partition or split it into smaller partitions.

All these are decisions that affect your choices during the XP installation. You had better be prepared for them.

 

[maxxpowerr]

Originally posted by: Navid
You also benefit from doing some research and deciding if you want your XP to be on a FAT partition or on an NTFS partition. Then, you will not have to re-install later if you find out that you made a wrong choice.

I saw a couple of articles including http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=63. It seems to me, I should stick with NTFS since it is XP's native file system. I don't know that I use my pc in a way that not using fat32 would impact me.

My only question would be regarding the other pc on my home network which is running windows ME. Would there be any issues?

 

[Navid]

I don't have much experience with networking.
Hopefully, someone else will come in here and give some info on that.

I know that ME or 98 cannot see an NTFS partition. I am not suggesting that you should not go with NTFS.

Going back to your original objective, you may want to keep 98 on the 40G drive until you are happy with your XP setup. If at any point there is a problem, you can always make the 40G drive active again and have your PC back until you resolve the issue.

You need to find XP drivers for all your hardware.

 

[Slowlearner]

Over a network, if the computers can see other's drives they can read it - regardless of whether it is NTFS or FAT32. So there should be no issues with the WinME pc. There is no reason not to go with NTFS.

 

[allanon1965]

there are issues with winme and winxp, winme cant see an NTFS partition period, so if the winme computer was trying to access data on the xp machine, it cant see the drive due to it being NTFS...but the xp CAN see the winme fat32 partition and access the info on it....

 

[Navid]

Originally posted by: allanon1965
there are issues with winme and winxp, winme cant see an NTFS partition period, so if the winme computer was trying to access data on the xp machine, it cant see the drive due to it being NTFS...but the xp CAN see the winme fat32 partition and access the info on it....

That is true if you have both operating systems on the same machine and dual boot. Then, 98 cannot see any NTFS partition on the same machine. But, a network is different I believe.
http://kb.iu.edu/data/acsb.html

 

[maxxpowerr]

 

[maxxpowerr]

What is standard partitioning of a 160g harddrive?

 

[Navid]

Originally posted by: maxxpowerr
What is standard partitioning of a 160g harddrive?

That is like asking what the standard shoe size is!

It is a matter of choice. Even though many may tell you what you should do, there is no one solution. Many are happy with a single partition. Many create only two partitions. And many create many partitions. There are pros and cons to all of these.

If you have a single partition, you never have to worry about installing programs to the wrong partition or ending up with a partition that is full while the other partitions are empty.

If you have more than one partition, you can install Windows to one partition and keep your data files (music, movies, pdf files, images, Word documents, ...) on another partition. If some day, your Windows partition becomes corrupt and you need to re-install, your data will remain intact after the installation.



This is what I do. But, by no means am I saying that you should do this! All I am saying is this is what works for me.

I have 2 4G primary partitions at the beginning of my 160GB drive. The remaining portion of the drive is a single data partition. I have XP installed on to both 4G partitions. I install all y programs into the data partition. I have an image (Drive Image) of the XP partition. If anything goes wrong, I can restore the image into the XP partition in 2 minutes and have a brand new XP installation. I have created the image after having installed all my programs. So, after I restore the image, all my programs still run even though they are not installed into the XP partition.

The second 4G partition is always hidden. I only use it when I want to log into office and work from home. I then hide the main XP partition and use the second one. So, at any point in time, only one XP partition is visible. So, my XP is always on drive C.

I have a second physical hard drive. I use that one mainly for backup. I frequently use XP and create backups of my data and store them on the secondary hard drive. I also store the backups on DVR/RW. Statistically speaking, the probability of both hard drives dieing at the same time, is very remote. But, still I store the backups on DVDs as well just to be safer.

So, my OS is backed up using Drive Image and my data is backed up using the XP backup utility. All the backup files are stored on the secondary hard drive.

 

[maxxpowerr]

I reallyappreciateyour insight Navid, Thanks. I've come across a couple of articles concerning partitioning. While I'd like to at some point have an advanced setup such as yours for the time being I will probably go with 3 or 4 partitions. 10G for the OS and 3 or so for to keep any defragging that may be done in the future to a minimum in time(but that's for another thread).

Back to my initial questions.

I have attempted to slipstream SP2 into xp but have had no success. I have followed two how-to's including Paul Thurrott's.

The process is simple enough. However after following the steps, all I get from the DOS window is the cursor cascading. The pc does not lock up but I never get the processing window. From the two write-ups I've followed, there is no indication that the process takes more than a few minutes. I've let it run for over a half hour. I've also attempted it on two pc's.

Any thoughts as to what I may have overlooked? I am certain I have followed the steps to the letter.

If slipstreaming is not an option, I came across a prior post on these forums that stated one can start with xp on a small single partition. Then update to SP2 and format the rest of the HD. Is this a viable option?

Again much thanks.

ps. this is the site with the slipstreaming steps http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp2_slipstream.asp

 

[Navid]

I see that I have an error in my post dated October 22.

What kind of XP do you have? Is it pre SP1, SP1 or SP2.
If it is not SP2, you may want to download SP2 and slipstream it before you install. Otherwise, you may end up with a smaller hard drive and some left over space since pre-SP1 XP could not handle drives larger than 137GB.

I have already corrected that post. I have copied the original here for clarification. The mistake is that the problem exists only if XP is pre SP1 (I wrote SP2 and that was a mistake).
I am sorry if that post misdirected you. Basically if you have an XP SP1, you will not have the 137G limit problem.

Is your XP pre SP1?

I am not sure what the problem with slipstreaming is. It sure helps to get that sorted out.
You can start another thread for that perhaps in the "Operating Systems" forum.


But, regardless, this is an alternative approach:

Download the SP2 update from Microsoft from here.
Have your anti virus and firewall ready for installation. If you use free downloads for those, download them now.
Disconnect your computer from the internet.
Install XP on your computer. Choose the appropriate size for the partition you create during the installation for XP. You will be given that choice.
Run the SP2 update to upgrade your installation to SP2.
Install your anti virus and firewall programs.
Connect to the internet and use windows update to update XP to the latest updates.
You can then use the disk management utility in XP to partition the rest of the hard drive and format it.


Edit:
Microsoft wants you to use Windows update to update a single computer to SP2. But, you can use the link that I provided as well even though Microsoft asks you not to!
It is better to update as much as you can before you hook up to the internet. This has been done, and reported successful, many times before by many. What you end up with is the same as if you updated through Windows update. Except you can do it without having to connect to the internet.