Installing XP Home

[William Hill]

Ok here are my parameters:

1.33 GHX AMD Athlon
768 MB RAM
64 MB video card....
2 Hard Disks: NTFS file system
C: 5.2 GB
D: 40 GB
CDR
CD Drive

Here is what I would like to do. My C drive is rather full (268 MB). I
would like to make my D drive the boot drive by reformatting and
reinstalling Windows XP Home to it. I have installed many programs to D. I
own all the software so re-installing is not an issue. I own the XP upgrade
CD. Should I format C and D and then clean install by booting from the CD
(I have the option of doing so in my BIOS). If anyone has some easy steps I
would appreciate it. What steps? dangers? etc...

Thanks,

William Hill
Virginia, USA

 

[Mike Hall]

If you have the space on the current C drive, save all important files to
it.. then re-jumper the D drive to master, disconnect the current C Drive,
reformat the NEW master and load XP onto it.. now you can connect the old C
drive back up as a slave and remove the old XP installation from it.. you
can leave your important stuff on the old C as backup..

You will, of course, have to reload all other software..

 

[Kevin]

A format and partition of the drives followed by a clean install would be
the best way to go. The only problems I can see would be the relatively
small size of the current C: drive. If you only use it to host the
operating system, you should be ok. Windows will want to be installed on
the C: drive.

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, William - and Mike.

I'd just like to emphasize Mike's point about leaving the old drive
disconnected until after WinXP is installed on the new drive. If WinXP
Setup detects the existing Active (bootable) partition on the old drive, it
will let that partition keep "drive" letter C:, assigning a new letter to
the first partition on your 40 GB HD. From then on, your "system partition"
will be D:, not C: - and there's no good way to make it C: without
installing WinXP AGAIN!

After WinXP is up and running on your 40 GB HD, go ahead and plug in your
5.2 GB as secondary or slave and use Disk Management to assign whatever
drive letter(s) you'd like to see. You may then use Disk Management to do
whatever you like with that old HD: repartition? reformat? keep it as is?

RC

 

[William Hill]

Ok...I appreciate these answers.

Here is my plan:

1. Backup data that I would like to keep.
2. PHYSICALLY remove the existing C drive (5.2GB)
3. Change the D drive so that is sits in position 1 on the 80-pin cable and
change the jumpers to make it a MASTER.
4. Power up machine so that the BIOS sees the change and also BOOTS from
the CD-ROM (I do have the ability to do this in my BIOS)
5. Install XP as usual which should give me the option to format the drive
I am installing to. (I have the Upgrade so I am assuming that I will be
asked for verification of EULA for the upgrade. I do have the 98 CD)
6. Re-install my applications (ugh!)
7. Live happily ever after!

Does this make sense?

William Hill
Virginia, USA

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, William.

That plan sounds good to me. Post back and let us know how it goes/went.
;<)

RC