New build, old HDD question

[LgFriess]

Well I'm finally trying build my own system thing and have a few questions. My old system has a single HDD that I'd like to put as a secondary drive into my new build. It has Windows XP on it. When I build my new system, when do I add the old HDD? I'll be using Vista 64 on the new one. Do I just have the BIOS label the second drive as "slave?" Will the new system be able to work with the data on the old HDD or not because of the OS switch? Or will I just have to reformat the old one completely?

 

[dfuze]

Do not plug in the drive you intend to use as a 2nd drive until AFTER you install windows or it will put some files on both drives and the ensuing boot will fail.

If the drive is a SATA drive, you don't need to do anything in the bios (as long as it still shows the main drive as first in boot order of hard drives). If both drives are ATA you will need to move the jumper pins to make the old one a slave. After you are all done I would copy all important files from the old drive to the new one (temporarily), wipe the old drive clean (get back the space that the OS and programs used up) then copy the files back to it.

 

[LgFriess]

Wow, thanks for the answer dph, that's exactly what I was trying to figure out. Thanks for your time!