Additional Hard Disk Installation

[Guest]

Hi All,

My system is 7 months old and is running on WinXP-Pro(SP2). I presently
have a 40 GB HDD with partitions C, D & E. I have named my CD-RW drive as
'E' and DVD Player as 'F'.

I am planning to install an additional Hard Disk of 40 GB. I would like to
know whether I have to reformat my system and do the partitioning again. Or
is it possible to install the second HDD without disturbing the existing
setup.

Hope I would get an immediate reply.

Bi,

 

[Ted Zieglar]

Adding a second hard disk does not require a reformat or repartitioning.

 

[Yves Leclerc]

But it will change your drive letters though. The drive letter D and E may
be "bumped" up. CD-RW and DVD will be assigned the next available letter.

BTW: You can not have two drive E:. Which one is correct ? The partition
or the CD-RW?

 

[Ghostrider]

But it will change your drive letters though. The drive letter D and E may
be "bumped" up. CD-RW and DVD will be assigned the next available letter.

BTW: You can not have two drive E:. Which one is correct ? The partition
or the CD-RW?

<<snipped>>

If the second hard drive is configured as an extended partition
with logical drives, there should not be a change in the drive
letters for the CD-RW (F) or the DVD (G). When formatting the
logical partition(s), assign the drive letters at that time from
a drop-down list of unused drive letters.

 

[Guest]

Sorry, my partitions are like this: C, D and E for HDD, and F & G for CD-RW
and DVD.

 

[Anna]

Sorry, my partitions are like this: C, D and E for HDD, and F & G for
CD-RW and DVD.

Raj:
As Ted informed you, you can install your new HD without re:formatting your
PRESENT setup. Naturally your new HD will have to be partitioned/formatted
before it's usable. But I'm sure you know that, right?

After you install your new drive and you partition/format it, the operating
system will (normally) assign a drive letter (presumably H: in your case) to
that drive. If you don't like that drive letter for some reason, then you
can change it to any of the other letters of the alphabet excepting C: For
this you would use XP's Disk Management utility.
Anna

 

[Guest]

I have a problem thats similar. I have just installed a new hard drive into
my DELL, to use alongside my original HD, but i have no idea how to
initialise it. When i go into device manager, it says it is working properly,
but I have no letter for the drive, so I can't use it :-( Can anyone help me?

 

[Philip Herlihy]

In Control Panel, pick Administrative Tools, then Computer Management, which
will bring up a "Management Console". Look for "Disk Management" near the
bottom, and enter that.

Pick the disk concerned, right-click, and then choose Initialise. After
that you can pick the option to format.

Well-hidden, isn't it? We could do with a wizard here...

 

[Bob I]

Start, Help and Support, Disk Management.