magoo2u said:
My brother is sending me his pc. It has Win XP installed as its
operating system. It also has a slot for a secondary IDE. I am
currently using a pc with Win 98. And was wondering what the step by
steps are on installing my old hard drive on the newer pc? Does the
operating system have to be installed? Please be as specific as
possible.
Oh and he did reformat the drive for me, also.
Clarify this please. If he reformatted the drive, did he also reinstall XP?
Reformatting a drive removes the operating system and everything else from
it. If he hasn't reinstalled XP, then you will either have to do so, or use
the installation of W98 that is on your existing drive. When you move the
drive from your computer to his, you will move W98 with it.
(This may or may not be completely legal, but it won't be a problem in W98
because Microsoft doesn't care about W98 anymore; if one copy of Win XP is
installed on two computers at the same time, that will create a licensing
and activation problem for you.)
There will be a few differences in the following instructions depending on
whether you are using Windows XP already installed on your brother's drive,
or Windows 98 on the drive you are transplanting.
Leave your brother's drive in place and look it over thoroughly. You will
be installing the W98 drive in exactly the same way in another drive bay,
using three or four screws, except that you will need to pay attention to
jumpers and cables. If you know about these, skip the next paragraph; I'm
not trying to condescend, just to be thorough. Whatever you do, don't let
it scare you: You can do this!
: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : [oooo]
40 IDE Cable 1 ^ jmprs ^power
If you are not familiar with jumpers, they are a double row of pins, usually
next to the power socket on the drive, commonly three to five pairs, like
this: : : : : : Either some of the pairs of pins will be labeled MA,
SL, and CS, or there will be a diagram on the label of the drive to tell how
to set it. You set them by slipping a "shunt" -- a little plastic block
with copper inside -- over one or more pairs of pins. Most computers will
be perfectly happy if all the jumpers are set to CS (Cable Select) which
means that the drive on the end will be MAster and the one in the middle
will be SLave. However, you can override the cable position by setting one
drive to MAster and the other to SLave. What you cannot have is two drives
on the same cable both set to MA or both set to SL. Either one must be set
to MA and the other to SL, or both must be CS. ( Often a drive doesn't
even need a shunt if it's the only one on the cable.)
There may be one cable or two in your brother's computer. If there is one,
as it would seem from your question, the hard drive and CD burner will be
on the two connectors on the cable. If there are two cables, they may be
single-ended. You must have at least one double-ended cable, so if you
don't have at least three loose cable ends, you'll need to get a different
cable. You can probably use the one from your W98 computer, if it has a
double-ended one. It's not a bad idea to go buy a new cable for about $8.
Now here's a stupid detail that might matter. If the ribbon cable in your
brother's computer has a finer texture than yours, and a blue connector on
the motherboard, then his drive MUST be on that cable (or one like it; it
has 80 wires instead of 40 fatter ones). If they look exactly the same, it
probably doesn't matter. I would put the two hard drives on one cable and
the CD burner on the other.
On your motherboard there are two 40-pin IDE connectors. They should be
labeled Primary and Secondary, or IDE 1 and IDE 2, or sometimes IDE 0 and 1.
If they are numbered IDE 0 and IDE 1, zero is the Primary. The cable with
the hard disk drives on it should be plugged into the Primary (some people
will disagree with me on this, it's just the conventional way). The cables
are probably keyed, either by a missing pin, or by a stud on the plastic
connector, or both, so they won't fit well backwards; in any case, be sure
the colored edge is at Pin 1/2, not at Pin 39/40.
Now: If your brother reinstalled Win XP and that's what you want to use,
set your brother's drive to MA and your W98 one to SL. If your brother
simply formatted the disk and erased Win XP, it's a blank disk; set your W98
drive to MA and your brother's drive to SL.
Be sure each drive has a ribbon cable connector, that the ribbon cable is
plugged in firmly to each drive with the colored wire edge toward the power
connector, and that each drive is connected to a power pigtail. Then put
your cover back on and fire up the computer. Watch closely as it starts.
You're looking for something like "Press F2 for Setup", "F10 = Setup", or
"Press Del if you want to run Setup." You want to run Setup, so do what it
says.
In Setup, you are looking for IDE configuration. You want to make sure both
IDE channels are enabled and the ones in use are set to "Auto", and if you
can find an "Auto Detect" or "Detect IDE" selection, use it. (The ones in
use will probably be Primary Master, Primary Slave, and Secondary Master.
Secondary Slave can be set to "Not Installed.")
Once the computer sees all your drives, save and exit Setup (instructions
will be at the bottom of the screen) and let the computer start.
If you've done it all correctly, the OS will start up and you will see a
series of dialogs that say "Windows has found new hardware" -- especially if
you're using W98, since it expects your old computer's parts. You will need
the Windows installation CD, and you might have to help it find stuff.
When it's all hummy and blinky and happy, open My Computer, identify the
hard drives, and see if you can read the one that's not C.
If you're in Windows 98, and you can see but can't read the other disk, you
may have to format it again. Windows can do this for you. But first be
sure you don't want to keep, or don't have, Windows XP installed there. If
you do, there's a better choice called Dual Boot. But I've written a book
already and that's another chapter at least. Ask that question -- or any
others -- when you get that far.
Hope this helps,
P.
