Help...Let me explain (if you know a THING about Windows, come here!!!)

[Sean203]

Ok, we FINALLY got our second hard drive. Now, this new hard drive is faster than our old one. I just partitioned and formated it (two partitions, one 5 GB (C) and the other (D) 15 GB). Now, the old hard drive is currently disconnected, and I just have the new Maxtor installed. What I want to do, is basically start BRAND NEW! I want to install Windows 98 SE on the new hard drive, and install everything over again. But, what can i do with the old hard drive? If I hooked both up (After Win98SE is on the Maxtor), wouldn't it screw something up? How can I make the old HD just DATA (there are tons of files on it). That way, the old windows files don't affect anything. Could I just rename the windows folder or something?

Also, when I install 98SE, can I specify where I want the Program Files folder, and others? Cause I want all data on the second partition...

Any help would be great. What can I do?!?

THANKS!

BTW mods: I didn't know if this should go in Operating Systems, or General Hardware as it has to do with the hard drives and operating system. If you feel it is in the wrong place, please move it.

 

[cchen]

If you hook up the second hard drive, there shouldn't be any problems. Just make sure in the bios that you don't have it set to boot to that drive. When you install win98, there's no way to specify the program files folder location because it doesn't get used. it's when you install a program that you specify the location. just point it to the other drive and you're all set

 

[Bovinicus]

Just make sure the HDD you want to boot from is set as the primary master. Once the BIOS finds an OS on that HDD, it won't even pay attention to other drives.

 

[Sean203]

Great, thanks!

 

[extro]

And don't get confused by the drive letters when you put your old hard drive back in to move data from it, though Windows Explorer will make it pretty easy to recognize what letter belongs to what drive.

The primary partition on the old drive will be seen as D: when it's plugged back into the computer. The secondary partition on the new drive will be seen as E:, and any other logical partitions on the old drive (if there are any) will be F:, G:, H: etc....

Why? Because the original drive was FDISKed with a primary and active partition and when there are two hard drives in a system both with primary partitions DOS/Windows will letter the primary partitions consecutively, then assign letters to the extended partition(s) on the first drive, then to the extended partition(s) on the second drive.

After you copy your data files over to the new drive, you can FDISK the old drive (make sure you do it to the old drive) as an Extended partition and create a logical drive(s) on it, if you plan on keeping it in the system, and the lettering would be as follows:

Drive 0 = C: and D:
Drive 1 = E: (and F:, G:... etc, if you make more than 1 logical drive on it)

 

[Sean203]

Yeah, I just found that out. I am installing Windows right now on Drive C. Thanks for explaining that, I was about to find out myself (which wouldn't have been a good thing. )

Thanks!