Installing Win xp over Win ME

[Ruckas]

What I would like to do is just buy a new hard drive. Install Win XP on it and make it the new drive C:. Then just add the old HD to the IDE chain as D:. So I could keep all the data. I was hoping maybe someone could tell me if that's possible, and if so how I do it in a sense...

What has me confused, is that D drive would still have WIN ME on it. I'm not sure if it would want to run when I boot the computer or how that works... Perhaps once I know I have xp sucessfully installed I can just delete win me from dos? Or does xp even boot into dos? I know nothing about XP..

I would appreciate any help...

Thanks guys, Dave-

Note: I have installed win xp over win 98 before with no problems on a friends computer. He just had to download new XP versions of all his software.. Not sure I want to risk losing my data unless I have no choice.

 

[clamum]

Install XP on the new hard drive and connect the old Windows ME drive to your computer like you said. I'm not sure if it matters or not, but I would put the XP drive as master and the old drive as slave. I think that would work, and you can do whatever you want with the data on the Windows ME drive from Windows Explorer on your new Windows XP drive.

 

[Navid]

Make sure you remove the old drive and only have the new drive connected when you install XP. Otherwise, you may end up with XP on drive D!
If that happens, you will not be able to change the drive letter. You will have to re-install.

After you install XP, you can connect the old drive. XP will be able to see the ME drive and access all the data on it. You will also be able to delete the ME drive from XP.