New HDD and OS

[Helicobacter]

I just got a new 2TB SATA drive and Win7.

I currently have a 750GB (currently with 2 partitions) with WinXP on it. (I use a password to login to my machine.)

I want to make the 750GB a data drive (with the currently existing data on it), and use the 2TB SATA as my new main drive and install Win7 on it.

Please tell me how I can do that and if there is anything important I need to know.

 

[FishAk]

1. Unplug all drives and connect the 2TB drive.

2. Start the W7 install, and stop it after it starts writing to the disk.

3. Reconnect your 750GB drive and boot to XP (or boot to a Live CD/USB with partition tools on it)

4. Use a partition tool like Partition Wizard, or Gparted to delete all partitions W7 created except for the first little 100MB partition.

5. Expand the 100MB partition to occupy 40 or 50 GB (how much you think you will need for your OS and programs), and create another partition to consume the rest of the space.

The above procedure will allow you to install W7 on an aligned partition, but without the small System partition. This keeps everything needed for the install on just one partition. If you will be using Bitlocker- requires motherboard support- you need the small System partition, and you can continue the W7 install instead of aborting it in step 2.

6. Again disconnect the 750GB drive, and install W7 to the first partition that you have prepared for it in the above steps.

7. When W7 is finished installing, change the location of the user folders to the 750GB drive. (Log in as user > right click a user folder such as "Downloads" > select Properties > select Location tab > change the drive letter from C to the partition you want the data to reside > click OK a couple times)

8. Copy the data from your 750 GB drive to the appropriate user directories in the W7 libraries. If you have more than 400GB of data on the 750 drive, you will need to move the data to the 2TB drive before copying it to the W7 libraries (which would now also be on the 750 drive)

Every time you boot to the XP install, it will clear all your restore points from the W7 install. To fix this, you need to make the W7 partition not visible to the XP OS. If I remember right, this can be done by simply removing the drive letter from the W7 partition from the XP Disk Management window

 

[Helicobacter]

FishAk, thanks a lot for your anwer. However, these seem to be a lot of steps and something is bound to go wrong (if a layman like me does it, at least).

Is the following not a viable option?
1. Disconnect all drives and hook up the 2TB.
2. Partition the 2TB with Win7 and install W7 on it
3. Turn off PC and hook up the 2nd drive.

But with these steps, how does the computer know that I mean to boot from the 2TB Win7 drive and not the 750GB XP drive?

 

[Shmee]

actually, if I remember correctly, it should be set in the HDD boot order in bios. I assume you want a dual boot with windows xp?

I would recommend having them on the same drive, the 2 TB drive, but on different partitions. this way you just select the 2tb drive as the first boot device.

1. use your favorite backup software to clone the xp boot partition to the new drive
2. install windows 7 to another partition on the new drive, it should install the new bootloader and ask you which OS to use when you boot.
3. make sure the first boot hdd is set to the new drive, you want it to boot from there, and it will give you an option of which os to use when you boot

this way you will have both os's on the new drive, hopefully allowing faster boots due to better drive, and you will still have an extra 750 GB drive for data, but not bootable

 

[FishAk]

Is the following not a viable option?...

Yes. Very viable, and the way MS expects. However, if you don't plan to use Bitlocker (I personally think TrueCrypt is better), or your motherboard doesn't support Bitlocker, than you don't need the small 100MB System partition that is created if you allow the install to continue as MS expects.

By restricting W7 to only a single partition, it is easier to make backup images of your OS install. It's still possible to make viable images out of the two partitions, but it's more straight forward with only one.

...how does the computer know that I mean to boot from the 2TB Win7 drive and not the 750GB XP drive?

Having operating systems on separate drives is the simplest way to dual boot. You just choose which disk to boot from by setting the boot order in BIOS. It's simple and easy because you don't need to worry about setting up a bootloader.

Unless you have specific games or programs that can ONLY run from XP, you will eventually discover that you never boot to the old OS. It is great to have the other OS on another disk simply for maintenance of your W7 install. However, this can just as easily be done from a live CD. Hiren's Boot CD even has a (limited) XP OS on it, and it runs several free tools written for Windows.

 

[Blain]

I just got a new 2TB SATA drive and Win7.

Is that a WD Green drive?