Hi, Doug.
I also boot from a 9 GB SCSI drive, with two additional HDs, but my other
drives are IDE, attached to the onboard RAID controller (but not using
RAID). I have a couple of thoughts on your system.
Is it too late for you to back up and start over? Here's how I would do it.
But first, let's be sure that we both are talking Microsoft's language about
a few key terms. The "system partition" is generally the first primary
partition on the first HD; this partition must be marked Active (bootable).
The system partition MUST contain the "system files", which are usually only
NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM and Boot.ini, and these must be in the Root of this
partition (usually C:\). All the rest of WinXP goes into the "boot folder"
(\Windows, by default in WinXP; \WinNT in Win2K) on WinXP's "boot volume"
(often also C:, but J: in your existing system). This boot volume can be
any primary partition or any logical drive in an extended partition on any
HD in your computer. Yes, as many writers have pointed out, "We BOOT from
the SYSTEM partition and keep our operating SYSTEM files in the BOOT
volume." There is only one system partition, but each copy of Windows
installed (Win2K and WinXP) should be in its own separate boot volume.
1. Physically add the new HD as Disk 2 and reboot into your existing system
(with C: on Disk 0 as your system partition and J: on Disk 1 as your WinXP
boot volume).
2. Use Disk Management to create partitions on Disk 2, assign drive
letters, and format them. Create a primary partition at the beginning of
the HD. It can be quite small; all the system files combined total much
less than 1 MEGAbyte (~280 KB for NTLDR, ~45 KB for NTDETECT.com; less than
1 KB for boot.ini). You may put other files in this partition, but these
usually are all that are required. (My Drive C: is 715 MB and also holds
some old DOS-based Norton and other utilities.) You can format this small
partition as FAT16. The rest of Disk 2 can be included in a single extended
partition, which will not be assigned a drive letter, of course. Within the
extended partition, create logical drives to match your current "drives":
D:, Y:, J: and K:, in whatever sizes you choose to use, and format them.
Use Disk Management to assign temporary drive letters; you can reassign the
letters later.
3. Use Xcopy (or Ghost) to copy everything from the old J: to the volume
that will become J: later. The contents of the other volumes (D, Y and K)
can be copied either now or later. With Xcopy, use switches to be sure that
you get all files, including system, hidden and read-only files. (As with
most commands in the "DOS" window, just type xcopy /? to see a mini-Help
file listing all the switches available.) I usually use:
xcopy d:\ x:\ /c /h /e /r /k
4. Reboot - into Win2K, NOT WinXP. Use Xcopy from here to copy WinXP's
Registry files to the new HD. This step is necessary because Xcopy cannot
copy Registry files to or from the current boot folder. When you are booted
into Win2K, though, it can copy the WinXP files from
J:\Windows\System32\Config. This would also be a good time to make sure
that the new WinXP volume is assigned drive letter J:, to match the old
configuration.
5. Unplug HDs 0 and 1; plug in your new 36 GB HD as HD 0. Removing the old
Disk 0 is an important step, because if WinXP Setup detects an existing
system partition, it will let that partition keep the drive letter C: and
will assign a new letter to the first partition on the new first HD - and
there's no easy way to change it later.
6. Boot from the WinXP CD-ROM and run the "in-place upgrade" as instructed
in KB article 315341:
How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade (Reinstallation) of Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q315341
This will take as long as a fresh install of WinXP, but, since you will have
copied the WinXP Registry to your new Drive J:, using this in-place upgrade
procedure (rather than a "clean install" of WinXP) will preserve your
installed applications and data - and most of your tweaks. When Setup runs,
it will detect the existing Win2K and WinXP installations and recreate
C:\boot.ini to point to them by their NEW disk(#)partition(#) numbers. (As
you know, HDs are numbered beginning with 0; volumes (called partitions
here) are numbered beginning with 1 on each HD.)
7. Boot into your new WinXP, get your firewall and antivirus working again,
then visit Windows Update to be sure you have the latest Service Pack and
later Critical Updates.
8. Boot into WinXP and use Disk Management to reassign drive letters to
suit your new lineup. When you are ready, you can add your original HDs and
use Disk Management to create, delete and format volumes.
Simple, huh? :^}
There are a couple of other points that should be mentioned because they
might be important in your system. First, WinXP installations on some SCSI
systems use a system file called NTbootdd.sys and require a different
parameter in C:\boot.ini. My Adaptec AHA-2930U2 SCSI system does not
require this and I know nothing about it. Second, if the driver for your
SCSI Host Adapter is not on the WinXP CD-ROM, you will need to have it on a
floppy diskette before Step 6 and watch during the early part of Setup for
the instruction to Press F6 to install SCSI or other third-party drivers;
press F6 quickly and wait until Setup halts with instructions to install the
drivers from the floppy. If you did not have to use this F6 procedure
during your initial installation of WinXP, you probably won't need to do it
now.
If you have questions, post back.
RC
